Brown Thurlow Weed

Notes:

DEATH: In the Wisconsin Chief, dated May 15, 1866, the following written by Emma Brown, sister to Thurlow Weed Brown;

DEATH: Editorial Correspondance

DEATH: "The Oaks", April 29, 1866.

DEATH: Emma: I am told, and very readily believe, that I walk no more among the living. To those who have been so kind to me and mine, I invoke God's choicest blessings, and give my wasted hand in a feeling "goodbye" to all. The battle is over. The Senior.

DEATH: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

DEATH: Personal (in the same paper, directly under his obituary is the following:)

DEATH: We have delayed referring to some matters, hoping the Senior would get strong enough to do so; but, saving one letter and the brief note at the head of our editorial columns, he never wrote a line for over three months before his death. All through the earlier months of his illness, he wrote diligently only giving up his accustomed tasks when to weak to sit up in an easy chair.

DEATH: For his wife, children, father and ourself, we again thank the many friends who have been so kind during his long illness. Their thoughtfulness in word and deed was more gratefully appreciated by him than any words of ours can express. Our own Lodge and friends at home, the Lodges at Hebron, Westford, Beaver Dam, and Fox Lake, old friends at
Lake Mills, H. P. Stanley, of Chicago, Elisha Hitcheus, of Williamsport, Indiana, and Gerrit Smith of N. Y., showed their regard practically, the remembrance adding much to his comfort and relieving anxiety.

DEATH: To the editors of the political papers who have remembered him in his sickness, paying just tribute to his services in the temperance cause, we are also grateful.

DEATH: In closing, we acknowledge the remittance from Ancient City Lodge, Aztalan, received a few days before his death, accompanied by the following resolution:

DEATH: Resolved, That we do not consider we are giving, but that we as a temperance organization owe to Bro. Brown, in view of his past labors in the temperance cause more than we shall ever be able to pay.

DEATH: Thanks to the brothers, and sisters for their testimonial.

BIRTH: Thurlow Weed Brown was an editor of the Cuyuga Chief in Auburn, Cayuga county, NY from Jan 4, 1849 to 1855.

BIRTH: His newspaper policy was Independent in everything, neutral in nothing. Temperance and anti-slavery. Format was: Four pages, varying sizes, 16" x 22 1/4", 18" x 23 1/4 ". Price: $1.00 per year in advance. Published from the corner of 74 Genesee St. and South St. over the Post Office. Then from the Exchange Building, corner of Genesee and South Sts.; in 1854 from the Markham Block on North St. "The Cayuga Chief was an original, vigorous and outspoken temperance journal, continued in Auburn for eight years when it was removed to Wisconsin, and there continued under the same ownership.(Storke, History of Cayuga County, p. 53)

BIRTH: By the time his mother died in April of 1857, Thurlow was already living in Fort Atkinson, WI as was his sister, Emma. He was staunch supporter of the Temperance Movement and his newspaper was dedicated its crusade against alcohol. He wrote a book, ' Minnie Hermon, The Rumseller's Daughter' and completed it while very ill. He wrote with conviction as his family had known the perils and heartaches associated with the trama of living with a drunkard. His father was also a temperance supporter.

BIRTH: He was extemely close to his mother and her death must have left a terrible ache in his heart.

Thurlow spent many years writing the book " Minnie Hermon, The Rumseller's Daughter." Several chapters were written about his own family. It was not until I read this tribute after his death, that it became evident the story was written about his mother and her father, the drunkard.


The Rev. H. A. Reid, of the Dodge County Citizen, gave a tribute to Thurlow about three weeks after his death. The following is the text that was delivered to the Temperance Society. The town in which it was delivered is unknown.

"Rev. H. A. Reid, of the Doge County Citizen, delivered the following on the life and character of T. W. Barown, late editor of the Wisconsin Chief."

Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Convention:

About three weeks ago I received the appointment of your President to prepare for this occation a "Memorial of the life and character of the late Thurlow W. Brown, of the Wisconsin Chief." The appointment came at a time when I was more than usually pressed with cares and engagements both at home and abroad; and I hence, from this fact, and the very short notice, at best, for such a work, and the task being one of which I had not had the remotest thought before, the preparation I have been able to make is necessarily very imperfecrt and incomplete; but I have done the best that my circumstances in the case would admit of.

