Swan ~ Hartzell Family History

What we know from the records in New York is that Hamilton was born in Scotland around 1803 to 1806 (two censuses disagree about his age by two years). Also, we know he was in this country by the time of his marriage in 1833, he was recorded in the city directories as a weaver from 1838 to 1842, just four blocks from where he then started his watchglass making business in 1846. And we know his children's names - Alexander, Hamilton, Jane, William and Mary.

A common theme in Scottish families of Hamilton's time and earlier was the use of naming conventions for the children of the family. The first son would be named after his father's father, the second after his mother's father. Similarly, the first daughter after her mother's mother, and the next after her father's mother. So, if Hamilton followed this convention in naming his children, his parents should be Alexander and Mary Brown (first son, second daughter).

In searching the Scottish records, we find first of all that Hamilton is a quite rare given name. There are only about a score of male Hamilton Brown births recorded in Scotland, and about half that many females, as compared to literally thousands of Alexander Browns, for example. And among those few Hamiltons, we find only one possible match as to age, a Hamilton Brown born 17 August 1806 to Alexander Brown and Mary McNaught in Stevenston, Ayrshire, Scotland. These parental names are just what the naming convention would predict.

This couple in addition to Hamilton also had four older children, Mary, Katharine, William and Alexander, the latter being just two years older than Hamilton. These names according to the naming conventions imply that Alexander, Sr.'s parents would have been William and Katharine. Looking again for all of Scotland, one family stands out immediately - William Brown and Kathrine Hamilton, who's son Alexander's baptism 8 Sep 1771 and daughter Janet's 29 Dec 1774 were recorded in the same Stevenston Parochial Register! This brings up a bonus bit of circumstantial evidence, Kathrine's maiden name of Hamilton. Note that Hamilton was a third son in Alexander and Mary's family. One naming convention would give him his father's name, an alternate convention would have him named after his father's brother. But Hamilton's older brother had already been given the name of their father, and William and Kathrine didn't have a second son. So Hamilton was given his grandmother's maiden name instead, despite the fact that it wasn't a name very often given to a child in Scotland.

As we will see, Hamilton's brother Alexander named a daughter Hamilton, an even rarer occurence. And in this country, our Hamilton's daughter Jane and her husband James W. Swan named a son Hamilton, and that Hamilton in turn named a son William Hamilton. This last William Hamilton, who died 30 Oct 1918 in France during World War I, was the last we know of who carried the maiden name of Kathrine Hamilton Brown, born about 140 years before him.

There is, however, an alternate possibility which should be mentioned for completeness concerning the parents of our Alexander Brown. William Brown and Katherine McNeil had a son Alexander (as well as other children) baptised 2 Sep 1777 in Stevenston. This couple fits the location and naming convention, and their ages are satisfactory even though this Alexander is six years younger. The only distinction is that "our" Kathrine was a Hamilton, thus providing the name of her grandson. While I think the argument is sound for the choice I've made here, there is no documentary evidence to distinguish between these two families.

The parents of Kathrine Hamilton and of William Brown will be discussed below. Earlier yet, the hearth tax list for Stevenston Parish in 1691 [www.Ayrshireroots.com] includes John Broun and John Brown in the Barronrie of Ardrossand, Robert Broun, Robert Broune and William Broun in Stevenston, James Brown in "Corshill Dowra", and John Broun in the "Toun of Kiluining". All of these would have lived one or two generations before William's father. (This web site is extremely slow to load and navigate, and does not support a direct link to the hearth tax record. If you want to examine the records, you can go to the cited URL and use their search utility for "hearth". It's much quicker, however, to simply enter "Corshill Dowra" into Google, and use their cached copy of the page.)

As for the surname Brown, itself, Eleanor Patrick wrote on GenForum June 1, 2001: "I am the Indiana Commissioner for Clan Lamont and you are right, Brown is a Sept of Clan Lamont, also a Sept of Clan MacMillan. There was a terrible time (1646) when Clan Campbell attacked Clan Lamont and almost destroyed them forever. Many Lamonts who escaped the attack, or were living someplace other than Cowal in Argyllshire, changed their names to Black, Brown and White at that time. The fact that your ancestor was in Ayr probably means he was part of Clan Lamont." Other sources on Clan MacMillan implicitly exclude Ayrshire from their Brown sept, so it does appear that the earlier ancestors of our Brown line may have been affiliated with Clan Lamont.

