Charles Clinton Brown was born in 1860 in Missouri, and he died in 1904 in Sacramento, California. He was a lawyer and Judge. Apparently, he died wealthy and without issue, after he arrived in New Orleans, on a cold day in January, the first place he and his son, Jay Roshell Brown, went was to the local newspaper and gave the following story:
Sacramento Daily Union, Vol. 90 Number 141, 1 Feb 1896
C.C. Brown in New Orleans. He is there to Claim the Fortune Left by His Sister A characteristic Interview with the Eccentric Sacramentan in a Local Journal.
Charley Brown, who went to New Orleans the other day to claim the fortune left there by his sister, Fanny Sweet, is evidently making his presence in the Crescent City known, judging by the following from the “Times-Democrat of recent date:
“I am Charles C. Brown, the man from Sacramento, the only brother of Fanny Sweet, and I am glad to meet a representative of the “Times-Democrat,” and the speaker extended a big round hand that showed distinct signs of manual labor for a shake. “There is no mystery connected with my claims and there has not been the slightest secrecy in my movement since coming to New Orleans, as has been intimated. We have nothing to conceal.”
This was Charles C. Brown’s own way of introducing himself. He is here from Sacramento, Cal., to contest the will of Fanny Hinckley-Mills, better known as Fanny Sweet, and he claims to be the only legitimate heir to the fortune, which is variously estimated to about the $75,000 mark. He is accompanied by his only son[i], Jay R. Brown.
“Then tell me the secret of this strange life that has passed without anyone really understanding it,” requested the reporter.
“My dear young man, that life, why, it would fill a book. But I will tell you all I can, and my lawyer will tell in open court the things I can’t.
“You must go back with me to the old homestead in Ohio and try to think it about the year 1824[ii]. Two hundred miles above Cincinnati, in Lawrence County, at Proctorsville[iii], on Paddy Creek – yes plain old Dutch Paddy Creek. There is where we five children were born[iv], right on the bank of the creek. My father was John Jay Brown, a plain old Dutchman, who served four years in the army of the Rhine. My mother’s name was Rebecca Smallwood before she married and she was a Frenchwoman.
“The first child was James Brown[v], who long since died at Bristol. Next came Mary Brown, born in 1820, who married James McVey and later moved to Huntington, W. Va. Sarah Henrietta Brown[vi] was the third child, and she married John McCormick of Cincinnati. They started to California in the great gold rush of 1849, but he never reached there, dying on the plains. The fourth child was Rachel Fanny Brown, who was just two years, two months, and twenty days older than I, which makes her having been born in 1821, as my birthday was February 5, 1824.
“This, then, was the starting point of my sister Fanny. We lived in Proctorsville, [sic] Ohio, as children until Fanny was 19 years old. At that time, which was about 1841, Fanny went down to Cincinnati to see her sister, Mrs. McCormick, who was there with her husband. This was our first separation and it so happened that I saw but little of her after that. She remained in Cincinnati until my sister and brother-in-law started to drive through to California when she went with them. My brother [in-law] died on the way, but the two women pushed on to California.
“It was then that I took to steamboating. I came down to New Orleans and for years steamboated[vii] up the Red River from this port. I recall many of the old vessels we ran. Oh, this is no new city to me! In its old days I knew it well and many of the old shipping houses here.
“While in California my sister Fanny had trouble with a man named Putnam[viii] and shot him. It is no secret and I don’t care if you publish it. Yes, she shot him. Then she was spirited away from there, and after much rambling about the country she suddenly turned up at the old homestead in Ohio. It wasn’t long until she got into some trouble with my brother-in-law, McVey, and sued him for a big sum. That suit was one of the famous cases in the Ohio courts of those early days. I returned there at just this state of affairs and learned the situation. It enraged me very much and I saw Fanny only once. The time I saw her she was standing on the deck of the steamboat Henry A. Jones[ix], Captain Bill Knight, which was lying at anchor in the Ohio River near our home. Fanny asked me to come on board and down into the cabin; that she was in trouble and wanted to see me. I told her “no”; that I would have nothing to do with the case, and turned away.
