====== Brown, Alexander J ====== (25 Oct. 1832-3 April 1909), builder and contractor, described in his Toronto //Globe// obituary as “for years a leading contractor of this city.” Born Williamstown, GC, son of James Brown, an architect. Alexander J. Brown was engaged in some capacity, perhaps as a contractor, on the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad in Indiana and on the Hamilton and Toronto Railway. Afterwards he was established at Syracuse, N.Y. for some years as a bridge-builder but returned to Canada in the 1870s. In Canada he also built bridges, but he was known more generally in that country as a contractor (evidently, normally one of a number of contractors) on a wide variety of work projects. He worked on the Hamilton Asylum, the Brantford Post Office and Customs House, the Penetanguishene Reformatory, the Guelph Agricultural College, the Woodstock Court House, and the Redemptorist Fathers’ Church in Toronto. His //Globe// obituary reports that he had “many paving and sewer contracts in Toronto” and that he built the conduit pipe for the Toronto Water Works past Toronto Island into an 80 foot depth of water. He was active in the Methodist Church. He was buried from the Brown Memorial Methodist Church in Syracuse which was named after him in his lifetime. He was a great-nephew of Hugh McGillis and was an uncle of three brothers represented in the present dictionary, Dr D. R. (Randy), Capt. J. A. B., and Farquhar D. McLennan. Alexander J. Brown died at Syracuse. (six children) His wife, whose Christian name was Elizabeth, outlived him, and died at her home in Toronto. ---- Obituaries Toronto //Globe// and the Syracuse (N.Y.) //Herald// reprinted //Cornwall Standard //9 April 1909. * cf. Fraser, //Gravestones//, I, 162-163 * Brown Memorial Methodist Church: //Onondaga’s Centennial//, ed. D. H. Bruce, I (1896) 525 * //Boyd’s Syracuse City Directory// 1877-1878 (called “contractor”), gone from 1878-1879 directory * wife’s obituary (date obscured), “Obituaries…,” Syracuse Public Library, Local History Dept. [<6>]