Stevenson and Ardrossan are coastal parishes in Northern Ayr (or Ayrshire, in those earlier days). Our Brown ancestors lived in the towns of the same names, and in the burgh of Saltcoats in Ardrossan Parish. The map below covers a part of North Ayrshire showing the location of these towns on or near the coast (bottom center), as well as Kilbirnie further inland where other branches of our line originated. The town of Beith (upper right) was home to a large number of Biggart families. This might well be the birthplace of Hamilton Brown's first wife Mary Biggert (as spelled on her New York City wedding certificate), mother of our ancestress Jane (Brown) Swan. The tartan of Clan Lamont is shown in the lower right hand corner of the map.

Map of North Ayrshire

This part of the coast of Ayrshire lies on the Firth of Clyde in southwestern Scotland about 20 to 25 miles southwest of Paisley and Glasgow, Renfrew County. The main industrial activities here were coal export, shipping and at one time ship building, the manufacture of salt by boiling seawater, and weaving of muslims and other cloths for the Glasgow and Paisley markets [Ayrshire Directory, Pigot and Co., 1837]. At least three generations of our direct Brown ancestors, John, Alexander and Hamilton, were weavers; William is described as a salter.

On the positive side, the date and location for their son William, baptised in Ardrossan in 1748, are what one could reasonably expect.

John Broun weaver in Crofthead & Agnes Guileland had a lawll Son called William born Jany ye 11th baptized the 24th 1748

While this record appears in the Ardrossan Parochial Registers, it records the birth as being in Crofthead. I was initially confused about this citation because there was a Crofthead originally one of twelve farms of the Monkredding Estate in the nearby parish of Kilwinning. Margaret Scott writes, however [Personal Communication, August 2003], that there definitely was an area called Crofthead in Saltcoats. The North Ayrshire museum (the old church) and the graveyard are in what is called Manse Street, and she believes that is what the record refers to. She also points out that mention in an Ardrossan Parochial Record of a birth elsewhere would have named the other parish, a point I had overlooked. So I'm quite sure now that this record pertains to a family of Saltcoats, Androssan Parish, Ayrshire.

A John Brown born closest to Ardrossan was the son of John and Margarat Brown of Irvine, five miles down the coast, on 12 Jan 1724. He would have been 24 at the time our William was born. However, I'm leaving the question of John's origins completely open at this time since John and Agnes could have moved to Crofthead from somewhere else before the birth of William. In Northern Ayrshire, within eight or ten miles of Ardrossan, there were over two dozen John Browns born between 1722 and 1732!

Identifying the marriage of John and Agnes was made somewhat difficult by the highly variable spelling of her surname throughout the Ayrshire records. (The IGI for Scotland has Gulliland and Gilliland as the most common spellings, indexed separately, but 19 spellings in all appear there.) There's only one marriage, however, of about the right date:

John Brown and Agnes Guliland in this parish hath given in their Names for procla- mation in Order for Marriage Jany 30th Married Febuary Eigth        1747

The three records of that marriage submitted to the IGI spell it Gilinland, but that spelling does not appear in any other record in all of Scotland. Except when citing specific sources, I'll use Gulliland as that is the spelling recorded in the SCR for Agnes' birth and for that of her father.

The SCR of William's birth shows the parents as John Broun and Agnes Guileland. After that, John's name is consistently spelled Brown. The spelling Broun seems to have been the choice in earlier years. The SCR for the birth of Jannet and Marion spell their mother's name as Gulieland, and for the youngest child Jean it's spelled Guileland, as it was for William, the eldest.

The birth of James born 5 Feb 1750 in Ardrossan to John Brown and Agnes Gulliland [IGI] does not appear in the Scottish Church Records nor the Ardrossan Parochial Registers, so where the information for the submission to the IGI came from, with a complete date, is unknown. It's possible that this is one of the records obtained from a Monumental Inscription, statuary memorials of Northern Ayrshire which are, unfortunately, only available in the Ardrossan Library. (These inscriptions were copied in 1983 in eleven large volumes, indexed by surnames, located by maps of the graveyards and cemeteries and each stone photographed.) Since the date conflicts with that of Jannet, I'm not accepting James in this family for now.

The four children of John and Agnes (Gulliland) Brown were William², Jannet, Marion and Jean.

