Alexander Brown - A wee bit Irish

Alexander Brown - A wee bit Irish

By Teresa Martin Klaiber January 2020

Alexander Brown, was born in Ireland, according to son, Rev. Matthew Brown, family stories, and children’s census records. At least three sons were born in Ireland: Adam Brown born 8 April 1766, Samuel born about 1770, and Isaac Newton Brown born 16 April 1771.

Both Adam and Samuel migrated from Ireland to Hampshire County, Virginia, where their father  settled, then on to Ohio County, Kentucky. When Adam Brown died in Ohio County, 10 August 1853 from flux, the death register listed his father Alexander and mother as Winney Brown.  Winney is most likely short for Winifred an old English/Welsh given name.  DNA,  for this compiler, indicates that Adam is a ½ brother to later siblings, confirming, what earlier researchers suspected, that Alexander had more than one wife.

In a published sketch, it is stated that Samuel Brown immigrated to America with his father when he was twelve years old[i].  If this statement is accurate then Alexander and family migrated to America in 1782.  According to one researcher[ii] Winney Brown died in Ireland before the migration.

The first confirmed documentation of Alexander Brown is in Frederick County, Virginia on the personal property tax of 1782 with 10 white and 1 black within the household.  From experience, this compiler believes that Alexander actually arrived in America about 1781 to be established in Fredrick and paying taxes by 1782.   Historically the Irish Volunteers had organized and in December 1781 had met at a meeting place of the Presbyterian Synod of Ulster. The Brown children appear in later Presbyterian records in America.  As they settled in America they were faced with talk of the Battle of Guilford Court House in North Carolina and the surrender at Yorktown.

Conjecture repeated by some researchers say Alexander had a wife Mary Bradford. Grace Kelso Garner[iii], wrote that Nancy Caudy daughter of James Caudy, Jr. married 30 October 1781 to George Alexander Brown. She then cites the children of our Alexander Brown. In 1995, Wilmer L. Kerns wrote in Frederick County Virginia Settlement And Some First Families of Back Creek Valley that Garner was erroneous.  A deed and mortgage involving Alexander and Thomas Lewis written a year prior to Alexander’s death indicates that his wife was named Ann.[iv]  To date it is not clear who the mother of nine of Alexander’s children was.

Alexander was active in Frederick County and was witness to the will of John Buckanon in January 1789.   In 1791 Alexander Brown purchased property from William Linegar in Hampshire County, Virginia. He paid 120 pounds for 223 acres on the North River at Great Cacapon.  He settled at the mouth of the North River of the Great Cacapon on the wagon road leading from Romney (Hampshire County)  to Winchester (Frederick County).  The state road was completed from Winchester to Romney in 1786.  Brown was involved in a Chancery court case involving Isabel Feeley in 1795.[v]  By March 1792 he was established in his new home and  appears in a list of letters remaining at the post office at Winchester, Frederick County, Virginia.[vi]

Kern’s surmised that Alexander Brown was a blacksmith because he gave grandson William Day blacksmith tools in his will.  Alexander wrote his will on the fourteenth day of August 1816.  Alexander Brown stated these were the tools that he had set up William’s father with. William Day was one of the children of Alexander’s daughter Nancy Brown. Nancy had three children with Ammery Day[vii].  William’s siblings were John Day and Larkin Day.  In 1798 Thomas Henderson was cited as living in adultery with Nancy.  The Day children later utilized the Henderson surname.  Thus it is unclear, at this writing, if Brown set up blacksmith tools for Ammery Day or for Thomas Henderson.  Alexander references daughter Nancy as Day in his will so it is “assumed” the blacksmith tools were for Day.  There is documentation that Alexander Brown paid tax on a grist mill in 1814 and the property he sold to Thomas Lewis has a “merchant” mill which is mentioned further in this report.  He would be paying tax on a mill if it was on his property.  As of this report it is unclear if he is the miller.

No wife is mentioned in Alexander Brown’s will. He gave a slave each to son Adam and Samuel. Alexander then requested that his plantation be sold and the sums divided among the children. He appointed “trusty friend” George Sharf, Daniel Carmichael and John Caudy to be executors of the estate.  The appraisement was June 1817.

