Daniel Brown

New Yorker Daniel Brown opened a store on Main Street. His brother Anson soon joined him and went on to develop land across the Huron River in an area he called Lower Town. Anson's untimely death in 1832 ended his dream of moving the center of town to his development. Daniel joined four other speculators to form the Ann Arbor Land Company, which doubled the size of the town in 1836 just as Michigan was becoming a state. They persuaded the new Board of Regents to locate the University of Michigan on forty acres of land in the middle of their development on the east side of the original village. This ensured the success not only of their plan, but of the community as a whole.