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Some interesting incidents in connection with the old town of Sharon:
The account of the Aaron Burr exhibition was read with deep interest by our citizens. It was stated that the building of Burr's boats at old Sharon was under the supervision of Amasu Brown. It is not generally known, however, that this was the father of Captain Perry Brown, of this place, and grandfather to Hon. H. P. Brown. Captain Amasu Brown was in 1806 a boat builder in Sharon. It is related that he built a boat himself, launched it and took it to New Orleans, sold it, took the money and walked to Pittsburgh. On his way back, he was thrown in company with a couple of gentlemen, who between them had a horse. Brown proposed to them that he would pay the expenses of the horse to Pittsburgh if they would carry his saddlebags, but he thought he had sufficient in his pocket to carry him home. The trip being more tedious than was anticipated, however, caused his pocket money to be exhausted, and he was obliged to tell them that he would have to depend upon them for his traveling expenses, both for himself and horse until he reached Pittsburgh. They did so, but when they all reached home in safety, were no little surprised to see him take the saddle bags they had carried all the way and draw from them $600 which in that day was a large sum of money.
Mr. Brown was shrewd enough to keep the possession of it to himself. He was brave and daring, which was finally the cause of his death. The facts are that having finished up a new boat he was about to launch it. It was necessary for a man to go under the boat to arrange a roller and it being a very dangerous place in which to work, he was too brave to ask any one of his men to get under, but went himself, when the boat went off suddenly, killing him instantly. His work in Beaver County was in the days of tallow candles and stagecoaches. Yet men as brace as ever lived, were required for the hazardous frontier life that they led.
From Beaver Argus of December, 1886