Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens
Lawrence County Pennsylvania 1897
[p. 220] a market gardener of Moravia village, Taylor township, and well-known to many residents of New Castle and Mahoningtown to whom he sells garden produce, was born near Tarrentum, Allegheny Co., Nov. 22, 1859, and is a son of Thomas J. and Susannah (Ow) Brown. Our subject's mother was born in Westmoreland Co., Pa., and was a daughter of Henry Ow, who married Elizabeth Catherine Good, a native of Westmoreland County, and a daughter of Isaac and Elizabeth Catherine (Munschar) Good. Henry Ow was a farmer throughout the most of his life, although he learned the blacksmith's trade in youth and followed it for a considerable length of time; he died at the age of seventy-five. He was a son of Herman Ow, a native of Germany, who was a local preacher of the Lutheran denomination, and lived to be eighty-four or eighty-five years old. Thomas J. Brown was born in Hulton, Allegheny Co., Pa., and died in Moravia, January, 1890. He was in early life a coal-miner, but when the oil was struck in Pennsylvania, he became a well-driller, and was superintendent for Brewer, Watson & Co., and lived in Clarion, Ohio four years and a half. From there he moved to Moravia, where he bought twenty-three acres of land well adapted to gardening, to which he devoted the whole into a wonderfully high state of cultivation. During a part of the time when he was gardening, he was proprietor of a grocery store, which he at length closed out, as he saw he could not give justice to his gardening, while still engaged in other work. He was a son of Thomas Brown. To our subject's parents were born two children: Vincent M. of Allegheny County, and Henry V., the subject of this sketch.
Our subject was still an infant, when his parents moved to Clarion, and he was still under the school age, when they returned to Lawrence County; consequently, his school education was all received in Moravia, and he grew up to the gardening business, helping his father. When he was twenty-one, he moved to Kingsville, Ashtabula Co., Ohio, where he engaged in farming on shares for a year or two. On his return to Moravia he was in a store for about five years, and since 1888, has been engaged extensively in gardening, marketing his produce in New Castle, Mahoningtown and Ellwood City.
He was joined in wedlock, in Shenango township, Feb. 25, 1886, to Mary H. Davis, daughter of James and Lavina (Iddings) Davis, the latter a daughter of Joseph and Hannah (Hoopes) Iddings. Hannah Hoopes was a daughter of Ezra and Ann (Hickman) Hoopes, and her great-grandfather came to America with William Penn, and from him received a square on Market Street, Philadelphia. Joseph Iddings was a son of James and Mary (Pierce) Iddings. James Davis, Mrs. Brown's father, was a son of Levi and Catherine (Van Horn) Davis. Three children have been born to our subject and his wife: Emma Frances; Jesse O.; and Leora. Our subject and his wife are members of the Presbyterian Church. Mr. Brown is a member of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, No. 322, Moravia Council. He is a strong Prohibitionist, both upholding and supporting the party of that name by his vote and influence, and also endeavoring to extend and strengthen the temperance feeling by being an active member of the Royal Templars of Temperance, Supreme Council, No. 83, of Moravia. He is an honest, law-abiding, upright citizen, who will in nine cases out of ten be found on the side of truth and sound morality.
Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens Lawrence County Pennsylvania
Biographical Publishing Company, Buffalo, N.Y., 1897
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Updated: 12 May 2001