The estate lingered in court.  The Winchester Gazette announced a trust sale 19 Oct 1822 for 124 acres by subscriber Thomas Lewis for payment of a certain sum due to George Sharf and Daniel Carmicheal, executors of Alexander Brown.  The land was to be sold at the tavern door of said Lewis upon the premises to the highest bidder.  The land described as on the road leading from Winchester to Romney including a Merchant Mill[viii] and an excellent stand for a tavern having been occupied as such for several years.  It appears the property did not sell at that time.  Instead it was leased to John Martin & Nicholas Baker with John Brown acting as trustee prior to John’s migration to Perry County, Ohio.  They failed to make their payments.[ix] In October 1828 Matthew Brown, David Brown, John Clayton & Polly late Brown his wife, David Pugh and wife Jane late Brown, Samuel Rusk and Elizabeth nee Brown his wife appointed Isaac Brown of Perry County, Ohio to act as their attorney-in-fact.[x]  It was not until April 1834 that Adam and Samuel Brown both of Ohio County, Kentucky also appointed Isaac Brown to act as their attorney-in-fact.[xi]  Isaac Newton Brown finalized the sale of the property to John Wolford in 1837.[xii]

The will, as well as tax records, prove that Alexander Brown was a slave owner.  Son Matthew Brown was interviewed, in Bowling Green, Ohio, as the oldest man in the county. He said that when a lad he saw his father sell a woman who had two little children and saw the frantic mother begging to intercede for permission for her to come back some time and see her children.[xiii] This left a deep impression on Matthew who became a devout minister.

Children of Alexander Brown

i.  Adam Brown born 8 April 1766.  Married Marry Baldwin. Resided Ohio County, Kentucky.

ii. Samuel Brown, born about 1770  Ireland, married Hannah Taylor.  Resided in Ohio County, Kentucky.

iii. Nancy Brown birth estimated 1766-1784. M. Ammery Day, associated with Thomas Henderson. Resided in Hampshire County, Virginia.

iv. Isaac Newton Brown, born 16 April 1771 in Ireland; died 01 March 1853  Perry County Ohio; married (1) Mary Clayton 27 October 1795; born 18 February 1777 in VA; died 27 January 1822 in Perry County Ohio; married (2) Eleanor Chenoweth 27 March 1823 in Perry County Ohio.

v. Jane Brown birth estimated between 1775 – 1794.  Married David Pugh. Jane died  19 Sep. 1824 Perry County, Ohio.

vi. Mary Brown, born February 1779; died 28 August 1858 in Clayton Township, Perry County Ohio; married John Calvin Clayton Abt. 1799. Died Perry County, Ohio. She is the ancestor of this compiler.

vii. Elizabeth Brown born between 1785 & 1794. Married Samuel Rusk. Resided Perry County, Ohio.

viii. Rev Matthew Brown, born 16 June 1786 Frederick County VA; died 27 October 1884 Wood County Ohio; married Mary Constance Queen 14 April 1811.

ix.  John Brown born 1791 – 1792. Hampshire Co., Va. 1810. Said to marry 1. Polly Skinner.  John 1830 in Pike Twp., Perry Co., OH with female b 1790-1800. Marries Mary Meddleton in Perry County, Ohio in 1836.  Rev. Matthew Brown performed marriage. Migrated to Knox Co., MO between 1850 & 60.  He names a son Isaac.  (Isaac Newton Brown s/o Alexander also bore a son John Brown in 1798 Hampshire County.  Caution researchers to not confuse records). 

x. David Brown born about 1793 Hampshire County, Virginia.  Migrated to Pike Township, Perry County, Ohio.