John Broun weaver in Crofthead & agnes Guileland had a laull Son called William born Jany ye 11th baptized the 24th 1748

A William Brown of Stevenston died 14 Jan 1825 [SPR; FR778], but it's difficult to determine whether or not that was our William. Another William had died in Parkend, Stevenston, on 31 Oct 1823 [SPR; FR777].

Kathrine's birth and baptism appear in the Ardrossan Parochial Registers:

James Hamilton Salter at the Pans Stevenston ____ of Saltcts And Ann Hamilton his Spouse had a lawfull Daughter called Kathrine born May 15th baptized May 17th 1750

The baptisms of William and Kathrine's two children were registered in both Stevenston and Ardrossan parishes. When their children were born in 1771 and 1775, William was described as a "salter", and their town of residence was Saltcoats, on the coast below the town of Stevenston. Between the births of Alexander and Janet, the Parochial Church of Ardrossan was rebuilt, in 1733. That site is now the North Ayrshire Museum of Saltcoats. At the time William and Mary were living in Saltcoats, it was the main town of Ardrossan Parish, the town of Ardrossan itself not yet in existence.

Below is a map of the area made the year their daughter Janet was born, including the towns of Ardrossan, Saltcoats and Stevenston along the coast. This is taken from the excellent online resources provided by the National Library of Scotland.

Detail from A New Map of Ayrshire, Andrew Armstrong, 1775

The two children of William and Kathrine (Hamilton) Brown were Alexander and Janet.

The record of Alexander Brown's birth in Saltcoats and baptism in Ardrossan Parish in 1771 can be found in both the Stevenston and Ardrossan Parochial Registers, although they differ by one day in his birth and in the spelling of his mother's name. In Stevenston:

Alexr Son to Willm. Brown Salter in Saltcoats and Kathrine Hamilton bor. Septr. 6th Bap 8th at ard (Ardrossan)

and in Ardrossan:

Wm Brown in Saltcoats and Katharin Hamilton his Spouse had a laufull Son named Alexander, Born the 5th, Baptized the 8th

Mary McNaught's birth, also in 1771 in Stevenston:

Mary Daut to James Mcnight wright in Stev And Margt. King bor. June 8th Bap 9th

The marriage in 1797 of Alexander and Mary is also recorded:

Alexander Brown and Mary McNaught both in this parish give in their Names July 12 married 17th

Alexander was listed on the Rev. Landsborough's lists of the residents of Stevenson Parish, the last time, 1 Dec 1836, living alone. (This doesn't gibe with Mary's death record in 1837, see below.) In the first list, he is shown with Mary and their three youngest children, transcribed as "William, Alex, Ham??". The Rev.'s handwriting was apparently somewhat difficult to read, and whatever he wrote for Hamilton evidently wasn't able to be decyphered. Schoolwell Street, a single block-long, quarter-circle street in the middle of Stevenson, was also the address of the High Kirk, the Established Church of Scotland, and of the Manse, or parsonage, of their pastor the Rev. Landsborough.

Landsborough, pastor in Stevenston, compiled censuses of all of the families in his parish in three different years, 1819, 1822 and 1836 [downloadable transcriptions are available at http://www.rootsweb.com/~sctayr/census.html], and these are an invaluable source of additional information. The Rev. Landsborough, or Dr. David Landsborough, was a polymath in the best tradition of the educated ministers of nineteenth century Great Britain. In addition to being the pastor of the High Kirk of Stevenston from 1811 to 1843, he was a naturalist of some note. He dredged for marine specimens around the islands of Arrand and the Cumbraes in the Firth of Clyde opposite Stevenston, and published A Popular History of British Seaweeds. Smittina landsborovii, a species of Bryozoans, a colonial type of marine animal similar to but more complex than corals, was named after him. He was one of the participants in the Disruption of 1843 when many ministers who objected to the political constraints of the Established Church broke away to form the Free Church. The Rev. Landsborough left Stevenston High Kirk and set up a Free Church of Scotland in Saltcoats. During the second of two severe outbreaks of cholera in Ayrshire, Landsborough ministered to the dying until he, too, succumbed to the disease in September 1854.

In 1851 the Stevenston Census has an Alex Brown, weaver aged 74, at 96 Townhead [Scott, 2000]. As our Alexander's age at that time would have been 80, it's not clear whether this is his record with an inaccurate age, or that of someone else with the same name. In any event, we don't know our Alexander's death date.