“That was in 1856, and it was the last time I ever saw my sister Fanny. I sold out everything and skipped.
In the meantime I had married[x] Jay’s mother,” continued Mr. Brown, pointing to his son, and walking across the room to blow a wad of tobacco out of his mouth. Then he pulled a long shot bag out of his pocket and took from it a large plug of old Star, one corner of which he proceeded to twist off between his thumb and forefinger. The good-natured Californian then continued:
“We went to Missouri and located in Jasper County. Our home stood on the county line- in fact, half in Jasper and half in Lawrence County – but it was not a home divided against itself. I first went to Sacramento, Cal., in 1868, and we settled there permanently in 1872[xi]. I have been right there ever since. While I was in Missouri my sister Fanny drifted down the river to New Orleans. In 1877 she wrote to the Postmaster at Sacramento, Cal., and asked if I lived there and to send her my address. He gave her my address, and from that time she kept up a correspondence with my wife and also my son Jay.”
“By what name did you know her? Asked the reporter.
“We always thought her name was Hinckley[xii] until the year 1879[xiii], when she wrote to me, saying that she had just lost a big lawsuit in New Orleans and was broke. She asked me to send her $50. I drew up a check for $100, without a word of explanation, and enclosed it in an envelope to Fanny Sweet. In that request she signed herself Fanny Sweet[xiv]; that was the first time I had ever known her by that name. We understood that she married men by the names of Seymore[xv] and Ranger[xvi] while in California, but this was only a report. I do not know to my personal knowledge that Fanny was ever legitimately married.”
“Does the bank have any record of that $100 check?” put in the writer.
“As soon as I learned of her death, I went to the bank to inquire about the check, and they said all old checks were destroyed every ten years. If that check could be traced it would prove my identity without further words.”
“And you feel confident that there is no other heir to this fortune, whose owner declared that she had no living relative?”
“There can be no other unless it is a niece, the daughter of my sister, Mrs. McVey. She would be about 54 years of age, and her name is Rosanna Fuller[xvii], living in Dayton or Cleveland, O., and I do not know which. She has two children. Our family was the queerest family you ever saw, we were all regular “Wandering Jews,” as you can see.”
“What is your occupation, Mr. Brown?”
C. C. Brown smiled a good healthy California smile, stretched himself up to his full stature, walked across the room, spat in the cuspidor, and with his hands in his pockets, said:
“I do nothing but rent houses and collect rents. They call me a capitalist, which is not exactly true these days. But I make out to live, when I am at home, and have some to spare. I shall stay in this city until the case is settled. My son, there is an attorney-at-law, and he has his sheepskin, too – I call diplomas ‘sheepskins.’”
Mr. Brown is very athletic in build and would make a splendid center rush for a college football team if he was forty years younger. He is 72 years of age, but he does not look at it by ten years.
“I am six feet in my bare feet,” said Mr. Brown, and he stood up, filled his lungs, and threw his shoulders back to show the powerful man he is. “I was 6 feet 1 ½ inches during my army days, and I was on the pension side, too, but I am not drawing a pension.”
This claimant to the Fanny Sweet estate can give an excellent description of the woman he says was his sister. She was 5 feet 9 inches, being only three inches lower than himself. In her younger days, she had a head of wonderful yellow blonde hair, which changed to a darker hue in her old age. Mr. Brown says his hair was very light at one time but has grown darker, and now is growing light again.
C. C. Brown bears a letter from C. H. Hubbard, Mayor of Sacramento, addressed to Mayor Fitzpatrick of New Orleans, which tells of Mr. Brown’s long residence in the former city. The bearer will be presented to Mayor Fitzpatrick today by Attorney William K. Horn.
Other letters have been brought from the far West, which is now in the hands of Attorneys Rogers and Dodds, who have charge of the case in court.
One is from Judge Matt. F. Johnson of the Sacramento Superior Court, and is addressed to the Judge of the Probate Court. Another bears the signature of Judge A. C. Hinkson, also of the Sacramento Superior Court. Judge W. A. Henry, for seventeen years Judge of the Police Court, addresses a not, “To whom it may concern.” The President of the National Bank of D. O. Mills, Sacramento, has furnished Mr. Brown a letter of credit to the New Orleans National Bank, which has already been presented.
