Religion

Most of the members of the Brown family followed the practices of the Lutheran denomination. In the late 1700’s churches were just being established in the area. They often began in barns or small log dwellings and various circuit riders would pastor multiple churches. Several churches housed both Dutch Reformed and Lutheran congregations. Hannah had her son John Nathan and daughter Catharine Dorothea baptized at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Creagerstown in 1790. Several of the children of William and Elizabeth Brown and at least two of the children of Mary Elizabeth and Michael Swope and two of those of John Nathan and Nancy Brown were baptized at Apples Reformed Church in Mechanicstown (Thurmont). The two youngest daughters of Susannah and Daniel Gordon were baptized at the Graceham Moravian Church, where it is probable that Susannah and Daniel were married. One of the earliest Lutheran congregations was St. John’s Lutheran Church, which was established in 1770, in Hagerstown, Maryland, in Washington County on the west side of the mountain. It was here that Ignatius Brown, John Nathan Brown, Mary Elizabeth Brown, and Catharine Dorothea Brown were married in the first decade of the 1800’s and where several of their children were baptized. Susanna Cecelia and Daniel Gordon, who was Catholic, may have shared their religious upbringings in their marriage because two of their daughters were baptized in the Moravian Church but they may have also attended the Catholic parish in Emmitsburg.

According to the History of the Smithsburg Charge, by Rev. Ferdinand Hesse, written in 1912, the churches that this charge included were Mt. Moriah Lutheran Church, Smithsburg Trinity Lutheran Church, and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church. The quoted material that follows was taken from this volume.

Mt. Moriah Lutheran Church

Mt. Moriah Lutheran Church was established in 1829 on land donated by William Brown and George Philip Fox. It was organized under the pastoral care of Rev. Samuel Hoshour, who was pastor of the Smithsburg charge at the time. A meeting was held and a subscription taken up among 357 subscribers for the sum of $751.98 to build a church. The building committee consisted of George P. Fox, William Brown, Sr., Jacob and Philip Fox as the Collectors with George Long, Treasurer, and Philip Fox, Secretary.

The cornerstone was laid June 1, 1830, and the first Church Council was elected in June of 1831. Throughout the 1830’s many devotedly served, some of whom were: William Brown, Sr., George P. Fox, Thomas Brown, Jr., Abraham Poorman, Christian Gates, Peter Hauver, Daniel Hauver, George Long, Christian Hauver, John Brown, George Brown, John Bowman, William B. Brown, George Buhrman, Ignatius Swope, George Long, William Fox, Jr., Ignatius Brown, John Lantz, Joseph Brown, and William Brown, Jr.

The church was named, “Mt. Moriah,” and was built of stone and “stands as an emblem of faithfulness and devotion of God’s people, many of whom sleep the sleep of death near by the church.”

In 1877 an additional piece of ground to the church lot was bought from William B. Brown for twenty-five dollars and the church was rebuilt of stone. Rev. X. J. Richardson was pastor at the time of the building of the new church. The cost of the new church was about eighteen hundred dollars. The committee of the new church building was Melanchton Hauver, George W. Delauter, and John M. Brown. It was dedicated on May 26, 1878. Rev. P. Bergstresser preached from the text Matthew 16:18, “And I say also unto thee. That thou are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it.” The church has an end gallery, steeple and bell. The whole amount except fifty dollars, was provided on the day of dedication. A stained-glass window glorifying Jesus as the Good Shepherd is dedicated to the memory of George P. Fox, his wife Sophia Bussard Fox, and his son Thomas Fox.

The original church burned to the ground in 1918 but was rebuilt in 1919 by its devoted congregation. Services are still held there from time to time in the present day.

The Mt. Moriah Church Cemetery is the final resting places of many Browns and interrelated families with familiar names such as Buhrman, Toms, Bowman, Delauter, and Hauver.

Smithsburg Trinity Lutheran Church

A number of the Brown family members moved down from the mountain in Frederick County into the foothills of Washington County and settled in Smithsburg, Greensburg, Cavetown, and Chewsville, all small enclaves that were nestled among farms and a burgeoning orchard industry. A Lutheran church was established on the main street of Smithsburg. Many of the members of this church were children and grandchildren of Ignatius Brown.

At the 75th anniversary service of the Smithsburg Trinity Lutheran Church the Sunday School superintendent Reuben B. Brown read historical papers and Thomas A. Brown and Josiah Joseph Brown and D. E. Oswald, laymen, had a part in the service. Joseph Brown was secretary of the Sunday School in 1847. In 1855, Thomas A. Brown was appointed superintendent and he served until 1863. Reuben B. Brown served as Sunday School superintendent from 1890 to 1912 and helped to erect a Sunday School chapel in 1908. He and his wife Emma presented a large “Good Shepherd” window to the church. In 1863 a committee including John M. Brown secured another building for a parsonage and in 1912 two acres of land adjoining the cemetery was purchased from Reuben B. Brown and D. W. Barkdoll. Reuben B. Brown also served from 1910 to 1915 as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania by the Maryland Synod. He was the president of the Smithsburg Bank.

