===================================================================== Match: Bowles Source: TNHENRY-L@rootsweb.com From: Peggyt1950@aol.com Subject: Samuel Hankins and the Brown Family I know this is long, but it relates so much information that I couldn't find a way to edit it. I think this is the family that has recently been discussed on this list and I thought the information was too good not to share. I believe the cities and counties referred to without a state designation are in Pennsylvania. PMT From "Missing branches of our oldest family" a paper read before the Kittochtinny Historical Society on Jan. 28, 1904, at the home of Mrs. William L. Chambers. "Another missing branch of the Chambers family that I am able to restore to the family tree comprises the descendants of Hetty Chambers, youngest daughter of Col. Benjamin Chambers, the founder of Chambersburg, and her husband, William M. Brown, Esq., in his day a brilliant member of the Chambersburg Bar. VII. HADASSAH, (HETTY) CHAMBERS, (born at Chambers' Mills---died at Paris, Tenn.), youngest daughter of Col Benjamin and Jane (Williams) Chambers, married in 1793, William Maxwell Brown, (born at Brown's Mill, in Antrim township---died at Paris, Tenn., in 1843), youngest son of Capt. George and Agnes (Maxwell) Brown. When the elder Brown made his will in 1785, he had not yet made choice of a profession, and provision was made for his education in law, divinity or physic. He graduated at Princeton, and studied law with William Bradford, Attorney General in President Washington's cabinet. He was admitted to the Philadelphia Bar, Sept. 10, 1789, and two years later resolved to begin practice in Chambersburg. As a member of the Franklin County Bar, Mr. Brown attained high rank, and amassed a fortune as a lawyer. He was an eloquent speaker and a successful advocate. In person he was tall and spare, He was a man of polished manners and unusual taste in dress. Mr. Brown built the fine mansion in West Market street, afterward the residence of the Rev. Alfred Nevin, Col. A. K. McClure, and the Hon. George W. Brewer, and newly occupied by Mrs. Brewer. His office was in the small building adjoining on the east. The entire structure was burnt by the Confederates in 1864, but the walls were left standing, so that it was rebuilt without change in its outward appearance. Mr. Brown's father left him a farm in Montgomery township on which he built a mill, known in recent years as "the old slitting mill." This property led to his ruin financially. He put up buildings and set up machinery for rolling sheets of iron and making nails. In order to obtain sufficient water power he bought an adjoining property at a cost of $32,000. In the business depression that followed the close of the war of 1812, the depreciation was so great that under pressure the land was sold for $8,000. In consequence of his losses Mr. Brown abandoned his practice, and removed to Tennessee. William M. and Hadassah (Chambers) Brown had issue: 1. WILLIAM M., (xxii). 2. GEORGE, drowned in the Tennessee River in 1836. 3. HADASSAH, (Hetty), married Samuel Hankins, (xxiii). 4. BENJAMIN, (xxiv). It is surprising that a family so closely allied with the founder of Chambersburg, the Browns of Antrim and the Maxwells of Montgomery, should almost completely have dropped out of our books of local history and genealogy. Capt. George Brown, who died in 1791, the father of William Maxwell Brown, was a son of Thomas Brown, the pioneer settler at Brown's Mill. In 1748 he was captain of a company in the regiment of Col. Benjamin Chambers, of which his neighbor, John Potter, the first sheriff of Cumberland county, was lieutenant, and his brother-in-law, John Rannells, of Chambersburg, ensign. His wife, Agnes Maxwell, was a daughter of William and Susanna Maxwell, pioneer settlers on the West Conococheague. Like Captain Brown, his son-in-law, Mr. Maxwell was a captain in Colonel Chambers' regiment in 1748; he was one of the first justices of Cumberland county, and took an active part in the defense of the frontier during the French and Indian war. One of the daughters of Capt. George and Agnes (Maxwell) Brown, Susanna, was the wife of the Rev. Dr. John McKnight and the other, Sarah, married Capt. Benjamin Chambers, of Chambersburg, and was the mother of the late Judge George Chambers, the most venerated man in this community at the time of his death in 1866. It is a mark of astonishing neglect on our part that any of the descendants of three such noteworthy families in the early history of the county should be unknown to our local annals. Only two of the children of William Maxwell and Hetty (Chambers) Brown married. In 1824, the year that the Brown family removed to Tennessee, Dr. William Maxwell Brown, the eldest, who was drowned in the Tennessee River with his brother George in 1836, wedded Mary Janet Bowles of Clearspring, Md.: they had four children: Llewllyn, Hadassah Chambers, Carrington and Benjamin Chambers. After the death of Dr. Brown his widow returned with her children to the home of her father at Hancock. Benjamin Chambers Brown, the youngest, is still living in California: he has issue, five children: Benjamin, Annie, Edward, Howard and Sibley. Hadassah Chambers Brown, the only daughter of Dr. William Maxwell and Mary Janet (Bowles) Brown, married Chauncey Forward Shultz, a native of Somerset county, son of Adman Shultz, a farmer near the town of Somerset. Adam Shultz laid out the town of Grantsville, Md., in 1836. In 1857, Mr. Shultz went to Hampshire Co., Va., where he lived until 1859, when he removed to St. Louis, Mo. Mrs. Brown went west with her daughter and son-in-law, but died at the home of her son, Carrington, at Corbondale, Ill., in 1876. In 1874, Mr. Shultz retired from active business and was elected by the Democratic party Presiding Judge of the County Court. Judge Shultz was one of the Commissioners of Forest Park, St. Louis, and delivered the opening address when the park was opened to the public, June 6, 1876. In 1876 he was appointed assignee of the Western Savings Bank by the Circuit Court, and became Assistant United State Treasurer at St. Louis, by appointment by President Cleveland in 1887. Chauncey F. and Hadassah C. (Brown) Shultz had four children: Maxwell William, Addie, Llewllyn Brown, and Mary Janet. Addie Shultz married James Allison, who is one of the best known glass manufacturers in the United States. Miss Mary Janet Shultz has been a frequent visitor to Chambersburg, the home of her Chambers and Brown ancestry. Hadassah, the only daughter of William Maxwell and Hetty (Chambers) Brown, married Samuel Hankins, and went to Grenada, Miss., where she died, leaving three children who are living in California. ===================================================================== --