The following is a letter from a relative of Alma M. Holobaugh on the subject of Alma's grandfather, Jesse Brown.
October 10, 1978
Dear Alma,
I meant to get together what little information I had and send it to you before now, but got diverted by first one thing and then another.
Some of this data came to me from my mother and some from Aunt Alice Terflinger. if any of it is incorrect, or if you have additional facts I hope you'll share both corrections and facts with me. Isn't it amazing how fast we lose our ancestry? And the little items handed down are so often completely unimportant but in some way interesting for story telling.
While I was fooling around with this, I had some copies made of the old photos of Jesse and Mary Double Brown, in case you didn't have one. If I run onto anyting else, I'll let you know, but this seems to be all the old bureau and old Bible have to offer.
Best wishes and I hope to meet you sometime.
Beth
Great-grandfather, Jesse Brown, was born in 1819 and died Sept. 22, 1903. [Probate court record states Oct. 6, 1903 as death date.] His people came from Ireland but I don't know how far back. He always said his Grandmother was a "full-blooded Irishman". He was short and plump, and red headed when young. When he was old, he wore his heavy white hair in what he called "Layfayette" style, just swinging free of his shoulders.
G.Grandfather Jesse had one brother, Alex, who had at least two sons, Judson and Marion. He also had a sister Leah who married a man named Stewart and lived in Fayette Co., Ohio. Jesse B. was married to Mary Double (properly pronounced "Dooble"). She was black-headed and spoke broken English according to my mother. She and Aunt Alice Terflinger always said she insisted she was not German but "Black Dutch from the Flat Country", but she could never make it clear where the Black Dutch came from. In recent years, I have learned that Black Deutsch means Prussian, or Flat German of the north, and I felt sure that was what Grandmother was saying instead of Black Dutch.
Mary Double Brown had three brothers in Pike County, O: Thomas and William who were farmers, and Jacob who was a Methodist minister. My mother said there was another brother, Jim, who late in life and with a large war pension married a young school teacher and had one son, Spears. The wife died when Spears was about 3 or 4 and his father took him around to visit all the relatives and then put him in a Veteran's Children's Home -- I don't know where.
Mary Double Brown was born April 18, 1824 and died Jan. 17, 1887. She and Jesse Brown had twelve children, raised eleven. I have their birth dates but not their deaths.
Alexander Brown June 5, 1844 - Nov 30, 1931
Eliza Anne Brown Dec 25 1845
Sallie Brown Nov 13, 1847
Margaret Oct 19, 1849
Mary Ellen March 23, 1852
Lucinda May 9, 1854
Isaac M. Feb 3, 1856
Harriet Josephine Feb 18, 1858
John H. (Henry?) July 23, 1860
Jacob April 13, 1862
James S. (Sherman?) October 4, 1864Family moved from Butler Co. Penn., when Alex was 5 yrs. old, settled near Camp Post Office in Pike Co., Ohio.
Sallie and Eliza Anne were engaged to marry Grandma Mary Alice Brown's brothers - Charles and Asa Jones, but both girls died of "lingering consumption" and the men never married.
My mother thought it was Mary Ellen who was married to a man who ran an Erie Canal boat. She cooked on the boat and carried water from wells along the route; on day, she slipped into the canal from the icy gangplank and died soon after of "quick consumption" and left several children.
At the time of my Grandfather Alex' death in 1931, his brother Jacob lived in Dayton, brother James in Springfield, brother John near Waverly, and sister Margaret at Camp Post Office.
Mrs. J. B. Howes
14 Whetstone Dr.
Gaithersburg, Md 20760