Clara Brown
American Pioneer
Clara Brown 1803 - 1885 |
Clara was born into slavery in 1803 in Gallatin, Tennessee.
She and her Mother were sold at auction when Clara was 3. She spent nearly 20 years of her life with her second owner where she married Richard and had 3 daughters and a son. When her owner died her family was sold at auction to different bidders. Clara was sold to the Brown family of Kentucky. When her third owner died, his daughters helped Clara buy her freedom. Clara took the Brown name. |
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Free for the first time in her life, at 55 years of age, Clara Brown went to St. Louis looking for her family. She gained access to a wagon train to Colorado by bartering her skills as a cook, nurse and laundress. She hoped to find her family in the 1859 gold rush. Clara Brown is believed to be the first African American in the Denver area where she started Denver's first Sunday school. | |
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Clara Brown moved to the gold fields in the mountains. She supported herself by doing laundry and caring for sick miners. She opened her home as "a hospital for the physically ill, a church for those who needed spiritual solace and a hotel for those who had no place to stay." She was known as "Auntie Clara" to the miners. | |
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Clara Brown amassed a fortune of $10,000 thru wise investments and hard work. She returned to the south after the Civil War to look for her husband and children. She did not find them however she returned to Colorado with 34 other relatives and a dozen freed slaves. She was responsible for all of them until they became established. Clara Brown was finally reunited with one of her daughters in 1882. |
