BEFORE THERE WAS ME THERE WERE FAMILIES: PART II -- BROWNS

Brown is one of those-surnames seemingly everywhere, too common and too generic to make climbing the branches of the right family tree easy. I do not know where the root may have sprung up or when any seeds spread across the pond to America. My best guess is my line of Browns is Irish, but they may have been those British in my DNA.

The photo on the left is of Millard Charlton Brown, Sr., holding his son, my grandfather, Francis Fizz down II. It was taken in 1900, the year my grandfather was born.

I don't think my grandfather changed much in looks over his life. The photo on the right was taken only three years before his death. He is seated next to my grandmother and holding a source of his early demise.

Certainly the Browns were long-time residents of Chester County, Pennsylvania and Quaker at one time, so perhaps they  were Welsh also, who drifted off to the Methodists at some point of history. There is a link to former President Richard M. Nixon, whether that is something I should say or keep to myself is the question. Nixon may fall into the category of skeletons in the closet. Should anyone admit to a man who’ll do a “yee-haw” on a tractor with a cowboy hat while dressed in suit and tie or take a stroll down the beach wearing Wingtips, for that matter?

Quakers Families who dwelled in Chester County from the 1700s are all pretty much related now, as I am one way or the other related to Darlingtons, Brintons, Downings, Dunlaps, Thomases and of course the Milhouses.

Case in point: Joshua Baldwin was a son of John Baldwin, an immigrant from  Oxfordshire, England to Aston, Pennsylvania prior to 1689.  Joshua was born at West Chester in 1721 and in 1747 at a Quaker Meetinghouse (pictured right) in Goshen married Miss Mercy Brown. Mercy was my 5-Great Grand Aunt, sister of my 5-Great Grandfather George H. Brown. Joshua and Mercy had among their seven children a girl named Hannah. Hannah Baldwin married William Milhous in 1767 and you might say some history was in the making. William Milhous was Richard Nixon’s Great-Great Grandfather and like it or nor this made me a fourth cousin to the disgraced President.³

Joshua Baldwin stands proof of the intertwining of we Chester County families. He had three wives, Mercy being number two after his first wife, Sarah Downing died. After Mercy’s passing he took a third spouse, Ann Meredith. Brown, Downing and Meredith are all family antecedents of yours truly.

George H. Brown was the Grandfather of Francis Fizz Brown (1855-1911). By this time the family were members in good

standing at the Grove Methodist Episcopal Church. The contractors Morgan Ruth and Richard Templeton Meredith constructed the present church building in 1888-89 at a cost of $7,000 (yes,  $7,000, no missing zeros). It is a small world this Chester County for Richard Templeton Meredith is my Second Cousin.⁴

Francis Fizz Brown was a builder of barns. He took a fatal fall off a slippery barn roof in Phoenixville and died after some hours of suffering. He was 56 years old.⁵ Forty-six years later his Grandson and namesake, my maternal Grandfather, was to die at 57 years of age.

 My Great Grandfather Millard Charlton Brown also was a builder, taking the business a step further and constructing many of the homes that dotted his corner of Chester County, especially along Boot Road in West Whiteland Township. Millard died in one of the houses he built, broken-hearted after the death of his wife, Sara Anne Smiley.

Millard and Sara had four boys and a girl. Millard trained the boys in aspects of the building trade, Millard Jr. (known as Bus) was an electrician, Ralph did plumbing and Paul kept books. My Grandfather, Francis (known as Brownie) was a carpenter. (Pictured on right are Millard Charlton Brown Sr. & Sara Anne Smiley.)

On the left is the home where Millard died on December 2, 1950. It is one of the houses he built. His wife died on July 24 of the same year. She was 71 and he was 73. My grandfather and I discovered his body as we stopped by his  home for a pre-Christmas visit. I was 9 years old.

Oddly enough my paternal grandparents died in 1950 as well, on May 14 and June 4. They were both in their 80s. I did not know

my paternal grandparents well, but I did my  maternal grandparents, having visited them often as a child. I always pictured them as this very elderly couple who reminded me of Grant Wood’s “American Gothic” couple. Pictured right the year they died, both several years younger than I am now. 

Footnotes:

3. Records of Goshen Meetinghouse

Ray Downing

The Downing Family

1999 

4. Martha Leigh Wolf and Diane Sekura Snyder

A History Of West Whiteland

West Whiteland Historical Commission

Exton, Pa.

1982

5. Daily Local News

West Chester, Pa.

November 2, 1911

Stored in the Chester County Historical Society Library