Mood:  bright

After being enslaved by Ambrose Smith for over 5 decades (he had purchased her at an auction not long after her birth), she was released in 1857 after Smith died. His daughters granted Clara her freedom, and upon doing so Clara immediately headed west to find the rest of her family, all of whom were split up at different times by the slave trade. She especially wanted to find her daughter Eliza Jane, figuring she would have been caught up in the gold rush, and Clara's instincts led her to Colorado.

Clara Brown secured passage as a cook in the employ of Colonel Wadsworth and a group of gold rushers in Leavenworth, KS in 1859, and because she had led the harsh life of a slave for so long, the journey proved easier for her to make than others traveling with them. Upon arriving in Colorado, Clara moved to Denver and worked as a baker. She later opened her own laundry business for the mining community, and made a mint! She saved her money, and from there relocated from town to town in a search for her daughter before finally settling in Central City.

She opened another laundry business for miners in the town, and invested in several mines. As her financial acumen and business skills earned her more money and freedom, she began using her good fortune as a way to help others. She ran her own Sunday school, helped people down on their luck (including 16 former slaves), and held religious services at her home.

In the early 1880s, she learned that Eliza Jane was alive and well in Iowa, and the two were reunited nearly 50 years after first losing touch.

Clara Brown was inducted into The Society of Colorado Pioneers in 1885, and died later that same year. She is buried in Colorado's Riverside Cemetery.