1844 Our Newest Member of the Philosophical Society

Steuben County, NY

Civil War Marine Charles Brother was born on August 10, 1844.

He was the son of Sheriff Henry Brother and Mary Ann Pratt of 22 W. Morris Street in Bath, New York.

Raised in a home filled with stories about military battles and low-lifers at the jail and told by black, white, and mulatto servants, teachers, mill workers and hired hands, blacksmiths, and dairy farmers.

Charley Brother, the Marine, grew up loving all the people of the Finger Lakes region who made known where they stood and who got in the arena to compete with their fists for political, religious, mercantile, and academic inquiries and debate.

Holding onto the bottom of his caregiver’s skirts, drowning in their bosoms and diverse and colorful fabrics, Charley would learn how to make his own vests, later doing an apprentice with Scottish tailor James Sutherland, Sr. who introduced him to various tartans as soon as he arrived in town just as the four year old boy needed playmates his own age and just as Sutherland’s boys, new to town, felt the same way and could swing a fist in a skirt, but only on special occasions.

As Charley Brother’s neighbors told stories to him over the fence and pail, his sisters made faces at him. While they held him by the dome of his pants, his brothers tried to ditch him. His mother babied him, especially after her last child—Anna—died when Charles was four years old, which endeared him to the Sutherland boys even more as they introduced him to bagpipes at her funeral.

They called him “Charley” to distinguish him with his uncle and namesake, New York Assemblyman Charles S. Brother.

When his grandfather Valentine Brother (1773-1820) died, the region deeply felt the loss of one who knew the hills, streams, and lakes, but more so the people and their hunger for rigorous debate with Albany, always screwing things for those upstate, and the ports of lower New York, so quick to visualize the tail wagging the dog and crack the whip. The Finger Lakes Region and western New York would improve once they learned the fine art of submission. NOT. EVER.

Uncle Charles stayed in Ontario County to manage the large family estate near Stanley and Seneca.

Charles assured Henry, who wanted to open general good stores and mills in the wider region, not just Bath. Yes, after Valentine’s death, his son Charles S. Brother would stay and help their mother and their two unmarried, unprepared, and bereaved sisters accept their roles as immediate guardians of six young children, all overwhelmed to witness intimately the sudden death of their parents.

Charles the elder would even continue the next session of the Philosophical Society, established by Henry and his friends on November 9, 1823.

While preparing for the Sabbath at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, Vestryman Henry Brother took in account of his brother and now held his infant son. He kept holding the boy for a long, serious moment even after his wife was free of of adjusting her bonnet and those of her daughters.

He remembered his good brother Charles and smiled for their love and trust of each other and their unflinching attachment to philosophy, the work for truth, usefulness, God and His will.

Placing his index finger on the forehead of his new and last offspring, as if to make a real and first impression, Henry said to the future Marine:, “My boy will be a philosopher, like his fathers, and their fathers, like the great founding fathers, and like my brother. A Brother for the line of Brothers.”

Philosophical Society Meeting Minutes from Nov 9, 1823

Reprinted in The Geneva Times (Geneva, NY) Dec 4, 1959

1844 The Vulture of the Alps

When Mary Ann Brother was one month pregnant with Charles Brother (the one who grew up to be a Marine in the Civil War), she cringed as she listened to “H. H.” (Henry Hobart), her ten-year-old son. He performed at the winter concert for the Bath Classical School. It was January 1844.

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He sang a ballad about a vulture stealing a baby, devouring it in his nest. Set in the Swiss Alps, the drama followed a lighthearted recitation by the perfect Howell boys of Shakespearean comedy. But her son’s chalky performance sent a determined chill through her that she did not break in two until she climbed into bed, hours later. Her better half already had the bed warm, missing the event for a migraine.

Now she was glad he did not witness the embarrassment, set up in a makeshift stage at the church of all places where he sang, “my children never ceased to scream.”

If her cozy husband said some comforting words as he welcomed her, she did not remember it, but she hungered for his warmth unable to stop shaking. The child they named after Episcopalian Bishop Hobart was now courting an agitator’s spirit.

University of Arkansas

As she stirred, she spun about the raw elements that came out of her sweet boy’s mouth. The Vulture of the Alps was about the mother wanting to chase the bird’s flight and later unable to shake off the shock, scaling the rocks to discover the bleached bones of her infant and seeing that crimson cap.

That woman’s determination to risk her life—and risk not returning for the other children—all just to satisfy herself as to the end of this story. Could a mother love one child more than the others? Was the woman a low peasant, not realizing the danger of the climb? Was that mother just mad with grief and shock? Was she courageous or without reason? Was she beautiful to go so far? What a strange song. Who writes this dark stuff? It is not appropriate. Did it really happen? What has happened to “H.H.” that he smiles while singing this?!

The next morning, “H. H.” was the first one up and he found her at the kitchen stove. Mentioning the song, he looked at his mother, waiting for her face to show affection or disgust.

