Charles St. Clair Browne
The Browne family has traced their ancestry back four generations and during the one hundred years of family history various members of this family have occupied positions in business and professional life which have cast credit upon themselves. The first member of the family concerning whom definite information has been preserved is Aaron Burr Brown, who was born in New York state and came to Illinois in pioneer days, settling in Lawrence county. He came to Illinois when a young man and operated a mill on the Ambaugh river in Lawrence county. Some time after locating in Illinois he married Elizabeth Wilcox, who was born at Fort Massac, Illinois, on the Ohio river. They were married at Massac, and from there moved to Missouri and located about thirty-five miles south of St. Louis, where he found employment at the lead mines. Aaron Burr Browne later returned to Illinois and died at Metropolis, in that state, in 1858, at the age of sixty-five years. His wife died at the same place in 1856, at the age of fifty-six. Thirteen children were born to this couple, seven daughters and six sons. After the death of his first wife in 1856, Aaron Burr Browne married the second time and had a son by his second marriage, but he died four months after his marriage. It is known that the father of Aaron Burr Browne was Joseph T. Browne, but the passing of time has left the family without any definite information concerning him. The father of Elizabeth Wilcox, the wife of Aaron Burr Browne, was Isaac D. Wilcox.
One of the six sons born to Aaron Burr Browne was George Westcott Browne, who was the grandfather of Charles St. Clair Brown, with whom this history subsequently deals. George Westcott Browne was born February 28, 1831, in Lawrence county, Illinois, four miles from Vincennes, Indiana. He was reared at Metropolis, Illinois, from the age of six years, and attended the old-fashioned subscription schools for a short time and lived upon the farm until he was eighteen years of age. He then engaged in boating on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, and worked on the flat boats and steamers which made trips up and down the rivers to and from New Orleans. He would take a flatboat of produce to New Orleans and return home on a steamboat. He followed this line of business until his marriage in 1855. and even continued it a short time after his marriage. He then moved from Metropolis, Illinois, to Vincennes, Indiana, and while living at the latter place enlisted in 1863, for service in the Civil War, becoming a member of the First Indiana Heavy Artillery, Company M. He served until January, 1866, and was sent to Fort Pickens, Florida, to guard prisoners there. Some time late in the year 1866 he was mustered out of the service and returned to Cairo, Illinois, and engaged in the hotel business in that place, and for the next forty years he followed this line of endeavor at different places. He came to Washington C. H. April I, 1885, and took charge of the Cherry hotel as proprietor, running it for five years, and later he was engaged in the same business in other cities in Ohio. He returned to Washington C. H. in August, 1901, and has lived here most of the time since. George Wescott Browne was married March 15, 1855, at Vincennes, Indiana, to Emily C. Sellers, the daughter of William and Rebecca (McLean) Sellers, and to this union five children were born, William, George, Fannie A., Charles and one who died in infancy.
George Edwin Brown3, the father of Charles St. Clair Browne, was born in Metropolis. Illinois, and lived in that city. For several years he operated his father's dairy and supplied boats on the Ohio river with milk and butter. He afterward engaged in the hotel business, which he followed in Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Dayton, Washington C. H. and Springfield. In recent years he located in Cincinnati, where he is now the proprietor of the Browne hotel, which is located at the southeast corner of Sixth and Elm streets. This is a modern hotel of eighty rooms and enjoys a good patronage. The wife of George Edwin Browne is Blanche Curtis, the daughter of Thomas J. and Augusta Ann (Cheek) Curtis, natives of Ohio. Thomas J. Curtis was born in Cincinnati and lived there for many years, where he operated a dyeing and cleaning establishment, and here his death occurred in middle life, as did his wife. Thomas J. Curtis and wife were the parents of five children, Lulu, Blanche, Stella, Celeste and Willis. The father of Mr. Curtis established the first dyeing and cleaning house in Cincinnati, George Edwin Browne and wife are the parents of three children, Charles St. Clair, Ralph Curtis, and Georgia Edwina, who died when she was four years of age.
Charles St. Clair Browne, the present proprietor of the Arlington hotel, in Washington C. H., Ohio, was born in Silverton, Hamilton county, Ohio, January 6. 1887. He lived in Cincinnati until he was six years of age and then went to Jamestown, Ohio, where his parents lived for three years. From the latter place the family moved to Dayton, Ohio, and four years later located in Washington C. H. His father was a hotel man and moved from city to city, and this accounts for the many places in which Charles St. Clair Browne lived. From Washington C. H. the family moved to Cincinnati, and two years later Charles St. Clair Browne located in New York city for a year. From Cincinnati his father moved to Springfield, Ohio, where he remained for two years and a half in charge of the St. James hotel. The family then returned to Washington C. H., where they remained until the father took charge of the Browne hotel, in Cincinnati.
Charles St. Clair Browne has had the benefit of the best educational advantages which the country provides. He received his education in many cities and finally graduated from the Steele high school, Dayton, and afterwards from the Jacobs Business College, of Dayton. He then entered Ohio Wesleyan University at Delaware, Ohio, and after one year took a special course in business manual training in Columbia University, of New York city. He has lived in hotels all his life and has a remarkably large acquaintance with the traveling public, a fact which makes him an excellent hotel man. As his father and various other members of the family engaged in the hotel business it was but natural that Charles St. Clair Browne should take up the same line of business, and on September 12, 1913, he became proprietor of the Arlington Hotel in Washington C. H., a strictly modern hotel, and enjoys a large and continuously increasing patronage. The fact that Mr. Browne has lived all of his life in hotels has given him an intimate knowledge of every detail of the business.
Mr. Browne was married June 5, 1912. to Emily Louise Meyer, the daughter of August and Caroline Meyer, both natives of Germany and now residents of Brooklyn, New York. Mrs. Browne was born in Brooklyn, New York, and attended the public schools of that city. After completing the course in the public schools she entered the New York School of Applied Design, an art school which has a national reputation. Shortly after finishing the course in this school, she was married. August Meyer, the father of Mrs. Browne, was born in Hanover, Germany, August 23, 1849. Her mother, Caroline (Kresbach) Meyer, was born in Saxon Hansen, near Frankfort, Germany, on November 6. 1853. Mrs. Meyer came to America when eight years of age and grew to womanhood in New York city, where she was married. Mr. Meyer came to America at the age of seventeen, and was a commission merchant in New York city until his death, on March 1, 1904. Twelve children were born to August Meyer and wife, seven of whom are living, Dora, Fred, Julius and Alexander (twins), Helen, Edward and Emily.
The maternal grandfather of Mrs. Browne was Louis Kresbach and his wife was Elizabeth (Koehl) Kresbach, both being natives of Germany. Louis Kresbach and wife were the parents of six children, Caroline, Rosa, Elizabeth, Antoinette, Emily and Annie.
Mr. and Mrs. Charles St. Clair Browne are the parents of one son. Charles St. Clair Browne, Jr. Mr. Browne is a member of Confidence Lodge No. 265, Knights of Pythias. and also of the Washington Lodge, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. While in college he was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Greek-letter fraternity, being initiated while a student at Ohio Weslevan University. Politically, he has never been very active and is not a partisan in any sense of the word. Although he was reared a Republican, yet he has reserved the right to vote for the best man, irrespective of their political affiliations, and in so doing he feels that he is best serving the interests of his fellow citizens and his country. Mr. Browne is a young man with a bright future before him. A man of culture and refinement, he makes an ideal hotel man and is well deserving of the high esteem in which he is held by the citizens of this city and the traveling public.
From History of Fayette County Ohio - Her People, Industries and Institutions by Frank M. Allen (1914, R. F. Bowen & Company, Inc.)