Brown Ranch founder from Virginia plantation

Cowboys gather at chuck wagon on Brown Ranch 1940

More than a century ago, Robert Herndon "R.H." Brown started buying up land in Throckmorton County that would grow into 33,000 acres and one of the largest cattle ranches on the rolling plains of Texas. The ranch holdings also include land in Colorado. The oldest son of Robert Alexander Brown, R.H. was first in the cattle business near Calvert. Records show he sold Angus bulls in the 1890s and even sent a boatload of cattle to Cuba in 1895, said his grandson R.A. "Rob" Brown Jr. R.H. Brown moved to Jack County, where he had a small ranch and where his son, R.A. Brown, was born in 1902. The family ancestry traces back to Culpepper County, Va., where Robert Alexander Brown was born Feb. 22, 1833. He grew up working with cotton, cattle, horses and mules. He came to Galveston at 17 and worked as a salesman in a mercantile business. When the Civil War started 10 years later, Robert returned to the family plantation in Virginia and volunteered in the Confederate Army. "He was a member of the famous Black Horse Cavalry of Virginia under Jeb Stuart, and as a soldier served with distinguished bravery in various battles defending the Confederate capital until his capture in the Valley of the Potomac in 1864," Rob said. Robert was released after the Civil War. R.A. Brown grew up working at the Fort Worth Stockyards, and during the summers worked at the family's Throckmorton ranch. At 15 he enrolled in school at Woodson, so he could stay and help at the ranch through the severe drought of 1917. "Feed was scarce, and cows were thin going into that extremely cold winter, and cows began to die," Rob said. "Dad helped skin cows and hauled wagonloads of hides to Abilene (75 miles south) and traded them for cotton seed cake to feed the remaining cattle."...more