"Violetta Paine Violetta, 3rd daughter of Col. Brinton Paine was born Sept. 16 1767 at New York. She married Benajah Brown, born Oct 23rd 1762 of Scottish parents which is all we seem to know of him. They were married on Sept. 8, 1784.
I believe Benajah was a captain in the Winchester Militia, 4th regiment, but there seems to be some confusion about this record. At the close of the revolutionary war, Benajah Brown bought 600 acres of land on the Genesee River at Painted Post and had been living on this land for several years when a General Wadsworth claimed it as his. They went to court about it and Benajah was dispossesesed and financially ruined. He was very angry naturally, and declared that if the country for which he fought wouldn't protect him in his honest rights he wouldn't stay in to so in 1797, in the fall, he brought his family into Canada crossing at the Niagra River at Fort Erie.
For the winter he stayed at Fort Erie and worked odd jobs while Violetta earned a little knitting socks for the soldiers stationed there. Then he went to a farm, just north of Brantford on Grand River, now known as Bow Park farm and run as an experimental farm for Canadian Canners Ltd.. While there the Indian Chief Joseph Brant asked him to teach Indians how to farm and he tried to do so. But Violetta didn't like it. She protested against raising her family entirely amongst Indians so in 1801 they moved to Oxford County and took up land on the Thames River about two miles west of the present town of Ingersoll.
In 1805 (late December 1804) Benajah Brown and a neighbour, Major Tousley, went to Little York (Toronto) to get deeds for their lands. On their way home they undertook a short cut across Burlington Bay on the ice but had gone only a short distance when the ice gave way. People on the shore came to help and Benajah said, "Help the Major first: I can keep up." So a rope was thrown to the Major and he was pulled out. Then it was thrown to Benajah but they jerked it so hard and quick that it broke and weighted by a heavy and by this time thoroughly soaked bearskin coat, he went down and did not come up. He was grappled out and buried in Ingersol Cemetery on [King St.][Bible indicates he died jan. 25th 1805]. Violetta was left in a new an sparsely settled country with a large family so she lost no time in remarrying again.
Later in 1806 she married Solomon Nichols. They had two sons, Sylvanus born 1807 and Samuel 1809. The farm near Ingersol was sold and she and her family and Solomon moved moved to Norfolk Co. to a farm about two miles west of Port Rowan. Solomon died in 1814.
Violetta lived on at her farm for many years but she finally sold it and went to live with her children. She died in 1844 at the home of her daughter Electa (Mrs. Samuel Harper) who lived a few miles east of Aylmer and she is buried in the Burdick cemetery there.
Of the children of Violetta and Benajah, other than Walter who was my great-grandfather I know very little. The man, Enoch Brown, who wrote the family history which I mentioned in the beginning of this story, was the son of Brinton Paine Brown, who took up land at 'Brownsville', north east of Aylmer. The village was named for him. At different times I have known my mother's cousins from this branch of the family but never very intimately. Cora Chase has always kept in close touch."