Thurlow Weed Brown, our eminent confrere, recently deceased, and whose honorable careet and noble character it is my office to portray in works of fraternal esteem, was born in Preston, Chenango county, NY., Nov. 24th, 1819.

Mr. Brown was descended of full blood New England Puritan stock; he could readily trace the links of his lineage back to the 'Mayflower," of blessed memory, and that dreary December scene, where the Pilgrim Fathers, of towering faith, and calm submissive trust in Freedom's God, landed on Plymouth Rock, and planted amid the snows and rocks of the storm-beaten coast, the seed-principals of empire that now sway our continent and shape the destinies of untold millions of human souls. The blood of the Pilgrims, flowing throught some generations of unworthy veins, revived again and reasserted in him that lofty moral heroism and indomitable faith in God which was the chief great light they lifted amid the darkness of an age that knew not God, neither regared his laws in behalf of the poor, the down-trodden, the oppressed of every name.

Young Thurlow was brought up to habits of industry and thrift; he early evinced a remarkable degree of mechanical ingenuity and skill, making bureaus, stands, tables, chairs, with carvings, ornaments and parts all complete, that would have done credit to a professional master workman. While yet young, and withur any learning of the art, he made three first rate bass biols; and I have seen in his office a writing desk, a bank of drawers, case stands, brass galleys, &., of his own make, which were every way equal, and in some oints better than I have bought from professional manufacturers. From his childhood up, he wa a prodigy both in mechanical genius and handicraft, doing his work always neat, snug, tasteful, and substantial.

In his boyhood he was much engaged at farm work, and at the trade of carriage-making; both of which occupations his father carried on. And thus was built up from a naturally vigorous constitution, a manly frame of great muscular power and exceeding quickness. He was first among his fellows in all the accustomed boyish feats of strength, agility and athletic skill.

As a school boy, he was diligent, quick to learn, and always eager to make progress and gain knowledge; and his large conscientiousness tempered his exuberant love of sport with a deep respectful deference to the rights and wishes of the teachers, so that he rarely needed reproof, and always won the love, confidence and esteem of his teachers. he had also that manly earnestness of character and that matureness of thaought beyond his years, which commands the interest, affection and association of elder people; yet he was the life of the cirlcle among his youthful associates, when they came together for a party of the olden time- sleigh-ride, a quilting, an apple bee, a sugar party, or the like. On such occasions he was the merriest of the merry, and would set the whole company ablaze with the kindlings of his own vivacity.

His advantages of scholastic culture and training never reached beyond the comon schools of his day. But the people of his native town had established a good public library, which was kept by his father, as Librarian, for many years; and, as you might expect, young Thurlow did not fail to improve this advantage to the fullest extent--thus gaining a vast deal of unsystematized general information. His father was a man of strong, ardent sympathies, and alwys worked with a will for any cause he espoused; his house was always well supplied with the leading newspapers of the day, and he daily talked politics and other currents matters with his family just as freely as if they were all grown up, responsible members of society; and in this way the children were all early and deeply impressed with a livng sense of their duties for the public weal. And thus was our departed friend being taught in this daily school of experience, his own dear and cherished home circle those great and practical lessons of burning devotion, of self-sacrifice and enduring faith which his soul instinctively drank in as waters of life, richly refreshing its native thirst; and which laid the foundation of that grand mission, apostleship, martyrdom and triumph, in the midst of whose garnered fruits of fame and success his weary, weary spirit soared away to the haven of rest in the bosom of God's enfolding love, to go no more out forever.


In May, 1839, the family removed from Preston to the town of Sterling, in Cuyuga county; and we first find yung Brown before the public as a speaker during the memorable and fierce presidential campaign of 1840. Though himself not entitled to vote until about two weeks after the election, he seems to have entered into the whirling conflict of parties and policies with youthful ardor, and to have freely exercised and cultivated his gifts as a speaker by taking the stump in the rural districts, where the common people heard him gladly. His career was begun, though it did not yet appear what it should be, or whither it should tend. The passion for oratoruy stirred withim him; but the devine call to a great and holy mission had not yet voiced its living utterance in his soul; the warrior instinct burned and quickened in is spirit, but the great moral war-path of a lifetime was not yet revealed to his prophetic vision.

