Senator Alfred Francis Brown View All Years

HON. A. F. BROWN, who died at Waverly on the 25th of January, was one of the pioneer editors of Cedar county, one of the early lawyers of Scott county, and a Senator from Black Hawk county from 1860 to 1864. He was born near Zanesville, Ohio, Dec. 8th, 1828, graduated at Granville College, and was admitted to the bar in 1848. In 1850 he came to Scott county, Iowa, to practice his profession, and soon after became editor of the Cedar County News, a paper published at Rochester. Upon the removal of the county seat to Tipton, he transferred his office to Cedar Falls and named his paper the “Cedar Falls Banner.” In 1855 Mr. Brown was elected prosecuting attorney and served with ability in that position for several years. In 1859 he was elected State Senator for the 36th District, composed of the counties of Grundy, Black Hawk, Butler and Franklin. He became a prominent member of the Senate, serving four years. In 1860 Mr. Brown was chosen a delegate to the Republican National Convention which nominated Abraham Lincoln for President. In 1879 he moved to Waverly in Bremer county where he acquired a large law practice, and remained up to the time of his death. The Waverly Democrat says of him: “He was exceptionally free from jealousy and vindictiveness in in professional and political life. It is true, he fought hard in the forum and on the rostrum, and necessarily gave and received many hard blows, but all the asperity died with the occasion ; and when the curtain fell upon the last act of his life, every heart in the large circle of his acquaintance felt a genuine pang of sadness and regret as some deed of courtesy or kindness of the departed lawyer was recalled to memory.”