BIO: James L. Brown, Jefferson County, PA Contributed for use in the USGenWeb Archives by Kitty Copyright 2008. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://usgwarchives.net/pa/jefferson/ http://usgwarchives.net/pa/jefferson/beers/beers-bios.htm _____________________________________________________________________ Commemorative Biographical Record of Central Pennsylvania, Including the Counties of Centre, Clearfield, Jefferson and Clarion, Containing Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens. Chicago, Ill.: J. H. Beers, 1898, pages 1069-1072. _____________________________________________________________________ JAMES L. BROWN. The interesting history of the Brown family, and of the worthy gentleman whose name opens this sketch, would lose much by being given in the third person, and we therefore present the simple narrative as, at our request, it was prepared by Mr. Brown: "I may not be interesting to a majority of the masses to read the genealogy of any particular person, but at the same time it should be a subject that all of United States ought to be interested in. As a general thing, in the make-up of our human family, we regard but little the blood that flows in our veins, from whence it came, and what will be the condition of generations that follow after. It's an old Scotch saying that blood is thicker than water. I have often seen charts giving the pedigree of horses and dogs, and at the same time, those that seem to take such an interest in them when asked regarding their own genealogy could hardly tell who their grandfathers were and could seldom trace their genealogy any further. Now, why is this so? Is not our blood equal to that of a brute? "As a descendant of the pilgrims who landed at Plymouth in 1626, I find satisfaction in tracing back the line through intervening generations. Peter Brown came over in the 'Mayflower,' and landed at Plymouth, with wife and one or more children, leaving in England a brother, John, who followed soon after, landing at Plymouth in 1626. John brought with him his wife, Dorothy, and two sons - James and John - and became greatly distinguished. He died in 1662, April 10, and was buried at the head of Bullock's Cove, Bristol Co., Mass. Shipwright by trade, Assistant to the Governor, Commissioner of the United Colonies, etc. Was married in England, December 22, 1611, to Dorothy Beauchamp, who was born in 1584, and died at Rehoboth, Mass., January 27, 1674. They had three children - John, James, and Mary, who married Thomas Willett, the first English mayor of the city of New York, and from who descended the famous Col. Marinus Willett, who fought in the battle of New York City, in the army of the Revolution. "The subject of this sketch is a descendent from John, the line being traced as follows: John, the first, who landed at Plymouth, John 2 - John 3 - John 4 - James 5 - James 6 - Amasa 7 - James 8 - Orlando 9 - and James L. Brown 10. "John (2) married Lydia Buckland, daughter of William Buckland, and had five children - John, born September 2, 1650; Lydia, born August 6, 1656; Anna, born January 29, 1657, Joseph, born April 8, 1658; Nathaniel, born June 9, 1661. John (2) died November 24, 1709. "John (3), Captain in King Phillips war, married Anna Mason, daughter of Maj. John Mason, and had six children: John (4) born April 28, 1675, and died April 23, 1752; and the rest of the children were Samuel 2 - Daniel 3 - Stephen 4 - Joseph 5 - and Anna 6. "John (4) married Abigail Cole, July 2, 1696, and had a son, James (5), born January 2, 1706, and died May 4, 1777. John (4), was also a captain in the colonial army and served with great distinction. "James (5) married Ruth Pierce, daughter of Ephraim Pierce. She was born 1707, and died May 6, 1777. Four children were born: James (6), September 14, 1732; Aaron, April 6, 1734; David, November 11, 1741; Abigail, June 30, 1729. "James (6) married at Providence, R.I., Mary Anthony, born December 22, 1737, died February 24, 1810, and had seven children as follows: Amasa (7), born 1754; Alice, 1756; Anthony, 1758; Stephen, 1761; Ruth, 1763; Jonathan, 1765; David, 1769. Amasa above was a noted preacher at Hartford, New York; died January 22, 1830, and by his second wife, Deborah Carr, had eight children: James (8); Abigail; Benjamin; John; Amasa (II); Stephen; Anthony; and David. The Rev. Amasa Brown was my great-grandfather, and James (8) my grandfather. I have in my possession a cane having a silver head upon it bearing this inscription, 'Jacob Cole, 1694,' given to me by him, with the request that I hand it down. Jacob Cole was the father of Abigail, who was the wife of Capt. John Brown, and the mother of James (5). Isaac Cole, the father of Jacob, resided in Charleston, Mass.; he and his wife, Joana, having come from Sandwich, County of Kent, England, about 1638. James was born July 16, 1641, and married Sarah Lain, and by her had one daughter - Abigail, above named. Jacob was a soldier in Capt. Moseley's command in the great Narragansett fight on December 19, 1675. The cane mentioned, being over 200 years old, is highly prized as a relic of by-gone days, and when I look upon it it refreshes the recollection of my grandfather, as I saw him when he handed me the cane at ten years of age. He was over six feet in height, and of lofty and soldier-like bearing, at the age of eighty, I can never forget. We now come to those endearing words 'our father': Orlanda Brown (9) was born at