Again in 1844 we find him and his father hotly engaged in the political conflict, holding meetings and giving public addresses in every neighborhood, village and school district, in all the region round about their village home. In the year following, the State canvass of New York turned mainly on the license law question, as between the whiskey interest and the temperance principle on this subject. The elder Brown (William Brown) was a pioneer veteran in the temperance cause; the first public address ever given in Preston on this subject was by him, about forty years ago--and he took ground then full as radical as its most advanced advocates hold at the present day. The old man (Wright S. Brown) had drank deeply in his boyhood of the cup of bmitterness that comes to the drunkard's family, and commenced his toilsome career "by working to pay the rumseller's executions against his father." And thus from his youth up his heart had been a fiery furnace seven times heated with fire and brimstone hatred of the rum traffic. And his wife, too, Thurlow's mother, had suffered from her girlish days up to ripe womanhood the horrors and agonies that only a drunkard's child can know--pangful experiences more deeply tinged with the gall and bitterness of fate than ever a Bulwer's tragic pen portrayed. And thus was poured into young Thurlow's veins from two such memories, scourged and scarred with the fiendish wrongs of the rum traffic, the read hot currents of a subtler life. And deriving from a hardy stock, a tough and vigorour physical constitution, he leaped as it were into the foremost ranks of that grand army of reformers who have kept the temperance banner proudly afloat for lo, these many years.

From this time forward our friend felt the devine call and annointing for this mission, and daily consecrated every energy of his being to the one gigantic aim and effort of ridding our fair land of that burning curse--drunkenness and the rum traffic. In the latter part of this year, 1845, he achieved his first important success as a newspaper writer, in a series of articles which appeared in the Star of Temperance, a weekly journal published at the city of Auburn, N. Y.; and in a few months he was called to the editorial chair of the paper. Here his genius found full play in a congenial field, and he soon gave forth sterling proof of the fine mastery of language, thought and imagery which was native in him, and of the tremendous energy with which he could hurl the battle blades of logic, sacasm, invecive, denunciation, or sound the bugle blast of valiant leadership in so noble ans so sharp a fight. When he took hold of the Star of Temperance it had four hundred subscrivers, and in about two years he swelled the list to three thousand. In 1848 the Star office wa removed to Rochester; but he remained at Auburn. In 1849 he started the Cuyuga Chief, with a capital of just seven dollars, and a list of a hundred and seventy subscribers, which swelled in a few years upwards of three thousand. Such are the signs and crowning glory of successful editorship. And here he remained seven ears, wielding his trenchant pen, as the master spirit in the conduct of his press, while at the same time he was almost constantly traveling as a lecturer--thus doing double duty, overtaxing his energies, wearing his life out prematurely, as a willing sacrifice to the grand cause which it was his meat and drink to serve.

By the year 1853, he had attained such celebrity that Derby and Miller, the well lnown book publishers of Auburn, with their branch houses in Buffalo and Cincinnati, ventured a volume of "Temperance Tales and Hearth Stone Reveries, " gahtered from his writing in the Cuyuga Chief, and which attianed a large and prifitable sale. This volume was almost immediatley followed by his story of "Minnie Hermon," which made a book of 472 pages, issured by the same publishers, and met with a leeral deree of favor from the sotry reading public. His first volume is dedicated to his mother, with this sentiment, " My she live to see the dark night which rested upon her childhood's heart and home, pass away; and the eveing of her life close as cloudless as its morning dawned desolate and sad." His second volume, of "Minnie Hermon," is dedicated to his father, with this sentiment: "In his green old age, may he witness the passing away of that malign shadow which rested so gloomily upon his childhood."

