Curtis Brown of Belvidere, son of Lybeout and Betsey W. (Ward) Brown, was born in Coventry, Oct. 16, 1825.
His father was the first Republican representative in the Legislature of the state, to which both his son and grandson have been elected.
Mr. Brown was educated in the common schools of Coventry and afterwards at Waterbury, N. Y., residing with his parents till the age of twenty-one. At that time he purchased a farm in Belvidere, and in order to pay for it went to Massachusetts, where he worked industriously in a mill for several years until he had accomplished his object. For a time he engaged in the manufacture of butter tubs and lumbering, but has given this up and now resides upon his farm.
Mr. Brown is said to be the champion bear hunter of the state, having shot or captured sixty-eight of these animals, once performing the feat attributed to General Putnam of Revolutionary times by entering a cave and crawling a distance of forty feet on his hands and knees, when with unerring aim by the light of a torch he brought down the object of his pursuit.
He is one of the best representatives of the old class of sturdy woodsmen, who have given such lasting fame to the hunters of the Green Mountains, so few of whom remain to narrate the deeds of their early days.
He married, March 13, 1852, Helen M., daughter of Edmund L. and Lucy (Hodgkins) Crozier of Calais, by whom he has had five children: Reuben J., Edmund L., Alexander (deceased), Francis B., and Nora.
