John Brown of Pittsfield

John Brown (October 19, 1744 – October 19, 1780) of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, was a Revolutionary War officer, a state legislator, and a Berkshire County judge. He played key roles in the conquest of Fort Ticonderoga at the start of the war, during the American invasion of Canada in 1775-1776, and once again in 1777 during Lieutenant General John Burgoyne’s invasion of the United States by way of Lake Champlain and the Hudson River.

Brown was the first man to bring formal charges against Benedict Arnold, who was then a prominent American general.

Brown died in battle at Stone Arabia in the Mohawk Valley in 1780.

Brown was born in Haverhill, in eastern Massachusetts, the youngest son of Daniel Brown and Mehitable Sanford Brown. Soon after his birth, the family moved to Enfield in central Massachusetts and then to Sandisfield in Berkshire County, which was then frontier. Daniel Brown was one of the earliest settlers in Sandisfield and a “principal inhabitant.”

Some confusion exists about John Brown’s education. Without question, he attended Yale College, graduating in 1771, and he studied law under the guidance of his sister Elizabeth’s husband, Oliver Arnold of Providence, Rhode Island, who was the state’s attorney general and an uncle of New Haven, Connecticut, merchant Benedict Arnold. Most historians assume that Brown attended Yale first and then read law. However, Oliver died in the fall of 1770, making this chronology impossible.

Brown was a close friend to Yale classmate David Humphreys, who went on to be staff officer in the Continental army, a diplomat, George Washington’s private secretary, and one of the Connecticut Wits. Both Humphreys and Brown were founding members of Yale's society of Brothers in Unity. Humphrey’s lengthy poem “Address to the Armies of the United States of America” mentions Brown’s death as a notable and tragic event in the Revolution.

Brown began his law practice in Caughnawaga (Johnstown), New York, and was appointed king’s attorney. He resigned that position, settled in Pittsfield, and was chosen as representative to the General Court of Massachusetts, the colony’s legislature.

In March 1775, as a member of the Massachusetts Committee of Correspondence, Brown was sent to Montreal by way of Lake Champlain to meet with Canadians interested in joining the other 13 colonies in their dispute with the British government. He received support from Thomas Walker and other leading British-American merchants, but concluded, “There is no prospect of Canada sending Delegates to the Continental Congress.”

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