The introductory pages of his volume of Temperance Tales and Sketches are devoted to a series of letters, under the heading of "Why I am a Temperance Man;" and in the closing letter he gives a brief sketch of his mother's childhood--depicting with sad vividness how her home was ruined, her mother heart-broken and untimely chrushed into a pauper grave by a husband and father's drunkeness. A frail, slender girl of fifteen, borne down with the keen agony of her great bereavement, is driven to toil in a factory, while the besotted father draws her wages week by week, the instant of their falling due, and squanders it at the tavern; he robs her of her hard earnings to slake his unholy thirst for strong drink, leaving her and a large family of smaller children to beg their bread or eke out a scanty subsistance as best they might, with the gnawings of hunger and the bitterness of cold sapping their young life, till at last they are scattered out to menial drudgery, or grudged support as pauper children; and one of the group, a dear little girl of three summers, dies in a dreary, cruel place, neglected and alone--her little heart broken and famished with its unrequited yearning for a mother;s love or a sister's gentle care--literally starved and frozen to death in a wintry night in the house of people who could barely give roof to the drunkard's child; and the factory girl could not even weep over the grave of that baby sister, so early gone to rest in the angel arms of the dear loved one gone before. In conclusion of this dark, sad story, Mr. Brown say: "Such are but the outlines of a childhood and youth of suffering, himiliation and sorrow. The details are known only to the sufferer and to God. Memory rolls back upon its bitter tide the history of such scenes, the fountain of tears is opened afresh, and flows as bitterly as in the past."

The factory girl--that drunkard's daughter--that child-pauper, who toiled while a drunken father drank down her wages--who went hungry for bread--who was deprived of society and education, and entered upon life's stern realities with no inheritance but poverty and a father's infamy--is our Mother!

"God! how the veins knot and burn, as the tide whose every drop is bitter with the memory of her wrongs sweeps to our finger ends! Our soul throbs fimly in our pen, until we clutch involuntarily for a good blade, and wish the rum traffic were embodied in one demon form, that we coudl go forth with God's blessing and smite the hell-born monster.

"To that mother we owe most of our hatred of the rum traffic. We imbibed it from her breast, and learned it from her in childhood. A father, too, his strong form untainted by the scourge, has taught us the same lesson. The memories of his childhood are darkened by the thoughts of a drunken father. He grappled alone with life's difficulties, and commenced his career by working to pay rumseller's executions against his deceased father.

"Thus from the cradle have we been educated to hate the scourge. that hatred is mingled with every Pilgrim drop in our veins. It grows with our growth and strenghtens with our strength. In athe high noon of manhood we swear, by friends on earth and God in Heaven, a life-long warfare against the traffic. There can be no compromise. It is a conflict of extermination, and the blows will only fail when the battle of life is ended, and our strong right arm is mingled with its mother dust."

These extracts will serve to show the heredity head-stream and native springs whence flowed the intensity of righteous bitterness and warfare against the liquor traffic that characterized his whole career, whether as editor, story writer, or public speaker.

In 1855, appeared Mr. D. W. Bartlet's book of "American Agitators and Reformers," in which T. W. Brown was ranked with such worthies of the living age as Theodore Parker, Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Henry Ward Beecher, Horace Greely, and some fifteen others scarcely less known to fame and the archives of heroism--the Hebrew prophets come again in the flesh, to rebuke sin in high places, and rebaptize our grovelling humanity with a sense of the living God, who executes righteousness and judgement in the earth for all them that are oppressed.

In 1849, He married a woman worthy of him, and in whose wifely love and devotion he found unceasing joy to the day of his death.. Unto them seven children have been born, three of whom passed early to the spirit-land, and four remain, to mourn with their mother the loss of him who was cherished with almost idolatrous reverence and affection in that beautiful home circle.

Mr. Brown early joined the Order of Sons of Temperance, and was at one time an officer in the Grand Division of Western New York.--and was, by his own desire , laid away to his rest with his Grand Division regalia on his breast--a fitting emblem of the warefare he had waged, and a token that he died in full panoply of fight.

In 1853, he first came West, to attend a session of the National Grand Divison of Son of Temperance, at Chicago; and lectured a few times before his return. In 1854, he again came West to seek rest and recuperation, and spent several weeks at Hebron, in Jefferson County, Wisconsin, where he had relatives residing. The elimate seemed to be beneficial to him, and he bought a small place at Hebron, where he settled with his family in November of that year. From this quiet retreat he wrote editorial correspondence for the Cayuga Chief, which was still going on in his name, but was conducted and managed by his sister, Emma, he frequently passing back and forth, lecturing, from East to West. In 1856, it was decided to move the Chief West., and preparations were made to that end.