St. Paul’s Lutheran Church

Charter members of this congregation in 1870 included 29 members who left the Smithsburg Trinity Lutheran Church. The church officers elected were elders Thomas A. Brown and Benjamin Bachtell and deacons John B. Brown and G. W. Ross. They met in the public school building in Greensburg, near Edgemont, Maryland. On December 29, 1889, a resolution was adopted that a proposed chapel or church be called St. Paul’s. Those on the committee were Daniel Mentzer, Isaac Stouffer, J. H. Sleasman, Christian Leathers, Samuel Welty, George W. Swope, George Graves, Benjamin Bachtell, H. V. Shull, H. F. Fishack, Joseph B. Brown, George Shank and Josiah Joseph Brown. The cornerstone was laid April 2, 1890.

Thomas A. Brown, who died November 9, 1907, bequeathed, “to the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church of Greensburg, in said Washington County, Maryland, twenty-five dollars annually. Said money to be used for the most necessary purposes of said church. And the same to be paid to said church for a period of fifty years after his death provided the said church is kept up and remains Lutheran for that length of time; but it is hereby provided that at the expiration of fifty years after his death if the said church is not kept up or does not remain Lutheran, then the payment of said sum of twenty-five dollars annually to cease.”

Pleasant Valley Church

This historic church rests in a small valley in Washington County, Maryland, between South Mountain and Elk Ridge. Some descendants of the Browns attended Pleasant Valley Church and are interred in the small cemetery there, including descendants of William Brown and John Nathan Brown. One story goes that before the church was built, Ignatius Swope, Ezra Swope, Jacob Swope, Daniel Blickenstaff, and Joshua E. Hoover carried the valley children six or seven miles over to Wolfsville. In 1880 and 1881, Rev. John Ruebush held “bush meetings” in John Ridenour’s woods, close to where the church was eventually erected. Under the guidance of Rev. C.H. Crowell, the church was built in 1882-1883, officially named Mt. Pleasant United Brethren Church and dedicated March 4, 1883. It was also called “Schwopes” U.B. Church, and, since the 1930s, “Pleasant Valley.” According to MDIHP (Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties), Pleasant Valley Church is of frame or log construction with a small frame belfry located above the door, an example of the small late 19th century country churches found in Washington County.

Germantown Bethel Church of God

The Germantown Bethel Church of God in Cascade, MD, also had a following from the Brown family and a number are interred there. Clarence L. Brown and Jesse R. Brown, sons of Ivan Milton and Alta Royer Brown and direct descendants of two lines (Susannah and Ignatius) of this family, were stonemasons who helped build this church.

Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church

Mt. Bethel Methodist (now United Methodist) Church remains on Stottlemyer Road in Garfield, MD, on the south side of the Foxville Road and again many members of the third and fourth generations of the Brown family are in the adjoining cemetery.

Mt. Zion United Methodist Church

Mt. Zion United Methodist Church was founded in 1835. It is on Mt. Zion Road to the north of Smithsburg, MD, off or Raven Rock Road. The area surrounding it was originally referred to as Mt. Zion or later Euclid. In the adjoining cemetery rest a number of Buhrmans, Harbaughs, Manahans, and a few Browns.

Brown’s Cemetery

Brown’s Cemetery is on Manahan Road in Foxville back a gravel lane adjoining the original Brown homestead where Hannah Brown and her children lived. It is believed to have been a family graveyard but in 1807 when Thomas Brown, Jr., purchased the homestead it became known as the Brown Graveyard. The earliest readable date on a headstone is 1821 but some markers are just field stones.  As the homestead land was conveyed over the years the land was maintained and enlarged upon by William Brown and his nephew William B. Brown, son of Ignatius, who purchased it from William’s estate in 1858. When William B. Brown died in 1879, all the heirs were contacted by his brother Thomas A. Brown, mentioned earlier as a parishioner of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, who purchased all the shares and obtained ownership of the cemetery. He then installed a wrought iron fence that still stands today that has been instrumental in keeping the property intact and sacred for all those buried there. He intended that Mt. Moriah Lutheran Church oversee the cemetery having donated part of his estate to the church, and on his death, his sons Reuben B. Brown and Joseph Josiah Brown were named as trustees. Mt. Moriah Church did not want to maintain the cemetery and the sons seemed to have lost interest and it fell into disrepair for a time until the next generations of Browns stepped up---Martin Luther Brown and Albert Mahlon Brown and then Victor Brown and the family members of two of his daughters. They were all descendants of William B. Brown and brought it back and have continued to care for it. Currently the cemetery has been placed in a trust.

It is believed that Hannah Brown is buried there somewhere under a fieldstone marker in the row with her son Thomas, Jr. Her daughters Mary Elizabeth and Catharine Dorothea and their spouses are buried there as are her other sons William and Ignatius and their spouses. They all have separate rows (see Photos). Her daughter Susanna and her husband Daniel Gordon are buried in St. Anthony’s Shrine Cemetery in Emmitsburg, and John Nathan is believed to be buried in the Mt. Moriah Lutheran Church Cemetery.

SOURCES:

History of the Smithsburg Charge: Composed of Trinity, Smithsburg, MD., Mt. Moriah, Foxville, MD., and St. Paul’s, Greensburg, MD., by Rev. Ferdinand Hesse, A.M., Pastor, 1912.

The personal research of M. Alan Brown and his article on the History of Brown’s Cemetery.

The The Flautt Family in America (including those Flautts who changed their name to Floyd), by Rachael Sleasman Schwartz and Harry D. Bowman, Hagerstown, MD, Dixie Press, n.d.