When the special dispatches from New Orleans first announced the death of Fanny Sweet in the San Francisco papers C. C. Brown received the following letter:
“San Francisco, Jan. 13, 1896.
“C. C. Brown, Sacramento, Cal. – Dear Sir: I was pleased to see by telegraphic news in the papers that you stand a chance for a handsome fortune in New Orleans, and I sincerely hope it will turn out to be true. At any rate, I take the liberty of writing and congratulating you on your good fortune. Your sister[xviii] told me something about the sister recently deceased, and I have no doubt you are the heir. “Judge S. C. Denson
“Say, young man,” and the reporter felt a hand touch his shoulder as he was leaving the room. “I wish you would do one more thing for me through your paper. Correct the impression given out in the papers that there is a great mystery surrounding my claims to Fanny Sweet’s fortune. There is none whatever. Everything connected with the case is open to the world. I am the only brother, and we will prove that she did have a brother. Good-by. Come again and let me talk to you about California. There’s nothing like it.”
[i] The 1860 Census Jasper County Missouri, McDonald Twp., shows Charles C. Brown age 37, farmer, b. Ohio with Frances E. age 36 b. Va and Hamilton B. age 4/12 b. MO and a Joseph Woodcock age 11 b. MO. Nothing more has been found on what happened to Hamilton B. Brown nor how Joseph Woodcock fits into the family.
[ii] He is picking up from the time he was born in 1824.
[iii] Now known as Proctorville (without the “s”) and lies across the river from Huntington, Cabell Co., WV.
[iv] Sister Sarah on census records claims Virginia as the place of her birth. Charles states he was b. Ohio on the 1860 census and SC on the 1870 census.
[v] From what I can gather their brother James Brown was born ca 1815 in Virginia.
[vi] Later it was stated that Sarah had first married a Swartwood. Lawrence County Marriage Book 1-3 page 349 lists the marriage of Sarah Brown to Ebenezer E. [Earl] Swartwood on May 13, 1841. Her marriage to John McCormick has not been found (look up to see). After arriving in California she married 3rd to Charles Green; 4th to David Taylor and 5th to Ezra Woolson. She also had several aliases.
[vii] Several men from Lawrence County Ohio worked or ran steamboats on the Red River during this time. The Kouns owned the Red River Packet Co.
[viii] Albert Putnam
[ix] Henry A. Jones was a paddlewheel steamboat built in Pittsburg, Pa, 1856, 193 tons. Owned by Capt. Knight, and burned and lost one mile below Augusta, Ky., on Feb. 27, 1858. Source: Way’s Packet Directory 1848-1983 compiled by Frederick Way, Jr.
[x] Charles C. Brown married Francis Elizabeth Paine on 21 September 1855 Lawrence County, Ohio Marriage Book 5 Pg. 154
[xi] 1870 Census, Vineyard Township, Lyons, Lawrence Co., Missouri, states that Charles C. Brown, retail merchant, was b. 1828 SC age 42; Frances E. age 34 b. Va. Jaquillian male age 10 b. MO and a William Maltby, retail merchant, age 22 b. NY
[xii] No marriage record has been found but a divorce from Abraham Miller Hinkley was obtained in New York.
[xiii] I believe this was the year that her husband’s attorney Mills won the Myra Clark Gaines lawsuit. Fanny owned some of the real estates that belonged to this settlement.
[xiv] Fanny started using the name Sweet in 1853 while living in New Orleans.
[xv] Fanny used the alias Seymour during her time in California.
[xvi] Probably meant Raines. Her paramour was Reuben Raines owner of the El Dorado Saloon.
[xvii] Mary McVey’s daughter Rose McVey married A. G.Fuller. Married by Rev. Daniel Waddell, October 26, 1865, Mr. A.G. Fuller formerly of WV, and Rose McVey of Rome Twp., Lawrence County, Ohio. Ironton Register Nov. 16, 1865.
[xviii] He had to be referring to Sarah Henrietta aka Mary McCormick.
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