When the time finally came for the departure from Auburn, a grand Temperance demonstration was gotten up by his friends to commenorate the occasion, to give him and his the parting tear of affection and bid them Godspeed in their new field of arduous toil and battle against the great common foe of humanity. This meeting was one of the most flattering tributes ever said to an editor in this country--not even exceeded, all things considered, by the affecting birht-day honors to that venerable partiarch of the press, Wm. Cullen Byrant, less that a year ago. Nearly all the Temperance editors of the State were there, including the vereran, Rv. Dr. Marsh, of New York City, who gave a powerful address, and showered unmeasured thanks and compliments upon the Cayuga Chief. Letters all aglow with warmest gratitude, affection and eulogy, were read from Hon. Myron Clark, then Governor of the State, Hon. Neal Down, of Maine, Gen. S. F. Carey, of Ohio, Hon. Gerritt Smith, and others. Geo. W. Bungay,now one of the recognized poets of ur country prepared and read a lengthy poem for the occasion, in which he says:

"Among the laborers in this vineyard, few
Have worked like Thurlow, or have been so true;
Success to him where'er he drives his stakes:
No grass will grow upon the trail he makes.
When called to battle for the cause of right,
His plume will toss amid the thickest fight;
Wene'er he strikes, his tomahawk is felt,
And a new scalp is added to his belt.

The same poem has this pasing allusion to the elder Brown"

"There's one whose head is crowned with winter's snow,
But whose brave heart is warmed with summer's glow;
A man of vigor, talent, force and skill,
Who writes with aquafortis in his quill."

A tribute is also paid to the sister, Emma, whose noble, womanly worth, and untiring devotion to her brother's aid in his great work, has been an arm of strength, comfort and support to him from the first, and was indeed a corner stone of all the success he achieved. She has been joint editor and publisher with him for seventeen years, and is struggling on alone in the same path, now that his amnly arm is lad low, and his cheerful voice and strudy pen are silenced in the tomb. Let her be honered as a faithful and worthy compeer in our journalistic fraternity.

The first issue of the Cuyuga Chief in Wisconsin was dated at Fort Atkinson, Wednesday, October 15, 1856; but the name was soon changed to Wisconsin Chief, and so it stands to this day. The paper has never enjoyed the repute and sucess in this State that it did in New York, though kept up with the same vigor and abiltiy; many and various circumstances conspired to this result; but it is not my purpose or province now to meddle with matters which it were at once painful and useless to recall. Suffice to say, the paper and the publishers suffered great pecuniary loss by their removal West, and they have from that time to this labored under heavy, wearying, discouraging load of embarrassment, that would long ago have crushed out the last ray of hope from hearts less stout in the championship of their righteous cause.

At the annual session for the 1863 of the Grand Lodge of Good Templars, the Wisconsin Chief was voted to be the official organ of the Order in Wisconsin. The vote was renewed in 1864 and 1865--and so it stands at this day.

I have now passed over, in this hurried and imperfect manner, the main points of note in the personal history as a public man of our worthy friend and brother.

And is now remains for me to speak more particularly of his general character.; his peculiar talents and idiosyncracies, and his special gisfts of genius as an orator, a story wirter, and editor, and a sterling apostle of reform.

General Character.

In the early part of 1852, Mr. Brown passed an examination at the Phrenological rooms of Messrs. Fowler & Wells, in New York City, and received a Chart of his character, as indicated by the rules and principals of Phrenology. On looking over this document, written more than fourteen years ago, I find it to correspond very closely with the general character of the man as I have known him personally, or by reputation, or in his speeches and writings, and shall therefore quote freely from it. The very first sentence in the Chart says;

"Under favorable circumstances your body would be able to sustain your brain; but in a pruely mental occupation, your body would become deprived of its power and vital force."

