The Brown House was constructed for Francis Brown, the namesake settler of Brownville and son of Moses Brown, a Newburyport, Massachusetts, man who purchased the forested tract of land on which Brownville now sits. Sent by his father to establish a lumber mill and oversee the growth of the town, Francis Brown undertook the construction of an impressive two-story timber frame house. Clad in clapboards, the materials used in the construction of this gable-roofed house and its attached ell reveal Brown's relative affluence: the foundation was made from stone quarried on the coast; clay for the bricks used in the cellar arches and chimneys was dug in Charleston, Maine; and additional supplies arrived from as far away as Boston. Perhaps the building's most notable feature is its suspended second-floor ceiling, which is supported by a network of beams above it and not by the interior walls.
Year listed: 1985
For more information: https://npgallery.nps.gov/NRHP/AssetDetail?assetID=35b1450e-c2b6-4a2a-b524-d78812c6973d