John Brown was christened April 12, 1604 in St. Thomas, Bristol, Gloucester, England.  He was apprenticed as a blacksmith on Nov. 20, 1611 to Robert North in Bristol, England.  John Brown and his wife Margaret came from England to Pemaquid in 1622.

John Brown probably was the first permanent settler of Maine and its earliest known blacksmith and toolmaker.  In 1625, Samoset sold land to "fur trader" John Brown, which included the Damariscotta and Bristol areas for fifty skins of beaver (Sewall, 1859, History of Bath, Maine, In: Ancient Dominions of Maine, pg. 132). "Samoset was a native of Pemiquid - the Lord of Monhegan - an eastern prince - the great chief and original proprietor of the town of Bristol, whose conveyance of the same to John Brown is the first landed title by deed acknowledged, ever given to a white man. (Sewall, 1859, Ancient Dominions of Maine, pg. 101).  He lived here for 17 years.  In the Fall of 1639, John Brown and Edward Bateman purchased land from the Indian chief, Manowormet (called Robin Hood) of Negwasset in America.  The land was purchased for "1 hogshead of corn and 30 pumpkins" and consisted of all the lands between Sagadahoc and Sheepscot Rivers, Great Pond and on the north and Nequasseg River on the south - the present site of Woolwich, Maine.  He died sometime after 1659 in New Harbour, Maine.