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[i] W. H. PERRIN. J. H. BATTLE, G. C. KNIFFIN, KENTUCKY A HISTORY OF THE STATE, EMBRACING A CONCISE ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE VIRGINIA COLONY; ITS EXPANSION WESTWARD, AND THE SETTLEMENT OF THE FRONTIER BEYOND THE ALLEGHANIES; THE ERECTION OF KENTUCKY AS AN INDEPENDENT STATE, AND ITS SUBSEQUENT DEVELOPMENT. , F. A. BATTEY AND COMPANY, 1888.[ii] Hal Harrocks[iii] Early Settlers of Western Frederick and Eastern Hampshire County[iv] Virginia, Hampshire dbk 19 p. 288-290 Alexander Brown and wife Ann to Thomas Lewis of Hampshire County, VA.[v] Library of Va., Chancery Record Index. Frederick 1795-014 LVA reel 175 206 329[vi] Bowen’s Centinel and Gazette. 12 March 1792[vii]Amory Day sold pp to Ransom Day for 35.83 in 1815.  The items included beds, blankets, spinning wheel…tools. Hampshire dbk 19 p 139-40.[viii] Map of Mill Sites c. 1859  shows “a” mill on the road from Romney at North River.  HistoricHampshire.org    James Caudy property was also on North river and he is known to have had a mill in 1813/14.[ix] Virginia, Hampshire dbk 26 p 360[x] Virginia, Hampshire Dbk 26 pp320-321[xi] Virginia, Hampshire Dbk 29 page 326[xii] Virginia, Hampshire dbk 41 page 124.[xiii] Wood County Sentinel, 2 April 1881.

Don't Drink The Water!

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber
November 2010

My email has been flooded since writing "Vomiting Lizards." Many told of family tales of other unusual items eaten. One suggested that Uncle Billy Taylor may have eaten lizard eggs swallowing them whole and then they hatched.

I must confess I have had a history with the lizards of Eastern Kentucky. Most of Kentucky has skinks and blue tailed fence lizards. They scamper unharmed, in the warmth of the sun, along our log home porch and flower beds.

Friends and family enjoy telling of the day I disrobed in front of my son because something was in my pants. Once I got over the panic and found out it was an innocent lizard I calmed enough to let him get back to nature. I am sure he was not happy either having traveled up my leg in unfamiliar terrain. For several years I received gifts of shirts and even socks with lizard motif.

None the less the story of Uncle Billy Taylor seemed very unusual to me. Then along with the other emails I heard from Archivist Steve Green. Steve and I have corresponded for several years on matters involving Eastern Kentucky history and genealogy. He has intrigued and stimulated me about more than one subject. So it should come as no surprise that he was able to supply me with pages of similar stories involving illness and even death by lizard.

With so many available historical newspapers online the task of coordinating articles has become much easier for researchers. Steve submitted seventeen articles between 1884 and 1910 with incidences from Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania and of course Kentucky.

Several of the articles indicated that drinking spring water was the cause of lizards in their stomachs. In that case the articles should have referenced salamanders also found in Eastern Kentucky. Salamanders are a joy to catch when you go "creekin" here in my beloved homeland.

The Stanford Semi-Weekly Interior Journal out of Central Kentucky reported, 20 November 1896, that Julia Parsons, a young girl of Union County, swallowed a lizard while drinking water from a spring. She died in horrible agony the following day.

The Richmond Climax reported August 15, 1900 from an article in the Mt. Sterling Gazette that Willie Farley, of Moreland, [Lincoln County] Kentucky, age six, coughed up a full grown lizard about seven inches in length. The boy was reported to have swallowed the lizard while drinking water and had been in his stomach for some time.

Salamanders are known to rejuvenate body parts after accidents -super regeneration- and scientists have been doing cell studies for years. Answers.com says they have poisonous enzymes in their fangs that can "eat away your insides. Nothing to crazy though." As urban legends go even Snoops.com has a link about eating salamanders.

The water in the well on our farm in Eastern Kentucky is crystal clear and icy cold. The well has served generations of family and friends. While we now have another pumped well and even utilize city water, there is nothing like plunging that stainless bucket down and pulling the water up link by link and drinking from the dipper.

Appalachian genealogy and history is unlike any other in our country and the area is flooded with folklore and old beliefs. The family swears that when Jesse James and his gang robbed the Bank of Huntington, Jesse stopped at our farm and drank from the well commenting that it was the "best water I ever tasted." Some family members declare it was "written up" in a Huntington paper. I have followed the supposed path of the gang members and can't envision they were even close to our farm let alone the well behind the mansion house. I have searched the Huntington [W.VA.] news articles without success. But it is a good story. And wouldn't it been most beneficial for the posse if Jesse had drank a lizard!

