Ghost stories from where I grew up, the conclusion

Ladies and gentlemen, my Granddad often told me, “This too shall pass.” He also informed me, “It’s later than you think…”

Truer words have never been spoken. Yes, we may delay, but time will not.

Decades had passed since that warm, summer day when the Brown family paused to pose for a portrait in front of the two-story brick farmhouse in Highland County, the place where I grew up. The family patriarch and matriarch were long gone, and it had been more than a dozen years since shots rang out at the Parker House in uptown Hillsboro, mortally wounding 36-year-old John Brown.

Marion Britton, the son of Martha Locke Britton and Jonah Britton, had been behind bars since the shooting of his brother-in-law, and the Ohio State Board of Pardons had recommended that he spend the rest of his life at the Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus.

According to a book written by Hugh Isma Troth, the great grandson of Marion Britton and Susannah E. “Betty” Brown Britton, while at the penitentiary, Marion Britton became the first prison librarian and taught the first Sunday school class in the penitentiary. Troth also wrote that the prison warden occasionally “permitted (Britton) to walk the streets of Columbus.”

Years had passed, but the Britton family still fervently worked to seek Marion Britton’s release. According to Troth, after Marion Britton had served approximately five years of a life sentence, “Marion’s son, Locke, and other family members took Marion’s youngest daughter, Bea, to see the governor. Our stories are that Bea was such a beautiful child the governor felt compassion, and as the governor was a Civil War veteran (as was Marion), he pardoned Marion.”

Now a free man, Britton returned to the Lynchburg area and resumed his farming operation. He never married again.

For the Brittons, the entire episode was one they tried very hard to forget.

According to Troth, the “story was never mentioned in our home. My grandmother was Nellie Britton, a daughter of Marion Britton. Never did I hear a word from her about the subject, but as I grew older in the house, I occasionally heard about it and asked mother and my Aunt Mary. They knew very little and said very little, other than that it was a great embarrassment to the family.”

As time progressed, Troth heard stories regarding the feud and the fatal shooting, writing, “My brother and I had been told that Marion Britton had been threatened a number of times by his brother-in-law. Marion Britton told the family of times he heard bullets whistle about his head while he was out in the fields. He suspected that John Brown was the culprit. We were told that at the time of the shooting, John Brown’s gun fell to the sidewalk and was stolen by a black porter of the Parker House Hotel. There is no mention at all of this in the newspaper reports.”

But while many of the Brittons attempted to bury the episode in the distant past, some of the Browns absolutely refused to forget.

Mary M. Brown, who was briefly engaged to Marion Britton following her sister’s death, by many accounts literally held on to the history of decades past.

She had compiled a chest of evidence, including the bloody suit that her younger brother had worn on Aug. 4, 1888, the day of the shooting. She had purchased the “Weeping Woman” monument for John, and also had her name inscribed beside his: Mary M., sister of John C. Brown, Born May 8, 1849.

Because of the feud between John Brown and Marion Britton, Mary’s engagement to Britton in 1888 fell through. She would eventually marry, but not for many more years.

Psalm 90:10 says: The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

On Dec. 19, 1917, Mary Brown’s sister, Sarah Brown Roush, died in a flu epidemic at the age of threescore years and ten.

Sarah’s husband, Wesley T. Roush, my great-great grandfather, would marry Mary Brown on Sept. 4, 1919. He was 71, she was 70.

W.T. Roush, a farmer, educator and general businessman, would die of tuberculosis on Jan. 21, 1926 at the age of 77. Mary Brown Roush would move in with Ted and Lavina Gossett Roush at their home on Anderson Road near Hillsboro. Ted was Mary’s nephew – and stepson – and my great grandfather.

As it turns out, Marion DeCalb Britton would live longer than any of the other major players in this tale.

Troth wrote that, according to his aunt, Mary Cade, a granddaughter of Marion Britton, in his later years “Marion Britton had a buggy and a horse named ‘Dick.’ Marion owned a farm near New Vienna, and on occasion he took Aunt Mary and the other grandchildren by buggy up to his farm. Each time he drove by Sharpsville, he would remark that he bought his first pair of boots at the General Store there.”

According to Troth, “My mother said her grandfather quite often visited their home. She did not look forward to his visits because Marion always asked my mother what she had learned in Sunday school. My mother hadn’t learned anything in Sunday school and couldn’t fake it with Grandpa Marion.”

Marion Britton died on March 6, 1935, just three days after turning 90 years old. He was buried beside his wife, Susannah E. “Betty” Brown Britton, in the Mount Olive Cemetery. He outlived her by nearly a half century, and had seen nearly 47 years since the August day in 1888 when his life would forever change when he fatally shot John Brown.

How did it get so late so soon?

Mary Brown Roush passed away a few years earlier on Sept. 27, 1931. She was 82. She is buried to right of her husband. Sarah is buried to the left of her husband.

Shortly after Mary’s death, Lavina Roush, sick and tired of having the “John Brown chest” in her home, hauled the chest out to the backyard and set it on fire.

As the flames reach toward the sky on that day 83 years ago, let’s close the book on the stories from the place where I grew up. Rest eternal grant unto them, O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

Remember, the past is never dead. It’s not even past…

Steve Roush is a vice president of an international media company and a columnist and contributing writer for The Highland County Press.