In
the last post we learned that Thomas Brown, youngest son of Timothy Brown and
Hannah Kelly, served on several steam ships
on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers
during the Civil War from 1864 to 1865.
We also learned that Thomas lived in homes for disabled soldiers in
Washington State from 1903 to 1916. (See
previous post - Full Circle) An Application for
Admission, the earliest document in Tom’s records of the Washington Soldiers’
Home and Colony (Soldier’s Home in Orting), shows that he served three separate
tours of duty in three separate locations. Thomas’ earliest service, already identified,
was in the Navy during the Civil War. Of
the other two services, one was in the Cavalry, and the other in an Artillery
unit1. (See Orting application left.)
 |
| Application to Washington Soldiers Home showing previous military service |
Several
events occurred in Chicago after Thomas’ Civil War service which likely
prompted him to leave the area. When
Thomas returned to Chicago after the Civil War, he lived with various family
members from 1866 to 1872, including at the family compound at 219 Jackson
Street during the great fire of 1871. (See
previous post F I R E !) After the
fire, Thomas lived with his brother, James, at 116 Sherman Street – definitely in
1871 and 18722
and, perhaps, longer. (See previous blog
on Thomas’ brother, James, in From Chicago . . . ) James married on March 21, 1875, and,
afterwards, lived with his wife, Louisa Primrose, and her family on Harrison
Street, leaving Thomas on his own.
Perhaps, an even stronger reason to leave the Chicago area was the death
of his brother-in-law, Thomas Roach earlier in the month on March 6, 1875. (See previous blog Where are you Thomas Roche?) Thomas Roach was widowed in 1872 leaving him to care for his two young
sons – James and George. From the
coroner’s report and news article at the time of Thomas Roach’s death, it is
suggested that his mother-in-law, Hannah Brown, (the matriarch of this family),
was also living with Thomas Roach to help care for the children. The death of Thomas Roach likely prompted
Hannah and the children to move to Saybrook, Illinois to live with her oldest
son, Patrick Brown, and his family. Thomas Brown may have also moved to
Saybrook at the same time. It would have been a very crowded house with Hannah
and the two Roach children along with Patrick, his wife, Anna, and their nine
children. (See previous blog on Illinois Prairie Years)
On October 16, 1876, in St. Louis, Missouri, Thomas,
(now age 29),
enlisted in the Third Regiment of Cavalry of the U.S. Army3.
He was assigned to “M” Troop. He gave his age as 27 years and 5
months and was described as 5 feet 6 ¾ inches with grey eyes, brown hair, and
light complexion. He also listed several
tattoos - a cross, a heart, and a flag4.
 |
| 1876 Oath of Enlistment and Allegiance (click to enlarge) |
The Third Cavalry had participated in the campaign of the Little Big Horn
in the summer of 1876, although not in the actual battle where General George Armstrong
Custer and the Seventh Cavalry met with their demise. After that battle, the Third Cavalry
set out to avenge the perpetrators of the “massacre.” Because they set out without sufficient
rations, the cavalrymen were forced to eat their horses, shoes, and anything else
they could find. This became known as
the Horsemeat March5
which ended with the defeat of the Sioux at the Battle of Slim Buttes, South
Dakota in early September, 1876 - before Tom enlisted. However, this activity was widely published
in news articles throughout the country and may have been the incentive for him
to enlist in this specific cavalry unit.
After October 1876, the Third Cavalry patrolled the area of
current day Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska to
protect the settlers against cattle raids by natives who were restricted from
hunting buffalo - their traditional food source. There were also many “settlers” who had come looking
for gold which was discovered on the Sioux Reservation in the Black Hills in
18746 causing more
conflict when the government sought to regain lands located on the
reservation. Although there is no report
of M Troop participating in specific skirmishes, they were kept busy patrolling
the area.
When
his term expired, Private Thomas Brown was discharged on October 8, 1881 at
Fort McKinney in northeastern Wyoming near present-day Buffalo, Wyoming. His character was listed as “very good.”7
 |
| 1882 Enlistment (click to enlarge) |
By
August 1, 1882, Thomas was in San Francisco, California where he again enlisted
in the U.S. Army8,
this time in Battery H of the First Regiment of Artillery9 at The Presidio10. Tom’s
physical description was much the same with the exception of an additional
tattoo (an anchor) and stating that he weighed 160 lbs. While the First Artillery was an
illustrious regiment with a long history beginning before 1789, their stay in
California was very uneventful and probably very boring for Tom after serving
on the frontier during hostilities with the native peoples. It was not long before Thomas was in trouble.
