BEFORE THERE WAS A ME THERE WERE FAMILIES -- BROWNS

II

BROWNS

Brown is one of those-seem-to-be-everywhere surnames, 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.

 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 “ye-haw” on a tractor with a cowboy hat while dressed in suit and tie or take a stroll down the beach on Wingtips, for that matter?

Quakers Families who dwelled in Chester County from the 1700s on 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 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 not this made me a fourth cousin to the disgraced President.³

Joshua Baldwin stands proof of the intertwining of 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 I (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 I was a builder of barns. He took a fatal fall off a slippery barn roof in Phoenixville during 1911 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 the 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 the books. My Grandfather, Francis (known as Brownie) was a carpenter. (Pictured on left are Millard Charlton Brown Sr. & Sara Anne Smiley. On the right is the home where Millard died.)

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