Brown, D. Tilden (David Tilden), 1822-1889

Physician, explorer and businessman.

Psychiatrist, explorer and businessman.

Brown practiced psychiatry from 1844-1849 in various asylums in the eastern U.S. Once gold had been discovered in California, Brown traveled to Central America in 1849 planning to establish a cheaper and faster commercial route west from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean across the isthmus of Nicaragua. Brown and several associates, Willard Parker (his former teacher), Simeon H. Ackerman, E.G. Squier, and Asher Kursheadt formed the Compañía de Vapores de Nicaragua and, on March 14, 1849, negotiated the first treaty with General José Trinidad Muñoz for exclusive rights to steamship travel up the San Juan River and across Lake Nicaragua, where passengers and cargoes were then transported by mules to San Juan del Sur on the Pacific coast. The treaty was never formally ratified, and later that year, the company was absorbed by the American Atlantic and Pacific Ship Canal Company, formed by Cornelius Vanderbilt to build a canal across Nicaragua. Back in the U.S., Brown practiced from 1852-1877 when he retired due to poor health.