He was dishonorably discharged November
20, 188411.
Thomas
stood for General Court Martial12
on November 14, 1884
for repeated offenses of drunkenness, missing parade duty
and being absent without leave. Between
June 1883 and October 1884, Tom had been tried, convicted and sentenced by other
Garrison Courts Martial and served time on ten different dates citing twelve
offences. The last offence, initiating
the General Court Martial, was on November 6, 1884 when, as a battery cook, he
was unable to perform his duty and another soldier needed to fill his
place. Without a Service Record for Tom,
we cannot know if there were other warnings before the first
Court Martial, but
it can be assumed that the first instance of this behavior was before June
1883. Tom was dishonorably discharged “forfeiting
all pay and allowances . . .” and “. . . confined at hard labor . . .,” at Alcatraz13 for a period of one year. Tom admitted guilt to the charges but stated
that the offences occurred around pay day and that he did the same as the other
soldiers at the time. He also provided a
letter from Captain Deane Monahan of the 3rd Cavalry, his commanding
officer during his tour of duty in Wyoming, stating he was a good soldier,
performed his duties and was eligible to reenlist. Tom’s final defense was that since he had
already served time for the previous offences, he should not be made to serve
again for the same crimes. Tom’s
sentence was commuted to four months.
 |
| Record of Court Martial (click to enlarge) |
 |
| Court Martial continued (click to enlarge) |
Thomas’
whereabouts for the next twenty years until he entered the Washington Soldiers
Home is not known. He may have stayed in
the San Francisco area or moved elsewhere.
Numerous men by the name of Thomas Brown are shown in the city
directories for San Francisco from 1884 until 1903 but it is impossible to
state which, if any, is our Tom Brown; nor, are there records from Alcatraz
from the time frame when Tom would have served his sentence. Tom did leave the Washington Veterans Home on
June 3, 1916. No explanation was given concerning
the reason he left. From there he traveled to Illinois where he entered the National Home for
Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in
Danville, Illinois on June 23, 1916 - twenty
days after leaving Washington.
 |
| Civil War soldiers at Danville, Illinois |
Little
is known of Thomas’ stay at the Danville home14. Of all the
veteran homes in the country, we do not know why he picked that facility unless
he felt it was close to family; but, it was a long time before he tried to make
contact with them. Available records show that he lived at the
home for over four years - from June 23, 1916 until December 17, 1920 with an
absence of about a month from June 25, 1920 to July 31, 1920. We do know where he was during that
month!
Chet
found a news article in the Bloomington, Illinois newspaper,
The Daily
Pantagraph dated July 12, 1920 with the headline “TWO BROWNS IN A MUTUAL QUEST”.15 (See copy of news article right.) It seems that Thomas visited Saybrook,
Illinois in July looking for his brother Patrick. (Remember from an earlier post, Illinois Prairie Years, that Patrick left the Saybrook area in the mid 1880s.) The article states that Thomas “used to live
in Saybrook” giving some validity to the presumption
that Thomas left Chicago with his mother, Hannah Brown, and the two Roach
children at the time of the death of Thomas Roach to live with her Hannah's son and Thomas' brother, Patrick
Brown. Of course Patrick was deceased by
1920 - Patrick died in Nebraska in 1891 - and the quest was taken up by
Patrick’s oldest son, Patrick Brown who was the nephew of Thomas Brown. (See previous post on Homesteading) No follow-up article was published to confirm
whether or not they found one another.
It is probably a safe assumption to say that they did since a niece of
Thomas, Mrs. Mary Ann Brown Cox of Bloomington, Illinois, was given as Thomas’ next of kin at the home
in Sandusky where Thomas died in 1926.
(Mary Ann is the oldest daughter of the elder Patrick Brown and a sister
of the Patrick Brown in the “mutual quest.”)
 |
| Click to enlarge |
After
Thomas’ visit to Bloomington, he returned to Danville for
about five
months. He left the Danville home on
December 17, 192016,
(see copy of home record left) and, as we saw in
the last blog post, was admitted to the Old Soldiers and Sailors Home in
Sandusky, Ohio two days later on December 19, 1920. We do not know why Tom left Danville or why
he chose Sandusky as his next destination.