On 4 Oct 2002 I received a very detailed and complete genealogy, Descendants of James McNaught from Margaret Scott, a cousin of ours who was raised in Stevenston and now lives in Saltcoats. Margaret is descended from Alexander Brown and Mary McNaught through their daughter Katharine who married Benjamin Thom in 1819. Her access to census and other local records adds considerably to what I've been able to find from the parish records. Margaret's additions and corrections to this part of our family history are cited below as [Scott, 2002].

Margaret Scott enlightened me as to Mary's first marriage to John Shedden which explains her age of 26 when she married Alexander. After some six years of marriage, John, a mason, died in a coal pit accident. They had three children, James, Margaret and John. [Scott, 2002]. This does not completely follow the naming convention, as Mary's parents were Margaret and James, not John. This would be explicable if John Shedden's father were also James, in which case their son John might have been named after Mary's brother John. However, the only likely birth in Stevenston for Mary's husband a John Shedden baptised 7 Mar 1765, son to John Shedden and Margaret Easdale [SCR citing SPR FR85].

All of the McNaughts in town seemed to live on School Well, the same one-block street as Mary and Alexander.

The Rev. Landsborough's 1822 list gave only the number of children in each family, two for Alex and Mary, with one lodger in their home. William would have been twenty at that time, and was no longer at home. In the much later list of 1837, Alex was listed as living alone (at age 64), as Mary had died that year, and Hamilton we know had by then emigrated to America. In the 1837 Stevenston Parochial Registers we find:

McNight, Mary, wife to Alexr Brown Stevenston died 17th Feby

The five children of Alexander and Mary (McNaught) Brown were Mary, Katharine, William, Alexander and Hamilton.

Hamilton Son to Alex Brown weaver Stevenston & Mary M'Night Born Augt 17th & Bapd 17th

Hamilton Brown, weaver and watch crystal maker, came to this country before 1833. He was not located in the 1830 New York census. The original marriage certificate of Hamilton Brown and Mary Biggert was found in the effects of the widow of their grandson Albert Markley Swan when she died in 1993.

To all whom it may concern. This Certifies that the bonds of Marriage between Hamilton Brown and Mary Biggert were by me confirmed, according to the Usages of the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, in North America, on the 22nd day of April in the year of Our Lord, One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty Three. Given at New York this 22nd day of April, A. D. 1833. N. I. Marselus, Minister of the Reformed Prott. Dutch Church in Bleecker St., N. York.

Bleeker Street runs through Greenwich Village on Manhattan Island, passing diagonally from The Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue) west and north to West 14th Street where it merges with Greenwich Street to become Ninth Avenue. Our initial search for some record of the church, itself, came to naught. It was apparently abandoned and the congregation probably absorbed into either the Reformed Church in Washington Square, established 1837 two blocks north of Bleeker, or the Houston Street Reformed which had been at 7th Avenue and 12th Street, on the edge of Greenwich Village, since 1823.

Merely as a matter of curiosity, there had been a Jane Swan married in the Greenwich Village church in 1808, and a Jakobus H. Swan married there in 1857 [FHL IGI]. These might have been descendants of the several generations of the Swaan family who had been members of the Dutch Reformed Church in New York in the early 1700's.

This marriage license of James and Jane, when found in Lillian Swan's effects, was in an envelope with interesting addresses. It had been folded in half with the tip of the gummed flap extending to the bottom of the envelope. On the back side was written "J. R. Garaway | Beta | Winscombe | W. S. Mare | Bristol". On the left edge, written vertically, appeared "Charlotte Brown | 1731 Juniatta St. | Philadelphia | Pa". These were both written across the folds and edge of the flap of the sealed envelope. Just at the remaining left edge of the back of the envelope, above Charlotte's name, is the bottom edge of a purple stamped impression with the word Registered. The remainder of that end of the envelope is missing. Charlotte, of course, is Hamilton's second wife.

On the front of the envelope is written "Mrs James Swan | 622 Buchanan St., | Topeka, Kansas". To the left is a faded, reddish, stamped impression of which the word Register is clearly visible, below which was a date, May 3 or May 8 and a year which cannot now be read, followed by "Sta. R ..." and "No. 215", the number originally in pencil but traced over with black ink. Between that registry stamp and the address is a trace of adhesive which presumably marks the original location of a postage stamp. Finally, on the right edge of this front side is a green stamped number 1554, the remainder having been on the lost end of the envelope.