Vomiting Lizards

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber
November 2010

The title of this blog certainly is not very pretty but I am betting more than one person will check in to see what it is about. I certainly did a double take when I was recently looking at newspaper articles for 1892 in our area.

The Big Sandy News usually posted activities for various communities. Glenwood is in Lawrence County, Kentucky very close to both the Carter and Boyd County lines. The 16 September 1892 issue brings us this news from Glenwood:

"Last Sunday morning Uncle Billy Taylor was out among his cattle when he became deathly sick. He went to his house and a doctor was called. The old man had begun having convulsions, then began to vomit, when he threw up four grown lizards. He soon got better and says it is a mystery how they got there."

I had trouble swallowing this bit of news. Coming from a background with many doctors my mind is racing as to what actually did happen. My first thought was the gentleman had a severe case of tape worms but surely the physician could tell the difference! There is an eating disorder known as Pica where people eat a variety of things. Gould's Medical Dictionary for 1926 says it is "a craving for unnatural and strange articles of food; a symptom present in certain forms of insanity..."

There are several Taylor families in the area during this time frame so I don't want to "bite off more than I can chew" and will leave the genealogy to the Taylor researchers.


Clip art by clker.com

Sandy Furnace And It's People

compiled by Teresa Martin Klaiber 2010

For many years I have collected tidbits about Sandy Furnace. During a conversation with Ann Sutherland the other day, she mentioned she could recall standing at the John D. Ross Cemetery, and possibly see Sandy Furnace when she was a child. I closed my eyes to visualize the scene and together we decided if you climbed to the highest point just beyond the cemetery and looked down into the bottom lands, with the foliage gone, you probably could see remains of Sandy Furnace.

With the sun gleaming, today, I decided to see just how far the old Furnace was from John D. Ross Cemetery, located on Route 773, more commonly known as Bolts Fork Road to us locals, at the edge of Boyd County. By the road it is exactly 2.8 miles from the cemetery gate to Sandy Furnace located at 23330 Bolts Fork Road. While standing in the sun and humidity my mind began mulling over why the Kentucky Historical Marker was over 3 miles away from the actual furnace. I turned around and drove the meandering beautiful bottom farm land of Bolts Fork to Route #3 where the historical marker has been placed on the main thoroughfare. I am sure they meant well by putting it where most traffic would pass. Over the years I have practically memorized the wording knowing that besides placement of the sign, there was a much larger story.

Furnaces were prevalent in Greenup County and the northern edge of Boyd County and scattered in Carter County. But Sandy Furnace is tucked on the southern edge of the county far from the other producing furnaces. When built it was still in Lawrence County, Kentucky. Much has been written about area furnaces but very little has been compiled on Sandy Furnace. The longest general description was written in Donald Rist's publication Iron Furnaces of the Hanging Rock Iron Region in 1974. Rist had done a little more research than is posted on the Historical marker but gives the same simple basic information that the furnace was built in 1853 by Young, Foster and Company which included Dan and John Young, William Foster and Irwin Gilruth.

Interestingly both the historical marker and Rist lead one to believe that Sandy Furnace ceased operation in 1854 or shortly thereafter. This was not the case. Nor do these tiny blurbs give the general reader the feeling of just how many people in the community were involved or benefited from the Furnace. I can stand on the ridge of our farm nearly 5 miles away and see the indentations in the woods where ore was dug out. If I close my eyes I can imagine the oxen sledding the ore over the ridge, following the creek, struggling up and over Jack and finally arriving at the furnace.

The Geological Survey of 1856 talks about the ore beds being one hundred and five feet higher in the hills. It does not talk about the distance or the many farms that were tapped for the ore. According to the Survey Sandy Furnace was producing seven tons of iron in twenty-four hours and was then hauled to a depot at Catlettsburg and was "twenty-two miles, by the course of the stream, above the mouth of the East Fork of Little Sandy."

