Marshall Brown
Marshall Brown, formerly engaged in the saw-mill business at the village of New Jasper, and who is still living there, owner of the old William Huston farm on the edge of the village, is a native son of Greene county, born on a farm in the northwest corner of Jefferson township on September 27, 1852, son of James T. and Rachel (Powers) Brown, whose last days were spent at Paintersville. Marshall Brown was about twelve years of age when his father moved from Jefferson township to New Jasper township and he completed his schooling in the schools of the latter township, remaining on the home farm there, the place now occupied and owned by his brother Cyrus. until after his marriage in 1874 when he bought a farm of fifty acres in the neighborhood of his father's place and there resided for ten years, at the end of which time he sold that farm and for eighteen months thereafter lived on a rented farm. He then bought a tract of eleven acres in the village of New Jasper and there set up a saw-mill, which he continued to operate for sixteen years, mainly engaged in custom sawing. As a young man Mr. Brown had learned the trade of stonemason and he also continued engaged during the summers as a contracting mason, doing quite an extensin business in that line as well as in his mill. Upon selling the mill he rented a farm in Xenia township and six years later moved from that place to a farm on the Hussey pike in Caesarscreek township, where he lived for two years, at the end of which time he bought eighty acres on the Nash road in Xenia township. On this latter place he lived for two years, or until March 1, 1913, when he sold that place and bought the William Huston farm of fifty acres at the edge of the village of New Jasper, where he since has made his home. Mr. Brown is a Republican, and for some time served as assessor in New Jasper township.
On February 24, 1874, Mr. Brown was united in marriage to Katurah Gates, who was born on the old William Spahr farm in New Jasper township, daughter and only child of Bailey and Temperance (Spahr) Gates. the latter of whom was born in that same place on December 31, 1836, and who died there on September 25, 1858, her daughter Katurah then being but two years of age. Mrs. Brown having thus been bereft of her mother at the early age of two years was reared in the household of her maternal grandfather, William Spahr, one of the pioneers of that part of Greene county. Mrs. Brown's father, Bailey Gates, was born at Chillicothe, Ohio, December 25. 1832. seventh son of Bailey and Delilah Gates. and early became a school teacher, civil engineer and surveyor, continuing to serve as a teacher nearly all his life. He was teaching in this county when he married Temperance Spahr and was living here when the Civil War broke out. He served as a soldier of the Union, a member of Company E. One Hundred and Thirty-second Regiment, and in 1866 went to Kansas, where he remained for seven years, teaching school at Elizabeth, in Anderson county, and proving up a homestead claim in that vicinity. In 1873 he returned to Ohio and here died on October 25 of that same year. To Marshall and Katurah (Gates) Brown three children have been born, namely: Nora Alzina. born on November 22, 1874, who died at the age of seven months; Delphos, who died unmarried at the age of thirty-three years, and Leola, wife of Howard Glass. who owns a farm adjoining that of Mr. Brown in the immediate vicinity of the village of New Jasper. Mr. and Mrs. Glass have one child, a son, Hubert Delphus. The Browns are members of the Methodist Episcopal church at New Jasper and Mr. Brown is a member of the Masonic lodge at Jamestown and of the local lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows at Xenia.
From History of Greene County Ohio, Its People, Industries and Institutions, vol. 2. M.A.Broadstone, editor. B.F.Bowen & Co., Indianapolis. 1918