Sandusky is not far from Cleveland; perhaps he was looking his brother,
James, who had lived in the Cleveland area with his second wife and children. (See
previous blog post on . . . to Cleveland)
 |
| Record from Danville Veterans Home (click to enlarge) |
Tom
lived out the remainder of his life in Sandusky. Of all the Brown children, Thomas was the
most widely traveled seeing both the east and west coast of the country and
many parts in between. He also had the
most contentious life having served in the military three separate times, and
spending time in the infamous military prison at Alcatraz. Tom had a problem with alcohol which may have
resulted from different life events - from his early years in the slums of
Chicago to the atrocities of the Indian wars, to boredom with sedentary
military camp life in San Francisco. There
have also been recent studies suggesting that poor nutrition during the famine
years resulted in epigenetic changes causing increased mental illness and
alcoholism in the Irish population17.
Whatever the reason, Tom led a very different
life than the rest of his siblings.
That
ends the story of the original immigrants from Ireland. During my research journey, I have gathered
much information about the Brown family – some of it after the individual
stories had already been told. The next
blogs will tell about additional data collected along the way.
1. Application for Admission to the Washington Soldiers Home, Veterans
Affairs, Department of, Orting Soldiers Home, Member Files, 1891-1987,
Washington State Archives, Digital Archives, http:digitalarchives.wa.gov, accessed
1 May 2019. Available online at: https://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/Record/View/E34DDD06657505F3AFC10F81BA48841E
2. Chicago City
Directories 1867 – 1875, available on Ancestry.com and Fold3.
3. Thomas Brown, Oath of Enlistment and Allegiance, Record
of the Adjutant Generals Office, NARA, Washington, D.C., 12 Oct 1876, St.
Louis, MO
4. Thomas may
have received his tattoos while serving in the Navy during the Civil War. His enlistment record of 1864 specifically
stated that he had no distinguishing marks.
Enlistment Record of Thomas Brown, Weekly return of enlistments at Naval
Rendezvous (“Enlistment Rendezvous”), Jan. 6, 1855-Aug 8, 1891, NARA
Publication Number M1953, Roll 23.
Available online at Ancestry.com https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/60368/MM9.3.1_2FTH-1-14732-32744-91?pid=156015&usePUB=true&backurl=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ancestry.com%2Fcgi-bin%2Fsse.dll%3F_phsrc%3DQvb71%26_phstart%3DsuccessSource%26usePUBJs%3Dtrue%26db%3Dfs1usnavalenlistmentrendezvous%26gsfn%3Dthomas%26gsln%3Dbrown%26gsfn_x%3DNN%26gsln_x%3DNN%26msbpn__ftp%3Direland%26msbpn%3D3250%26msidy%3D1864%26msipn__ftp%3Dcincinnati%252c%2Bhamilton%252c%2Bohio%252c%2Busa%26msipn__ftp_x%3D1%26msipn%3D51335%26msipn_x%3DPS%26new%3D1%26redir%3Dfalse%26uidh%3Du9j%26gss%3Dangs-d%26fh%3D0%26fsk%3D%26bsk%3D%26rank%3D1%26pgoff%3D
5. History of
the 3rd Cavalry Regiment, Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3rd_Cavalry_Regiment_(United_States)#Indian_Wars
Morton, Captain Charles, Third
Regiment of Cavalry, Army of the US Historical Sketches of Staff and Line
with Portraits of Generals-in-Chief, pp. 193 – 208. Available online at: https://history.army.mil/books/R&H/R&H-3CV.htm
6. Gold was discovered in 1874 in the Black Hills
area of the Sioux Reservation. Because
of this, the United States demanded the Sioux cede the area back to the U.S. The Sioux refused resulting in the Great Sioux
War of 1876 of which the Battle of the Little Bighorn was a part. Fort McKinney (Wyoming), Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_McKinney_(Wyoming)#The_first_Fort_McKinney,_on_the_Powder_River_(1877-1878)
7. Register of
Enlistments in the U.S. Army, 1798-1914; National Archives Microfilm
Publication M233, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780-1917; Record
Group 94, NARA, Washington, D.C., v 72, p 189
Available online at Ancestry.com at: https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/1198/MIUSA1798_102897-00191?pid=666277&backurl=https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv%3D1%26dbid%3D1198%26h%3D666277%26tid%3D%26pid%3D%26usePUB%3Dtrue%26_phsrc%3DkwI232%26_phstart%3DsuccessSource&treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=kwI232&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&_ga=2.136576304.1637435408.1558824572-505375168.1554581619
8. Thomas Brown, Enlistment Paper, Record of the
Adjutant Generals Office, NARA, Washington, D.C. , 1 Aug 1882, Presidio, San
Francisco, CA
9. Haskin, Major
William L., First Regiment of Artillery,
Army of the US Historical Sketches of Staff and Line with Portraits of
Generals-in-Chief, pp. 301-11. Available
online at: https://history.army.mil/books/R&H/R&H-3CV.htm The 1st
Artillery has a long history going back to, at least, March 1789, and was
involved in all wars where the United States was engaged, and other military
actions such as quelling the labor riots of 1877 in Pennsylvania. They were stationed, primarily, on the east
coast; however, during the 1880s, they were stationed in the San Francisco area
including The Presidio and Fort Winfield Scott.