Swanton, Vt., October 27, 1800, and died at Brookville, Penn., December 12, 1881. He was married in Rushville, N.Y., in 1823, to Meriba Loomis, and five children were born of their union: Amanda Sophia; Louise Marie; Orlando Howell; James Loomis (myself); and Carrie Adelphia. My mother died January 3, 1873, at Moravia, N.Y. Father became very lonely after mother's death (as all his children had married and left him), and was married a second time, his second wife being Edatha Loomis, widow of Hiram Loomis, of Chicago, Ill. She is now living at Brookville in the enjoyment of good health. "I was born at Avon, New York, August 27, 1838, and my parents moved to Belfast, Allegany Co., N.Y. when I was a babe. It was in the dead of winter. The house we moved into was made of single boards set up on end and not even battened. Mother has often told me how the snow would blow in at the numberless cracks, and what a hard time she had to keep me from freezing. From Belfast we moved to Caneadea, and in 1842 we moved to Angelica, the county seat. There my boyhood days were spent; the only education I ever received being at the district schools. The tallow candle was the only light we had to brighten our evenings. The only paper that came to the house, outside of the town paper, was a weekly published in Philadelphia, and in the evenings when we would sit around the table to listen to father reading the stories to us, it was always my business to snuff the two and sometimes three candles we had burning. Camphene was the next great improvement in light for our stores, and for our home reading burning fluid took the place of candles, but on account of its supposed danger it was a long time before it was fairly introduced. The Drake oil well in 1860, and the discovery of oil in Oil Creek, Penn., opened the way for its general use, capital poured in and the establishment of refineries gave us our present cheap and abundant light. Inventive minds came into the field to utilize the waste products of our wells, and to-day we enjoy the blessing of natural gas for heating as well as for light. "At the age of sixteen I went into a store at $8.00 per month, which kept me in clothes, my board being provided at home. My sister Amanda having married Mr. Charles H. Sturtevant, who was doing a general mercantile business at Delevan, Wis., I went there at nineteen to clerk for him. While I was in the West in 1857, political matters were consuming the attention of the whole country, and the great debate between Lincoln and Douglas was going on in Illinois. All banking was done by state and private banks, and when the panic came, you could not tell at night if the various bills you held would be worth anything in the morning. During my stay at Delevan, my father bought out Patrick McTaff in the foundry and machine business at Brookville, Penn., and moved the family to that place during the winter of 1857-58. I left Wisconsin in the fall of 1858 for our new home, and had to stage it from Kittanning, as that was as far as the cars extended up the Allegheny Valley. Coming from the western prairie, staging over the frozen stubbles and over our long hills, I thought it a terrible ride. Soon after my arrival I entered the employ of Brown & Wann as bookkeeper, at $20 per month. The spring of 1861 next comes vividly to my memory, when news came of the bombardment of Fort Sumter. Business of all kinds was suspended, and it was a year of great anxiety; I remember Hon. K. L. Blood (then a State Senator), James E. Long and myself having a personal interview with President Buchanan in February, 1861, at the White House. In talking over the situation, the President cried over the fact that some of his cabinet had proved traitors to him. I cannot remember all that he said, but to see great tears running down the cheeks of that kind-hearted man, showing the interest he felt in the whole country, while powerless in a measure to stay the impending conflict of brother against brother, and father against son, left an impression on my mind never to be forgotten. They were the tears of an honest, noble man, who was trying to do his whole duty. During that year almost every able-bodied man was enrolled in the three-months' service to crush the Rebellion. "In 1862 I was married to Emma S. Keatley, of Strattonville, Penn., daughter of Major John Keatley, who had received an appointment from Edwin M. Stanton, as paymaster in the army. Being still in the employ of the firm, I gave Mr. Wann two weeks notice of the date of the marriage, and when the appointed time came he handed me $20. This was all I had to celebrate the coming event, and the Rev. J. J. Bentley, who married me, got $5 of it. In 1863 I leased Mr. Wann's interest for one year, and at the expiration of that time, father and I bought his entire share. In 1865 we took in John P. Roth as partner, the firm continuing as Brown, Son & Co. Business had already commenced to revive. The first legal act of January, 1862, as reported to the Ways and Means Committee, embodied the principle foundation for sustaining our National credit, by the issuing of a circulation medium known as the greenback of 1863. Money became plenty, and that saved our lumbermen from bankruptcy. Timber rose from 3c a foot to 28c and 30c, and mills started up all over the county. We really had more than we could do, building engines, boilers, gang and circular mills, and all kinds of machinery. I remember going to Pittsburg, Philadelphia