The Topeka address on the front and the "return" address of Charlotte Brown on the back are written in the same hand and ink, but the name and the address in England were written by a different person. Winscombe is a small town in Somersetshire, England, some three miles inland from the port of Weston-super-Mare on the Mouth of the Severn, directly across from the port of Cardiff, Wales. It seems most likely that the envelope was originally used by Charlotte, in Philadelphia, to mail the marriage license of her husband Hamilton Brown and his first wife Mary Biggert to Mary's daughter Jane (Brown) Swan in Topeka. The name and address in Somersetshire were then written later on the back of the envelope, but by whom and for what purpose is unknown. The name Garaway has not appeared elsewhere in our family history.

Hamilton Brown declared his intention of becoming a citizen on November 3, 1834 in the Marine Court of the City of New York. He became a citizen 30 Sep 1840, when he was certified as having been known for five years in this country by a James Nicol. In 1857, the city directory lists "Nichols, Goodwin & Co.", watch case makers, on the same page that lists Hamilton as a watch crystal maker. That company was located at 22 Maiden Lane, just two blocks from Hamilton's business address at the time. A James Nichol, commercial merchant, is listed on Water Street in lower Manhattan, about ten blocks from the watch district, from 1852 to 1854. Either of these might be the James Nichol who stood witness for Hamilton's citizenship nearly two decades previously.

In the records of the Court of Common Pleas there is a James Nicol, weaver, who was born in Paisley and naturalized here 27 Nov 1822. His emigration, at age 24 from Greenock, must have been before Nov 1817 and he was thus born 1793 or before. This is possibly the James Nichol baptised 2 May 1790 in Paisley, son of James and Margaret (Mitchel) Nichol who had been married 1 Jan 1785 in Paisley.

Hamilton Brown worked as a weaver, his father's profession, recorded as such in the city directories from 1838 to 1842 at 223 West 20th, only four blocks from where he later established his business as a watch glass maker. In the 1845/46 directory Hamilton is not listed, and he was most likely apprenticing as a glass maker during that period.

In the 1840 census for New York City's 16th ward, Hamilton Brown is listed with two males and one female under five years, a female 20 to 30, and one male 30 to 40. The ages are in agreement with later censuses, and in this year Hamilton was listed as engaged in manufacture and trade.

Because of the six year hiatus which followed the birth of Jane in 1839, we assume that Mary died then or sometime after, and that Hamilton married Charlotte before William's birth in 1845. It's interesting to note that Jane named her first daughter Charlotte, after the child's deceased stepmother, as well as her first son Hamilton after her own father. We don't have Hamilton and Charlotte's wedding certificate, nor even the date of that event.

Hamilton Brown worked as watch crystal maker in New York City from 1846 until at least 1868. He started business at 90 W 18th, but within a year established a home and shop at 261 Bowery where he stayed for about five years. In 1852 he moved his business to 158 William, and his home to a residence at 132 Sackett Street in Brooklyn. This was between Columbia and Hicks, and only a block or two from where he could board the side wheeler ferries on which he would have commuted between Brooklyn and Manhattan Island. Hamilton's business location on the Bowery was taken over by his (probable) apprentice William Swan, whose brother had come to New York City in 1851, when he first met Hamilton's daughter Jane.

In the 1850 census for the 17th ward (which includes 261 Bowery), Hamilton Brown, age 44, is listed with his wife Charlotte, 29, also born in Scotland, and five children: Alexander 13, Hamilton 12, Jane 11, William 5, and Mary, a year and a half, all born in New York. (Jane's age here is in disagreement by one year with her age 20 in 1840, age 40 on the 1880 census in Kansas, and birth date of 26 Oct 1839 on her death certificate.)

In 1856 Hamilton's business address in Manhattan changed around the corner to 95 Fulton, and in 1859 two blocks away to 75 Nassau. These three locations were in the heart of the watch making business about six blocks from Wall Street, and his move to this part of the city around 1847 apparently signals Hamilton's success in the business world. In 1864 he moved his family home to Dekalb Street near Nostrand (the NYC directory printed that as Norstrand) in the middle of Brooklyn, where he lived until at least 1868­69.