Those years were very uneventful and consisted primarily of garrison
duty.
10. The United
States has had a presence at the Presidio, a military compound in San Francisco,
since the 1840s, before California became a state providing protection for the
settlers in the area. At one time, the
area consisted of roughly 1,440 acres and included Fort Winfield Scott and Fort
Point. It was transferred to the
National Park Service in 1994. Special History Study, Presidio of San
Francisco, An Outline of Its Evolution as a U.S. Army Post, 1847-1990. Available online at: https://ia800203.us.archive.org/12/items/presidioofsanfra00deparich/presidioofsanfra00deparich.pdf
11. Register of
Enlistments in the U.S. Army, 1798-1914; National Archives Microfilm
Publication M233, Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, 1780-1917; Record
Group 94, NARA, Washington, D.C., v 78, p 141
Available online at Ancestry.com at: https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/1198/MIUSA1798_102900-00135?pid=709654&backurl=https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?indiv%3D1%26dbid%3D1198%26h%3D709654%26tid%3D%26pid%3D%26usePUB%3Dtrue%26_phsrc%3DkwI235%26_phstart%3DsuccessSource&treeid=&personid=&hintid=&usePUB=true&_phsrc=kwI235&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&_ga=2.140114867.1637435408.1558824572-505375168.1554581619
12. Thomas Brown,
Court Martial, Records of the Office
of the Judge Advocate General (Army), NARA, Washington, D.C., Record Group 153,
case file # RR-694, November 1884
13. Alcatraz was
originally planned as an army defense site; however, because of its location in
the middle of San Francisco Bay, it was a good location for a military
prison. Fort Point and the Presidio sent
their prisoners to Alcatraz which was much more secure than their local
garrison stockades. The army prisoners
labored as part of their punishment; some of them on work details at nearby
military posts, others were confined to indoor tasks or confined to their cells. In 1934 it became a maximum security facility
housing difficult and dangerous felons.
Alcatraz ceased operations as a federal prison in 1963. https://www.nps.gov/alca/learn/historyculture/the-post-on-alcatraces.htm; https://www.history.com/topics/crime/alcatraz
14. The soldier’s
home at Danville is a Federal facility rather than a state facility like those
in Washington State. It was opened in
1898, and like other homes for veterans, it provided living quarters and meals,
some entertainment, and some opportunity for employment. There are several websites providing
information about the Old Soldiers Home at Danville. https://www.nps.gov/places/danville-branch-danville-illinois.htm?utm_source=place&utm_medium=website&utm_campaign=experience_more;
15. ”TWO BROWNS
IN A MUTUAL QUEST,” Daily Pantagraph,
Bloomington, Illinois, July 12, 1920, page 7.
16. “United
States National Homes for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, 1866-1938,” database
with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1 : 1:VZ3M-LQ5
: 12 March 2018), Thomas Brown, 1916; citing p. 15384, Danville, Illinois,
United States, NARA microfilm publication M1749 (Washington D.C.: National
Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 93; FHL microfilm
1,548,871. Records for the Danville veterans’
home are also kept at the Regional National Archives in Chicago. The majority of the original case files for
individuals were disposed of decades ago - only small samples of the records
were kept. The records for Thomas Brown
were not among the records kept.
17. Several
articles have been written about the effects of poor nutrition during famine
periods. See one such article at: http://libapps.libraries.uc.edu/exhibits/irish-cincinnati/2017/02/27/the-prevalence-of-mental-illness-in-irish-americans-the-three-theories/
Also see the
YouTube lecture of Oonagh Walsh concerning the effects of the famine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fYvsZM_tOM