and New York for machinists, and coming home without them, for everybody was employed at good wages, and you could not get a man from the city to go to the country. "In 1872 incendiarism destroyed our plant. Our loss was heavy, but we rebuilt and took in W. H. Jenks as a partner. In 1877 incendiarism again wiped out our earnings for years of toil. We finally disposed of the property and burnt material to Mr. Jenks in 1878, who at the present time is in successful operation. "The building of the Low Grade railroad in 1873 changed the condition of the channels of our trade, as far as Brookville was concerned. Du Bois and Reynoldsville sprang into existence, on account of their great coal deposits, cutting off a large amount of trade that generally came to us. Instead of a hundred teams coming in one day loaded with goods from Mahoning and Ridgway, the iron horse supplanted all that, and more particularly did we feel the effects when the Rochester & Pittsburg R. R. Co. extended its line across our eastern boundaries, making Punxsutawney an objective point, and building rival places for our industries, and we had no minerals worth mentioning, and our lumber was fast disappearing. But notwithstanding the change in the condition of our trade, the advent of the iron horse proved a great blessing. Our lumbermen who depended on the spring and June freshets on Sandy and Red Bank creeks to market their lumber, and when in market were at the mercy of the buyer, could now ship direct by rail, and by receiving quick returns, could do business on far less capital. Brookville, after several disastrous fires, moved to the front. Her old wooden structures were supplanted by substantial brick buildings, and go where you may, you cannot today find more modern improvements. Our schools and churches, natural gas works, electric light plant, telephone and telegraph communications, up-to-date residences, stores and street improvements, and a sewer system of the very best, make this one of the healthiest and pleasantest locations for a home in Western Pennsylvania. "In 1878 William French and I made the first discovery of fire clay at Bells on the line of our road. We opened it up, and I made the first shipment of clay from this section. I continued in the business for ten years, shipping thousands of tons to many of our principal cities. In 1881 I saw that a movement was being made to reach the undeveloped coal fields lying south of us, and I interested the Hon. J. E. Long, and began taking up leases and options. At one time we had 50,000 acres of land for sale. We sold 2,700 acres of coal lands at Punxsutawney to Herbert P. Brown at $180,000, which insured the people there the building of the Rochester & Pittsburg R. R., and brought Punxsutawney to the front, as her coal fields proved superior for steam, domestic and cokeing purposes. In 1875 Mr. Cormick and I patented a turbine water-wheel, known as the Hercules, and I had it on exhibition at the Centennial in 1876. I went to Holyoke, Mass., the same year with a 24-inch wheel to see what results could be obtained at Emerson's testing flume, and the records of the test were so far above anything that had ever been obtained that Emerson published them broadcast and excited the attention of all wheel builders and users throughout the United States. I afterward sold my interest to the Holyoke Machine Company, and to-day it is the standard wheel of the world. In 1885 I opened up a limestone quarry at Lawsonham, Clarion county, Penn., and after manufacturing lime for a few years, I organized a company at Oil City, which was chartered as the Avondale Mining and Manufacturing Company, composed of C. H. Duncan, Barney Lowentrett, W. A. Duncan, N. U. Clark and myself for the purpose of mining and shipping coal, The plant is in successful operation to-day. In 1885 I organized a gas company, and obtained a charter for oil and gas, putting down the first well on a lot belonging to Sebastian Christ. It proved a very good gasser, and at the present time is being utilized by W. H. Jenks for use under the boiler. The company, after reorganization, put down in all five dry holes in this vicinity, besides two in Iowa. It proved to be an expensive job to the stockholders. In 1891 I went to Pittsburgh, and, in company with J. H. Mullin, manufactured specialties, one of our leading articles being Augite Stove Mat for cooking purposes. It is the friend of a good housewife, and has been exported largely to England, Australia and New Zealand. Last season I moved the plant to Brookville. "In January, 1887, I received official notification of my appointment by the Grand Holy Royal Arch Chapter of Pennsylvania as district Deputy Grand High Priest for the counties of Jefferson, Venango and Clarion, and I served in that capacity for two years. "Four children blessed my home: Katherine Meriba, born April 24, 1864; Frank Keatley, January 10, 1867; James E., January 26, 1871, and Jeanette Emma, September 27, 1879. Katherine Meriba was married to John M. Hastings, of Pittsburg, Penn., November 16, 1887, and died November 29, 1891, leaving a babe, Helen, ten days old, who is to-day the sunshine of our household, having been with us since her birth. Frank Keatley married Miss Lula Dickey, of Brookville, June 21, 1894, and at present is superintendent for the Watsons Land & Lumber Co., at Mayburg, Forest Co., Penn. James E. is employed with Clark, Kizer & Kipp as locomotive engineer."