Osgood Shepherd had a friend named Bill Fisher, who always stuck by him, and of whom Shepherd's father used to say, "that when he moved something was going to happen, but it was not very often that he moved." He was a slow-going, lazy sort of an individual, and what Shepherd saw in Fisher, Ellis never knew. Nothing is known of Fisher and what became of him. In the fall of 1841 Shepherd removed to Wisconsin and was later killed in a railway accident. His widow married a person by the name of Carpenter and removed to Linn county, residing near Center Point. What became of the Shepherd family no one has been able to learn. Osgood Shepherd and the pioneer settlers with whom he associated were perhaps no worse or no better than the average frontiersmen. They had been trained in hardship and sordid poverty, and the women bore the stamp of the early pioneers, devoted to their families, shirking no hardships, ever willing to move westward on account of the freedom gained and the opportunities offered. Of a different type of mankind was the progressive, enterprising and enthusiastic Nicholas B. Brown, who purchased Shepherd's claim, the most prominent figure in the history of the early days of Cedar Rapids. Mr. Brown arrived in 1840, purchasing the rights of Shepherd with Addison Daniels and others. On August 4, 1841, he began surveying what was then known as Rapids City. He improved the water power which Brown early foresaw would make the town. A saw mill was completed in 1842 and the waters of the Cedar began to make its machinery hum; this was the first real enterprise of which the town could be proud. A woolen factory was also erected by Brown, which was later disposed of to the Bryan family. In 1846 and 1847 a grist mill was also added. On account of his many enterprises in which he had to depend on others Mr. Brown was involved in much litigation, but he was a born fighter for whatever he thought was right and accumulated a fortune because he had the tenacity of purpose to hold on to what he had purchased. As a pioneer he did some excellent work and certainly was one of the shrewdest business men of Cedar Rapids in his day and generation. Mr. Brown was born in the state of New Jersey in 1814, removing as a young man to the state of Kentucky. His first wife was Catherine Craig, daughter of Thomas Craig, one of the pioneers. She lived only a few years. His second wife was Susan Emery, daughter of one of the early settlers of this city. Mr. Brown died in 1880, one of the most honored and respected men in the community, survived by his widow and two sons, Emery Brown and Harry Brown. The widow died in 1909, one of the best known and most respected in the city, having personally known nearly all of the settlers in the '50s and '60s.