The planning and building of Sandy Furnace began in 1848. When John and Daniel Young of Hamilton County, Ohio began with mortgages on the tract of lands on Bolts Fork. William A. Foster and his son Henry were witness to the transactions. William A. Foster along with Theodore Royer began the task of buying up right of ways, timber and ore for the execution of an iron furnace. The deeds are a roll call of those families living at what would shortly be called Sandy Furnace, complete with its own post office. Lawrence County deeds were executed with Henry Morris, Thomas Coburn, William Messer, Madison Stewart, William McCormack, Ellis Taylor, William Brumfield, John D. Ross, James Prichard, William Webb and James Stanley.

John Foster had six sixteenth, Dan two sixteenth, William A. Foster three sixteenth and Irwin Gilruth three sixteenth interest in the furnace.

William A. Foster was already settled in Lawrence County and is not to be confused with William Foster, just several years his elder, who was working at the furnaces in Greenup County. Both were from Pennsylvania.

William A. Foster was settled in Lawrence County prior to the formation of Sandy Furnace. He ran for town trustee in May 1846 in Louisa but appears to not have stayed in town long. William Ely writes about William A. Foster in his Big Sandy Valley. Ely stated that William A. Foster had come to the area with a Pennsylvania Company and is "favorably known in Catlettburg" and had "first made his appearance in Sandy as store keeper for the company." The 1850 Lawrence County, Kentucky census shows William A. as a merchant along with his family including Henry who is listed as clerk and Irwin Gilruth giving occupation as a merchant from Ohio.

Theodore Royer was living in Hamilton County, Ohio in 1850 having married Elizabeth Young. He gave his occupation as a merchant and was also born in Pennsylvania. They migrated to Ann Arbor Michigan and in 1880 he gave his occupation as a retired manufacturer. Mrs. Louie Lovett [DAR #15022], Elizabeth Royer Slauson [DAR 14364], and Adaline Katharine Gross [DAR 14363] were all lineal descendants from the Royer and Young family.

Foster sold most of his interest to Young in 1850 and by 1860 was comfortably living in Catlettsburg listing his occupation as a clerk, owning property. By 1870 he lists his occupation as a retired dry goods clerk.

John Young and his wife Caroline never lived in eastern Kentucky. In 1850 They sold all their interest in Sandy Furnace to William Moore Patton which gave Patton controlling interest. Patton was born in 1803 in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. He had been involved in Vesuvius Furnace in Lawrence County, Ohio and Pennsylvania Furnace in Greenup County. He settled in Catlettsburg and the Patton's went on to own many varied concerns in the area.

Rist tells of the fall of the furnace stack in the summer of 1853 and advertisements in the Ironton Register for 25/26 stone cutters at the furnace. The 1856 Geological Survey talks of coarse sandstone which was over lower limestone "employed as hearth-stones for the furnace." By the time of WPA days there is only one known actual rock quarry in Boyd County located on this compiler's farm. Driving along the bottom land of Bolts Fork I am sure there are many hidden areas that were chiseled out and now overgrown.

By the time of the 1856 survey Patton had sold his controlling interest to William Wurts then of Hamilton County, Ohio. William along with several brothers were also from Pennsylvania and had interest in several area furnaces. A biography of William Wurts was published in Kentucky, A History of the State in 1888. Wurts lived until 1876 and died in Mason County, Kentucky.

The furnace was still active in 1859 when The Iron Manufacturers Guide to Furnaces and Forges...was written by Lesley. Lesley describes that Sandy Furnace makes a very liquid iron from the ores and that the bed was about 5 feet under sandstone "high in the hills" regarded as the "highest workable bed in Carter and Lawrence."

My active mind understands that these powerful manufacturers came into our area and created a living beyond the small poor farming interests. Some stayed like Foster and Patton. Some left legacies in our area and across the river in the iron region of Ohio.

It was hard labor intensive work from the cutting of timber to the digging of ore. The feat of hauling the raw goods to the furnace and the final product taken to the terminals had to be grueling. Stone masons were needed and furnace hands were in demand, animals had to be maintained, all of which helped put food on the table in the Bolts Fork area. A community was created and the deeds that purchased the timber and ore rights are more descriptive than any other historical local document of the time.

The furnace is fallen in now, hidden by a modern home built directly in front of it. Standing in the sun in the middle of Bolts Fork Road, quiet all around, not a person in sight, yet the history is so loud I can hear it. Close your eyes maybe you can share the view with me.