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BIOGRAPHIES
Source:
1811
HISTORY OF
SCHUYLKILL COUNTY, PA.
with
Illustrations and Biographical Sketches
of
Some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers
New York:
W. W. Munsell & Co.,
36 Vesey Street
1881
D. P. Brown |
COLONEL DAVID PERCY BROWN,
superintendent for the Philadelphia Coal Company, has been a
resident of Lost Creek since 1875. He was born in
Shillbottle, Northumberland, England, Feb. 14th, 1825, and
is a son of David W. Brown and Elizabeth Percy - both
natives of that place.
David W. Brown, who had been at school, was at
the age of fourteen years sent into the mines by the death
of his father, who was suffocated by choke damp. He
continued to work as a miner until August, 1829, when, with
his wife and three children, he came to America, landing in
Boston Oct. 16th, 1829. Thence he came to Pottsville
by vessel and canal boat and settled at Oak Hill, where he
resided until his death, April 5th, 1846.
The subject of this sketch was taught to read and write
by his parents, as there were no schools nearer his home
than at Pottsville, four miles distant. He went into
the mines when about eight years old, worked about the
colliery as a boy for six years, at the age of fourteen
became a miner, and four years later was made a foreman.
In 1846, owing to his father's death, he became his
executor, and, with his brother William, sunk a shaft
to the Primrose vein, one of the first perpendicular shafts
ever put down in the State. After conducting some
extensive developments he removed to Pottsville in 1851, and
resided there up to the date of his removal to his present
residence. During that and the following year he
opened the Brown and White colliery, at
Swatara, in which he retained an interest until 1860.
In the year 1855 he became a part owner in the Mount
Pleasant colliery, which proved an unfortunate venture and
led to complications that caused the sacrifice of the large
property which he had accumulated, and reduced him from the
position of one of the heaviest operators in the county to
that of a manager at the Swatara mines.
Immediately after President Lincoln's first call
for volunteers in 1861 he joined the Tower Guards, of
Pottsville, and on the 17th of April left with the company
for Harrisburg. There the Guards were formed into two
companies and mustered into the 6th Pennsylvania volunteers.
Mr. Brown receiving from Governor Curtin a
commission as first lieutenant of company D.
On the expiration of his term of service in April,
1862, an arrangement with the creditors of his old firm was
effected, and one of the old collieries was purchased and
operated until 1865. It was known as the Price
Wetherill Colliery, and yielded largely, at profitable
rates. This fortunate venture relieved Brown &
Co. of their financial embarrassments, and as the old mine
became nearly exhausted the machinery and renewed lease were
sold to a Boston company which operated under the name of
the Norwegian Coal Company. In 1866 Colonel Brown
sailed for Glasgow, and spent a season in England and Wales,
visiting the principal mining districts, and on his return
accepting the position of superintendent and manager of the
collieries of the Philadelphia Coal Company, which he still
occupies. Colonel Brown is actively identified
with the best interests of the community in which he has
made his home, and is in every sense a representative man of
the wide awake, enterprising locality which his work
describes.
Source: History of Schuylkill County, Pa., Publ. by New York -
W. W. Munsell & Co. - 1881 - Page 371 |
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