Fayette County PA Archives Biographies.....Brownfield, Ewing September 7, 1803 - ????
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Marta Burns marta43@juno.com August 31, 2024, 10:30 am

Source: Gresham and Wiley, 1889: Biographical & Portrait Cyclopedia, Fayette Co, PA, pg 580
Author: John H. Gresham & Samuel T. Wiley

    Colonel Ewing Brownfield.  Among the venerable men of 
Fayette county, identified particularly with Uniontown for a 
period extending from 1805, when, as a child of two years of 
age he was brought by his parents to Fayette county, to the 
year of this writing (1882), a period no less than seven 
years more than what is commonly counted "the allotted age 
of man," stands Colonel Ewing Brownfield in the vigor of 
well-preserved old age, and if his old time neighbors are to 
be credited, without a stain upon his character for general 
probity and uprightness in his business dealings through 
life.
    He was born near Winchester, Virginia, September 7, 
1803, of Quaker parentage.  Thomas Brownfield, his father, 
brought his family to Uniontown in the year 1805 and at 
first rented and afterwards bought the White Swan Tavern 
which he conducted till he died in 1829.     
    Ewing grew up in the old tavern, enjoyed the advantages 
of the common schools of that day, and when become of 
fitting years assisted his father as clerk and overseer of 
the hotel until his father's death, when in 1830 he and his 
brother, John Brownfield, now a prominent citizen of South 
Bend, Indiana, formed a partnership in the dry goods 
business of which more further on.
    In early manhood Colonel Brownfield conceived a great 
love for military discipline and display, "the pomp and 
glory of the very name of war," and in a time of profound 
peace, when he was about twenty years of age, was one of the 
first to join a Union volunteer company at that time 
organized.  
    It is one of Colonel Brownfield's proud memories that 
upon the occasion of General Lafayette's visit to Albert 
Gallatin at New Geneva in 1825, he, with several of his 
companions in arms, went on horseback as military escort to 
the residence of Mr Gallatin and were delightedly received 
by the latter gentleman and his renowned guest.
    About that time there came into Uniontown a certain 
Captain Bolles, a graduate of West Point, who formed a 
military drill squad of which Brownfield was a member.  
Under the tutelage of Captain Bolles, Brownfield became 
proficient in company drill, also in battalion and field 
drill, etc.  After the formation of the First Regiment of 
Fayette County Volunteers about 1828, Colonel Brownfield, 
then a private, became an independent candidate for major of 
the regiment and was elected over three strongly supported 
candidates.  Holding the position for two years, he was 
thereafter on the resignation of Colonel Evans, elected 
colonel himself without opposition and continued in the 
colonelcy for five years, receiving from Major General Henry 
W Beeson, at that time a military authority of high repute, 
the distinguished compliment implied in the following 
voluntary plaudit bestowed upon his regiment, namely, "The 
First Fayette County Regiment of Volunteers is among the 
very best field-drilled regiments in the State."
    In 1832 he and his brother dissolved the partnership 
before referred to, Ewing continuing the business till 1836 
when he "went West" and settled in Mishawaka, Indiana, again 
entering into the dry goods business.  But owing to the 
malarial character of the locality in that day, he decided 
to leave the place after a few months and returned to 
Uniontown where in 1837 he resumed the dry goods business.  
    In the same year he bought a house and lot on the corner 
of Main and Arch streets, tore away the old building, 
erected a new one, and there conducted his favorite 
business, continuing in the same from that date to 1862.  In 
the latter year he disposed of his dry goods interests and 
from that time to 1872 was engaged for the most part in the 
wool business.  In 1873 he was elected president of the 
People's Bank, which position he now holds.
    Colonel Brownfield was married in 1842 to Miss Julia A 
Long, daughter of Captain Robert Long of Springfield 
township, Fayette county.  They have had three children: 
Robert L Brownfield, Anna E Brownfield, and Virginia E 
Brownfield.  
    Robert L Brownfield, a graduate of the Sheffield 
Scientific School of Yale College, New Haven, Connecticut, 
is now a prosperous merchant of Philadelphia; Anna E 
Brownfield graduated at the Packer Institute, Brooklyn, New 
York, and is the wife of William Huston, a wholesale 
merchant of Pittsburgh; Virginia Brownfield died on the 14th 
of May, 1872.

Additional Comments:
Originally submitted 2000.

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