In the 1860 census, Hamilton Brown is listed as being 56 years old, and his wife Charlotte as 37. Thus, Hamilton aged 12 years during that decade, while his wife aged only 8, increasing their age difference from 15 to 19 years! By that time, Alexander and Hamilton, Jr. were gone from their father's home, as was Jane who by then was married to James Swan, and William, at age 15, was working as a watch spring apprentice. The watch industry of those days clearly was carried out by many different, highly specialized craftsmen.

Also in Hamilton's household in the 1860 census was Jane Robertson, 83, born in Scotland 1776/77. The obvious presumption is that this was the mother of Charlotte. It is interesting to note that, from 1849 through 1854, there was a James W. Robertson listed in the city directory as a watchmaker at 84 Wooster, just a couple of blocks from 498 Broome, where William Swan moved his business in 1870. According to the 1850 census, James W. was 34 years of age and a jeweller by profession, and had a Catherine Brown, aged 38 in his household as well as a Catherine McKenzie, aged 36, both born in New York, and a Mary M. Robertson, aged eight years, who had been born in Pennsylvania. Since James W. was not listed after 1854, it would be reasonable to find his widowed mother Jane living with Hamilton in 1860 if he was a younger brother to Charlotte. This Catherine Brown, born 1812, does not appear to fit anywhere in Hamilton's lineage in Stevenston, Scotland.

Tne next we know of Hamilton is from the notes of Albert Markley, mentioned in the introduction above. Among all of the other valuable leads newly discovered from these notes is the comment that James W. Swan and his family lived on Hamilton Brown's farm in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. Hamilton would have been sixty-four when the family went to Wisconsin in 1870, and so would hardly have started a new career as a farmer at that age. However, he might well have financed the purchase of the farm in his own name for his son-in-law James to work.

In 1998 it came to light that a Hamilton Brown had patented land in Waushara Co., Wisconsin on 10 Apr 1856, just four months after a James and William Swan each patented an eighth of an acre some fifteen miles to the northwest of that location. We now know that these Swans were not our James and his brother William, but have not yet determined whether or not this was our Hamilton Brown. The records for this Hamilton's patents are all in Township 20 N, the northernmost townships in the County. Three 160 acre parcels were in Range 12 E, the SE quarter of Section 21, the NW quarter of Section 22 and the SE quarter of Section 24. In Range 13 E are found two parcels described as 154 acres in the NW quarter of Section 18 and 199 acres in NWNW of Section 19 (that is a self-contradictory description, as the NW quarter itself would have been 160 acres). Finally, also in Range 13 E are recorded N<SW and E<NW of Section 19, both of zero acres. I have no idea what these represent.

These purchases over ten years before Hamilton retired and moved to Wisconsin might be evidence of an early interest in the state. Whether or not they were made by our Hamilton is unknown. What we do know is that when they finally moved to Wisconsin by 1870, our Hamilton Brown and his son-in-law James Swan settled in Fond du Lac County, some 40 miles to the southeast of that Hamilton's 1856 land purchase.

By 1875, James was censused in Fond du Lac town (township), and this corresponds to Albert Swan's notes. Nearly 20 years later, the record shows two 10 acre plots belonging to A. C. Brown just two miles west of the city limits [Plat Book, 1893]. These might well be part of the original home, as Hamilton Brown's eldest son was named Alexander, and he could have inherited the family property.

Mary was listed (as Hamilton's wife, but unnamed) in the 1840 census as being between 20 and 30 years of age, so was born between 1810 and 1820. According to Albert Markley Swan's notes, she was 22 years old when she married in 1833, and this gives her birth year as 1810-11. Thus she was four or five years younger than Hamilton, born in 1806. Albert also had the marriage certificate which shows her name as Mary Biggert.

Their daughter Jane's death certificate says both of her parents were born in Scotland, and this might be interpreted as referring to Mary. However, Jane was very young when her mother died, and she was raised by her stepmother Charlotte, who we know from the 1850 and 1860 censuses was born in Scotland. Thus there is possibility that the Scottish birth on Jane's death certificate actually refers to her stepmother. However, Biggart, is a very common surname in Beith, Ayr, Scotland, as well as elsewhere in that country, so we assume for now that both of Hamilton's wives were Scottish born. It is for this reason that we assume Mary was born as a Biggart; the spelling of Biggert was quite commonly adopted in this country.

The three children of Hamilton and Mary (Biggert) Brown were Alexander, Hamilton and Jane.

The two children of Hamilton and Charlotte (Robertson?) Brown were William and Mary.