Mr. and Mrs. A. P. Brown Celebrate Golden Wedding Anniversary With Festive Occasion at Country Home

Kerrville Mountain Sun, Kerrville, Texas, November 20, 1941

(Typed exactly as published; without corrections)

 

Mr. and Mrs. A. P. Brown celebrated

their golden wedding anniversary

Tuesday in their home on

the Harper Road when their three

children were present for the happy

affair. These are Roy Brown, who

arrived Saturday from his home

in Los Angeles, Calif.; and Mesdames

Dan and Marcus Auld of

this city.

The wedding of Miss Gracie

Stulting, 20, to Potter Brown, 21,

was solemnized November 18, 1891,

in the home of the bride’s parents

in Gonzales, and Reverend Lyons,

a Methodist minister, said the ceremony

in the presence of relatives

and friends. Among the attendants

who are living today are Mrs.

Brown’s three sisters, who live in

Gonzales, and her brother, J. C.

Stulting, of Palacios.

Mr. Brown is a native of Kerrville,

and is the last surviving

child of the late Joshua D. Brown,

about whom the history of Kerrville

and Kerr County have been

woven. The elder Brown was born

in Virginia in 1816, and as a young

man came to Gonzales County. He

was the first white man to have

come to this section, having arrived

here in 1846, one year after the

Battle of San Jacinto, in which he

participated. He came here on a

prospecting trip, and went through

the Turtle Creek section, as well as

along this part of Kerr County

where the cypress trees were found

to be growing.

He returned to San Antonio and

Gonzales and organized a party of

ten men to come to the section to

establish a shingle mill. The cypress

shingles were made by hand

and carted away in ox carts, or

were bartered for other commodities

necessary for livelihood. The

camp was established by the big

spring on the Guadalupe River,

near where Henry Weiss’s home

now stands. In 1850 Mr. Brown

moved with his family to the farm

where Legion hospital now stands,

and here his children were born

and grew to manhood and womanhood.

This land stayed in the family

until it was sold to the War-

Risk Association, when a hospital

for the disabled Texas veterans of

the World War were to be cared

for. Later the American Legion

took over the hospital, which was

supported by the State of Texas,

and soon after that the U. S. Government

took over the plant.

The first colony to be established

here was called Brownsborough,

and kept the name until the organization

of the county in 1856, when

Mr. Brown, who had donated the

land for the county seat, asked that

the town and county be named for

his good friend of many years,

Captain James Kerr, a Kentuckian,

who was manager of DeWitt’s Colony

in Gonzales County, and who

had visited here. Mr. Brown’s

name appears frequently on court

records and real estate transfers,

as the divisions of the original

tracts of land came from him, and

from J. F. Gage, from whom he

had bought 756 acres of land in

two tracts.

A. P. Brown today is perhaps the

most authentic source of early history

of Kerr County, having learned

from his father and mother the

hardships and privations of pioneer

settlers, as well as the glory and

satisfaction which came from carving

a home in the wilderness of the

great State of Texas, and seeing

the same country grow and prosper.

Members of the Joshua Brown

family were intermarried with

other pioneer families, and they

were related to the Goss and Rees

families, also intrepid pioneers

from Gonzales County.

The Brown family have resided

in Kerrville all of the 50 years,

with the exception of a part of the

years 1920-21, when they lived in

California. They have six granddaughters

and two grandsons. One

granddaughter lives in California

and could not be present for the

happy occasion, and two granddaughters,

Misses Mary Louise and

Aydeen Auld, are students in the

Texas State College for Women in

Denton.

The daughters, Mrs. Dan Auld

and Mrs. Marcus Auld, and their

families held open house Tuesday

evening in the Dan Auld home on

Myrta Street, when baskets of

golden ball chrysanthemums, Talisman

roses, Gladioluses and blue

delphinium were used to arrange

the home for the occasion. The

guests were welcomed informally

by the hosts, their honor guests,

and by Roy Brown.

Golden flowers were used to cen-

ter the tea table, which was laid

with a hand-made cloth, and golden

tapers lighted the beautiful

scene. Misses Joan and Marjane

Auld served the wedding cake,

which rested on a bed of gilded

leaves and roses. The 40 guests

who called were limited to old-

time friends and relatives.

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