And it is a painful remembrance among his friends, that for ten or twelve years past he has constantly suffered from a sense of weariness--always tired, so tired, --and finally passed away withut any special desease, but simply worn out--his life forces exhausted by unremitting mental toil. But agian I quote:

"You should be known for four or five leading traits of charachter; one is uncommon Firmness, which gives a desire to carry out what you begin, and makes yu cling to it until you effect your purpose;--another is prudence and watchfulness;--another is combative disposition--desire to be on the opposite side; smooth water would not please you. You began life with but little Self-Esteem--quite too little; but I think it is improving. you often feel so bashful you can hardly speak, though you may have the consciousness that you know as much as other men. You should be known for love of wit and the ridiculous, and the power of sacasm; and for your knowledge of human character, with a desire to understand and develop mind and character; hence you would make a very good story writer. But you would draw your matter from reflection and reason rather than from observation--give a picture of your own mind rather than of the outer world. You have a better memory of of ideas than of facts; you do not take enought notice of the active world around you to classifly facts and get them linked together and make them historically correct; You can make facts, and weave in supposed circumstances, and make a consistent story; but you have much more to do with dieas than facts."

Those who are in anywise famliar with his stories will at onced recognize the correctness of this sketch; and iscover in his large combativeness the source ofhtose almost inevitable scenes of savagery and teror, oozy with bllod, and black with horrible deaths, whcih he so delighted and excelled in portraying. And again;

"Language is well developed, and when warmed up you are quite fluent in conversation. If confined to statistics, with nothing to excite you, you would be a dry speaker. A subject in whcih your faculties work freeely arrouse such a class of energies as to make you eloquent.

You have children; you love home; and you have a strong love for friends; but you are so particular in the selection of your friends that very few will answer your purpose. You would review a whole regiment before you could select your staff.

"If you were a lawyer you would sometimes make a splendid effort, and sometimes make a failure; you must be in just such circumstances to call you out, --and the subject must be a matter of some consequence, and either a matter of ridicule or Benevolence on which you are to gain a victory.

You believe but little in the dogmatiic doctrines of men, yet you ahve a high reverence for things sacred, and for the center of the them--the Great Creator.

Your Casualty and Comparison are both decidedly large; you are a narual reasoner, and are stgrongly disposed to inquire into the philosophy of subjects. Had you more perceptivemess you would be more practiced. In business or in literature you should be coupled with those who have more practical talent."

Mr. Brown's social nature was warm, generous and free, among those with whom he was on terms of friendly intimacy; but he had no disposition to squander his energies with promiscuous acquaintance-making. His mother was the one dear idol of his strong affection, and his heart yearned to her with inexpressible love to his latest hour. A subtle and mysterious bond of the spirit consciously linked them, as only mother and son of noblest nature can feel earch other's living ministry of love. And when he became himself a husband and a father, he was no less idolatrous of the jewels in that new made family shrine. Home was ever to his heart the cherished ideal and synonym of Heaven.

His temperament was of the fine, exquisite, enthusiastic quality, ---susceptable, to a fault, and keenly capable of the most transcendent enjoyment or the most excruciating agony. And from the wild blossoming and fruitage of these extremes of the luxurieant life within himself, he gathered the strange, weird weapons of his power as an orator and a writer; he was unquestionably brilliant, original and impressive in both characters. He was in great measure one of those men who are "in the world, yet not of the world." The ideal life, within his own radiant world of mind, was more of living reality to him than all the pomp and bustle and circumstance of outward things. His philosophy was of the abstract rather thatn the concrete; he was an idealist rather than a materialist. But he stoutly and steadfastly drove his idealism to logical results, as a tangible, material power in the land. When the crucible of his brain had smelted a golden or silver thought, he hatened to barb it with flinty steel, and try its temper gainst some giant wrong of the ages and the age. And he recked not of party or power, of Church or State, if they stood, or seemed to stand, in the vantage ground to shield the monster iniquity, but grasped his trusty lance with all the more vigor and lusty relish of the tilt, as having found a foe waorhty of his knightliest thrust and sternest grapple, to wrench the victory out of the very jaws of fate.



