Ephraim Brown was apparently a wealthy and well-educated man who bought a large plot of land in Trumbull County in the Western Reserve in 1814; moving his family there in the following year from New Hampshire. This book is a biography making use of extended quotes from Brown’s correspondence. That correspondence doesn’t contain many details or description of Dayton, or even of the material aspects of the Browns’ lives. The correspondence instead contains commentary on the political issues of the day, advice from father to children on career, education and other subjects, and in general provides a window into the mental perspectives and preoccupations of people of that class and era.