 His success was such that prosperous individuals in Brown's hometown of West Newbury and surrounding areas entrusted him to invest their funds, providing the investors a 7% return and Brown any amounts over that.This allowed him to engage in more real estate ventures.Brown stated, "The handling of considerable funds in that way for many years not only brought me considerable gains beyond my law business proper, but also gave me much credit as a responsible person, and attracted clients in the building business, and it thus much enlarged my own contributions to our strictly law practice."