Term: Brown, Thurlow Weed 1819 - 1866
Definition: temperance editor, author, b. Preston, N.Y. He moved with his family to Sterling, N.Y., in 1839 where he began temperance work. In 1849 he established the successful temperance paper, Cayuga Chief, at Auburn, N.Y. He also published two books on the subject, Temperance Tales (1853) and Minnie Hermon (1854). In 1854 he moved to Hebron, Wis., for his health. Two years later he moved the Cayuga Chief to Fort Atkinson, and in 1857 renamed it the Wisconsin Chief, adding antislavery agitation to his temperance crusade. His paper was a financial failure in Wisconsin, but more than any man, he revived the flagging Wisconsin temperance movement. His writing and oratory were vehement, sarcastic, and vitriolic. Proc. Wis. Editorial Assoc., 1866 (1866), pp. 23-27, 1867 (1868), pp. 113-120; Milwaukee Sentinel, May 7, 1866.
[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]

The dedication of one of his books, Minnie Hermon, was to his Father...as follows:

"To Our Father, whose precept and example have ever guided us to virtue, temperance and honor, this volume is affectionately dedicated. In his green old age, may he witness the passing away of that malign shadow which rested so gloomily upon his childhood."

Thurlow married Alward Helen E. on 06 Jun 1849 in Venice, Cayuga County, NY. Helen was born in 1831; died in 1890 in "The Oaks", Near the Village of Fort Atkinson, Jefferson Co., WI; was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, Fort Atkinson, Jefferson Co., WI. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

In an article published in the Milton newspaper that the Hon. Neal Brown, of Wausau, WI had attended his brother's funeral and became a mainstay of the family since Carey's illness and had done everything possible for his brother before his death. This is the first mention of another child in the family.


Here is the article about Hon. Neal Brown from Wausau in 1900:WAUSAU IN 1900Hon. Neal Brown.Hon. Neal Brown is a lawyer by profession and a philosopher by inheritance; he is a lover of nature, a sportsman in the truest sense of the term and a writer of much ability. He might with propriety be called a genial grumbler. Were he not a Brown he would be a Carlyle, and the quaint and cynical and incisive criticisms of men and things with which he is wont to regale and always to edify his friends, are of a quality to do the great, grim, rugged Thomas Carlyle no discredit. Mr. Brown is himself great, grim and rugged, and his knowledge is confined to no narrow scope. It is practically world-wide. He is widely and accurately read, is perennially cocked and primed for the deep discussion of all things natural, or super-natural, or subnatural, and he rarely talks in private or in public without teaching his listeners something worth knowing, which they had never before known.
Mr. Brown's attainments and reputation in the legal profession are enviable and steadily growing. He is the senior member of the firm of Brown, Pradt & Genrich, attorneys at law, which has attractive offices in the First National Bank building, and enjoys deservedly the high rank which has been honestly earned.A Badger by birth, having been born in Jefferson county, Wisconsin, in 1856, Mr. Brown has spent all the years of his life in this state. He continued to reside in Jefferson county until 1877, attending the county schools. In 1880 he graduated from the law school of the University of Wisconsin and came to Wausau in July of the same year, and has resided here continuously ever since, steadily adding to his reputation as a lawyer and as a hale fellow, well met. He represented Marathon County as assemblyman two years and for four years served in the State Senate from his district.
Mr. Brown was married July 2, 1892, to Louise Norton of Lockport, Ill. They have an elegant home, surrounded by attractive groves of native trees and shrubs, all set by Mr. Brown who is an enthusiast on the subject of tree culture and landscape gar-dening.Mr. Brown is a member of Wausau Lodge Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and Forest Lodge No. '3° F. & A. M.


Term: Brown, Neal 1856 - 1917
Definition:
lawyer, businessman, politician, b. Jefferson County. He was the son of Thurlow Weed Brown (q.v.). He graduated from the Univ. of Wisconsin (LL.B., 1880), moved to Wausau, and set up a law practice. In 1885, he and two partners formed the Wausau Law and Land Association, a firm dealing in real estate throughout northern Wisconsin, as well as in Michigan, Minnesota, the Pacific coast, and the South. One of the most powerful businessmen in northern Wisconsin, Brown was among the organizers of the Wausau Street Railway, the Marathon Paper Mills Co., the Wausau Sulphate Fiber Co., and the Chisholm Electric Co. (Minnesota), and was an active promoter of the Wisconsin Valley Electric Co. A consistent opponent of governmental restrictions on business, he campaigned to eliminate tariff restrictions and fought state control of Wisconsin water-power rights. Originally a Republican, he became a Democrat in 1888 and served as state assemblyman (1891-1892) and state senator (1893-1896). In 1908 he was the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate. He was president of the state bar association in 1909. L. Marchetti, Hist. of Marathon Co. . . . (Chicago, 1913); Wausau Daily Record-Herald, Sept. 19, 1917; N. Brown, Critical Confessions (Wausau, 1899).
The Wisconsin Historical Society has manuscripts related to this topic. See the catalog description of the Neal Brown Papers for details.
[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]

