Major Jacob Brown

In the mid-1830s, Captain Jacob Brown served as the disbursing officer for the Indian Office in the War Department, based in Little Rock. Without surrendering his commission, he was named president of the Arkansas State Bank. A strong Jacksonian Democrat, Brown was politically and socially connected. By 1837, however, he grew tired of dealing with the state’s financial problems and resigned his position as head of the State Bank. His death made a huge impact on Arkansans, particularly those in Little Rock, indignant over the loss of American life and that of a fellow “Arkansan.”