Sara Sandstrom-Kobi, Gilpin County. Clara Brown is a common name for someone born in the United States in the first part of the 1800s. The Clara Brown I am writing about was no common woman. She was extraordinary. 

I cannot say when Clara was born. No one knows. I cannot say where she was born. No one knows exactly. 

One of the many ways to dehumanize slaves in the US was to not record birth dates or places. They were property. Their value was determined by how much work they could do. Their lives controlled by the whims of the slave master. Clara Brown was born into this inhumane, cruel, disgusting institution. 

It is known that Clara lived part of her life in Kentucky. Her husband and children were sold. Allow me to repeat that. Her husband and children were sold. Let that sink in for a moment. She spent the rest of her life searching and praying to be reunited with her family. The possibility of that happening was next to none. 

How Clara received her freedom before the Emancipation Proclamation is unclear. We do know that she found her way to the Kansas Territory. 

Because she would have been denied the right to travel by stagecoach, she had to work her way further west. Gold was discovered in Colorado. Clara cooked for a group of people going to Denver. The year was likely 1859 or 1860. Clara may have been in her fifties at the time she arrived in Central City. She did not go to Colorado to find gold, but to be a laundress. Clara Brown established her own laundry business and flourished. 

Being a laundress in the 1860s was back-breaking work. Hauling water alone would be intense. One had to have a constant supply of cut wood to keep water boiling. Soap making and ironing – the tasks were endless, and don’t forget the altitude and steep roads in Central City.

On top of all this, Clara, referred to as Aunt Clara, cooked for miners. She was often present for the births of babies as a midwife. She nursed miners back to health. Her generosity and unfailing goodwill to the people of Gilpin County was beyond belief. 

Public records show us that Clara Brown owned property in Central City, Idaho Springs and Denver. With all the wealth she accumulated, she helped build more than one church in Central City. Her financial contributions for the good of her community continued despite losing her business in the great fire in Central City in 1874. Clara rebuilt her laundry business. 

Clara never stopped searching for her children. She even traveled back east more than once on her quest to be reunited with her family. In 1879 she was in Kansas. The era of Reconstruction had ended and there were a number of African Americans fleeing the extremely oppressive south. 

The pathways to freedom and success for African Americans were blocked by violence (lynching) and new laws of racial segregation. Activist and co-founder of the NAACP, W.E.B. DuBois summarized this time in the US by saying, “The slave was set free, stood a brief moment in the sun and then moved back again toward slavery.” The terror in the southern states and dead-end sharecropping led some African Americans to Kansas and further west. 

Clara Brown provided passage for many African Americans to come from Kansas to Colorado. She assisted them further to help them become established in Colorado. She worked tirelessly to help those in need and was held in high regard and known throughout the state.

As she advanced in years, Clara moved to Denver and this time others took care of her. Money was raised in Gilpin County and Denver to assist Clara in her old age. One of her greatest joys occurred in 1882. After more than 40 years, she was reunited with one of her daughters, Eliza Jane. Their joy must have been profound. Eliza Jane lived with and cared for her mother in her last years. 

Clara Brown died in 1885 and was buried in Denver’s Riverside Cemetery. Colorado’s governor, dignitaries and friends attended her funeral. 

She has been honored since her death with a chair at the Central City Opera House, and an engraved plaque at St. James Methodist Church in Central City. In 1977, a stained-glass window was placed in the Capitol Building in Denver to honor this amazing Colorado Pioneer.

Clara Brown had a positive impact on Central City and the State of Colorado. She touched the lives of so many regardless of race or social class. Clara Brown made the world a better place with her generous spirit and loving soul.

You can read more about Clara Brown in the book, Clara: An Ex-slave in Gold Rush Colorado, by Gilpin County’s own Roger Baker. 

Originally published in the July 18, 2019, print edition. The low resolution pdf of that edition can be purchased here at https://themtnear.com/product/2019-07-18/