Cornelius married Norton Louisa H. on 02 Jul 1892 in Lockport, Will County, IL. Louisa was born on 06 Apr 1865 in Lockport, Will County, IL. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Jefferson County Union Newspaper 9 May 1890

Obituary for Cary Alward Brown
1860-1890

Death of Cary Brown

Cary Brown, who the past two years has made a heroic battle against that dread disease, consomption, died at Mobile, Alabama, Tuesday. He was married about two and a half years ago to Miss Cella (Marcella) Thiry, a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Thiry, and apparently had a fine start in life. The news that he was in the first stages of consumption was a painful surprise to his friends at the time, as he was known to possess a vigorous constitution, was always strong and broad of chest. The disease had progressed very far before anything was done. Shortly after a medical examination he went to Colorado, alone, to recuperate. Not improving, his wife joined him and a few months after, they started home with a prairie schooner, arriving early last fall.

Afdter a months's stay they set out with their covered wagon for the gulf states. They reached Alabama some weeks since and were journeying to Thomasville, GA when Carey becaem much worse and they went into Mobile. In their travels they had journeyed over 2,000 miles. Deceased was born in this township, April 27, 1860 and was thus 30 years old. The body was brought here for burial Thursday. The funeral services are to be held at the Congregational Church at 3:30 p. m. today, conducted by Rev. W. W. Rose. The remains wil be interred in Evergreen cemetery. Much sympathy is expressed for his young and faithful wife, thus early bereaved.

Also in the Jefferson County Union paper, 9 May, 1890 was the following:

Honorable Neal Brown, of Wausau, is in attendance at the funeral of his brother Carey, today. He has been the mainstay of the family since Carey's illness, and has done all for his brother that it was posssible to do.

Jefferson County Union paper; EAst Koshkonong (from a Union Correspondant) 16 May 1890.

Mrs. Cary Brown, who for one and one-half years has been traveling with her husband through the West and South in the vain attempt to restore him to health , returned last week with his remains and they were interred in Evergreen cemetery. She is with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Chas. Thiry, where she will, for the present remain. Their many friends here deeply sympathize with her in her sorrow.

Carey married Thiry Marcella on 30 Dec 1887 in WI. Marcella was born on 30 Dec 1867 in Koshkonong, Jefferson County, WI; died on 11 Jan 1928 in Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, WI; was buried on 15 Jan 1928 in Evergreen Cemetery, Fort Atkinson, Jefferson Co., WI. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Both Carey and wife, Gertrude are buried in the Thiry family plot at Milton Junction Cemetery in Milton Junction, Rock County, WI. He was living in Milwaukee, WI as was his mother at the time of her death.

Obituary that appeared in the Jefferson County Union paper on July 9, 1953.

CARY BROWN
1891-1953

Cary Brown, 61, former Milton Junction resident, died on Thursday in the Portage hospital where he had been critically ill for a week. He was born Dec. 5 1891, on a farm near Fort Atkinson, the son of Cary Alward and Marcella Thiry Brown.

His early life was spent in and near Milton Junction. On May 28, 1924, he was married to Gertrude Koerner of Milwaukee and for the past 20 years they have resided at Buffalo Lake, near Montello. Surviving are his wife, and an aunt, Mrs. A. M. Paul, Milton Junciton.

Funeral services were held in Montello at 1 p.m. Monday, and burial was in the Milton Junction cemetery at 3:30 p. m.

Carey married Koerner Gertrude on 28 May 1924 in Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, WI. Gertrude was born in 1881 in Of Milwaukee, Milwaukee County, WI; died in 1972 in Buffalo Lake near Montello, Marquette County, WI; was buried in Milton Junction Cemetery, Milton Junction, WI. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]