CHAPTER 1
An ancestry including royal blood in Wales, lordships in Scotland, home and church builders in West Whiteland and farmers owning half the land in Chester County make it sound as if I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and swaddled in gold leaf. By the day of my birth the family was far from claiming any thrones and both the depression and aging patriarchs had dissipated any perceived previous fortunes.
The Breaking of the Browns
The Brown’s home building business broke up in the 1930s economy. Millard neared retirement and his four sons had gone on to ply their trades at various companies. Grand Uncle Ralph started a plumbing business, but his brothers worked for others. Francis, My Grandfather, took his carpenter skills to the Downingtown Iron Works (pictured left). His main job was to build wooden frames to hold the underground tanks steady on flatbed train cars.16
Whether the Browns simply paid rent or if they acted as caretakers is unknown. Most of my life I believed my mother grew up in the small house at one corner of the estate right along Whitford Road, but she later told me, “No, we lived in the big house.” The big house set back on the other side of a lake. Behind the house were a drive and a blacksmith shop. The blacksmith shop was still in business when I was a boy and Grandfather sometimes took me there on visits. He was a friend with the Smithy. My Grandfather Brown was pretty much friends with everybody in that area.
My mother (pictured on the steps of “The Big House”, 1923) said one of her fondest memories was every Christmas George Thomas III would stop by and give her a new pair of gloves.
The depression rode roughshod on my grandparents after the building trade failed. My Grandfather Brown hired out picking weeds at a dollar a day. My Grandmother put on a domestic’s uniform and became a maid in service to some of the wealthy families whose homes lined West Chester Pike. Even my mother, still a teenager, had to go to work to help. She was employed in the dark and dank of a nearby mushroom plant. It was quite literally, if you will pardon my language, a shitty job.
My Grandparents Brown did not own any property. They never would. I do not know the circumstances of their living arrangements, but during my mother’s youth home was on the estate of George Thomas III. (Pictured left is the “big house” 1923) The Thomas Family was among the Welsh Quakers that arrived in Chester County along with David Meredith in 1683. The Thomases took a leadership roll in the new community and remained an influential clan throughout West Whiteland’s history. They acquired a large piece of land and named their property “Whitford”.
Whither The Wilsons
Helen (left in 1919), the eldest daughter died in 1919 age 29. Her husband, Herford Downing, remarried and went his separate way. Clara (right c. 1910) and Ellsworth Downing were not farmers. Herford and Ellsworth were brothers, direct descendants of Thomas Downing, for whom Downingtown was named. Anna and William’s three sons all did farm.
The Wilsons might have been faring better on their farms than the Browns, but after William and Anna (pictured)
died in the mid-1930s the boys sold most of the land off to developers. William Frederick Wilson’s great farm, ”Marchwood”, eventually became a shopping mall as well as apartment complexes and communities of homes near Lionville.
Heber continued to farm, but basically turned it over to his own sons by the 1950s. Heber (left c. 1905) died in 1976 at 88. Everett retired from farming even before his father died. Horace kept at it, but he died in 2009 age 92, and now all the farmland of the Wilson family in Chester County is pretty much under cement.
Evans (left c. 1901) died when he fell off a hay wagon in 1931. Billy was the oldest and gave up actively tilling the land by the 1950s and sold off most of the acreage. He died in 1965 at age 85. (Pictured right: Uncle Billy’s home along Route 401 the year he died; left Uncle Billy with his youngest sister, my grandmother )
Uncle Billy had no children of his own. He and his wife, Lizzie, adopted Emily, Helen’s daughter, but she did not remain in farming upon adulthood. Helen’s son, Herford Jr. remained with his father, who remarried a woman named Sadie Guest
Evans’ children also had no taste for farm life. (Pictured right: Evans’ widow, Edna and their children, Bobby and Millie.) Millie married out of it and Bobby perused a different career. He owned farms the rest of his life, but seldom did much planting. He mostly raised horses. Bobby was the successful one of the new generation, but he did it through real estate dealings and political clout. Family reunions were at the large farm Bobby owned near Pottstown. There was a pool and a barn with horses to ride.
Bobby became enthralled with hotels in the 1970s. His grandfather had owned the Brandywine Hotel and two uncles were in the restaurant business so the hospitality trade may have been in his blood. However, I think he was more akin to what has become know as “flippers”. He would buy an old hotel, fix it up, run it awhile and sell it for a profit. At one point he owned three hotels, one in Phoenixville (it may have been the Pickering Inn), The Eagle Tavern in Eagle (right) and The Swan Hotel (pictured left) in Downingtown, all Pennsylvania towns.
Bobby became embroiled with the IRS in the 1980. The government charged him with income tax invasion on his real estate dealings. I do not know of his ever going to jail. I would guess he settled with the IRS and then got on with his life. He sold the Pennsylvania Farm in the 1990s and moved to Maryland where he raised horses. He died there in 2008, age 82.
Townsley Time
The Townsleys never had great wealth. They were inventive and hard working. William E. and his brothers, Harry and James, were entrepreneurs. When steam traction machines first came to market, he and his brothers took a great interest. They purchase one and launched the first traction threshing business in Chester County. They continued in this business for many years and then began an outfit to provide wood to the Coatesville Steel Mills, a business they continued until near their deaths. (Pictured in 1931 hauling wood, Great Grand Uncle James Hunter Townsley is on the far left atop the log Next to his left is my First Cousin James Ivan Townsley, then Cousin James W Skiles .Great Grandfather William E. stands on the right below the X. The children are First Cousins, Charles Richard Johnson, Jr. and Charlotte Jean Johnson.)
In his youth, my Great Grandfather William E. Townsley was a member of the Sadsburyville Band. This band traveled the country, causing great excitement when it arrived in a town. They traveled in an ornate bandwagon pulled by four to six horses, the wagon festooned with band instruments. Collectors prize the instruments used by the band even today.17
But sad to say, not even a band instrument filtered down to yours truly.
(Pictured right, William E Townsley seated bottom left and members of the Sudsburyville Band.)
Footnotes:
16. Images of America: Downingtown
Bruce Edward Mowday
Arcadia Publishing
2004
17. Coatesville Record
February 15, 1937
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