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.