He started to breathe right again when she smiled and kissed his forehead and said, “It was so powerful; can’t shake it! You have a gift and, my God, where did you come from!? Please I implore you, play a new song on the piano, something else!!”

Reprinted program for Jan 7, 1844 as published in newspaper The Plaindealer (Bath, NY) on Jan 7, 1898

1840 He Overslept and She Wept

Mary Ann Pratt had been married to Henry Brother now for 14 years by the 1840 presidential election. Of course, the Pratts and the Brothers agreed that William Henry Harrison, a Whig, would certainly win, for his campaign was like no other. All over there were displays of support for the colorized merchandise, spirited songs, and hard cider.

Thirteen-year-old Valentine Brother was delighted when Mary Ann’s brother, Ira Pratt, showed off that campaign flag over Thanksgiving.

Ira was home from break his final year at Rensselaer, where he was studying civil engineering.

Ira was a handsome and serious student, but seemed too pale for Mary Ann. As he was hunched over the dining room table with Val, she patted him on the back and swung him around. She cupped her hands around his forehead and chin, tugging on his lower eye lids, and announced that the show-and-tell session was over.

She led him to the sick room. All the children understood that their spare stage was lost. Their costume storage would have to come out now if they were ever to gain access to it over Christmas. They began to pack up and drag out their capes.

As she tucked him in, he confessed that he had gone on a geological excursion with his class and, because he had overslept, was pressed to leave in a hurry and he failed to dress accordingly. He wanted to apologize for his drinking the night before, but decided he could not disappoint Mary Ann and Henry, his foster parents—the Rices—Val and all his other nieces and nephews. Great sacrifices were made to get him to college and now he was causing worry for his illness.

A few months later, when news came that President Harrison died from his improper clothing and shelter during his inaugural address, Mary Ann burned the newspaper, even before Henry and Val had a chance to read it. She missed her brother, who died in that sick room, too soon to learn that Harrison had won, and it pained her to know that these talented, heroic men, needed tremendously by their country, were lost for something so regular as rain. Foolish endeavors of absentminded, brilliant men who were loved and lost. As the fire burned she held the flag, too, but did not toss it in.

1839 Nativity Stage

It was November 1839. They named her Mary because it was Advent and she would be used for the Christmas pageant.

Those who knew the sheriff thought that he was the one who planned her arrival a year before, but this time it was Mary Ann.

The older ones needed something extra special this Christmas.

Mary Ann asked her best friend, Polly Metcalf, who was now Mrs. Ralph Knickerbocker Finch, to direct the play.

As the headmaster for the Bath Classical School, Mr. Finch also helped, noting that they should use the larger Presbyterian Church in Bath, which also held more receptacles for the sperm-oiled lamps.

The pastor there had a shy girl, who was the right age of the Virgin Mother and he had in mind a confidence booster.

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If she would play the part, holding the one-month-old Mary Brother, then he would buy her a new dress at the Brother store—her pick.

Recovering from the birth, Mary Ann slept in, knowing that Polly was driving the performers in the mornings for rehearsals and sewing sessions.

When she heard the door slam and the buggy slop off with the songs and chatter of the children rounding the corner of the Magee House, she dosed off with the baby at her breast.

With everything that is wrong with the world, she praised God for the gift of knowing what to do in this moment. Let nature take its course.

Her duty, chores, and her desires were aligned naturally, according to God’s will, and this time it was something that agreed with her, which was rare, she confessed, and said a little prayer in thanksgiving.

She awoke when Jane, their servant, was climbing the stairs to report that the red-cheeked children had returned.

All at the table having their stew. The plan to keep them occupied was working marvelously. But not too far from her mind was the nativity stage way back then. How bare the platform was, made of hay, and with the animals it all started, out back.

Jane took the baby and Mary Ann turned to dress herself. Brushing her hair, feeling how smooth her hair felt, she smoothed down her loose ends and tucked in her wrap.

This grooming and this conversation with Jane, this cooperation and alignment of gifts and of time itself, she tried to remember, was during Advent, when something else was on His way. How fortunate she was to have friends who tolerated chaos and who knew who was coming.

The star of the pageant, now back in her mother’s arms, began to cry.

Back on the kitchen table stage, a spillover from the morning's rehearsals, she heard from the first floor came a rousing applause, “Encore!! Encore!! Encore!” and a hearty case of the giggles and the dropping of spoons.

1837 Hash Mark Days

The same day that Helen Fowler Finch was born, on September 5, 1837, Mary Ann Brother, the mother of Civil War Marine Charles Brother, rushed to the side of her best friend.

Too ambitious from the start, Mary Ann waddled over but felt a cramp in her own womb: her sixth child on the way, but not due for two months.

Despite the strange, deep turning under her left breast, she ran to help Polly Metcalf Finch, Helen’s mother.

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When she arrived at the old tavern, winded and heavy-set, she walked into the abandoned kitchen, she turned her spine inward for another tug and reached for a chair. Something was wrong. Nose running, she reached for her tissue to create order. A whopping screech from the upstairs did not motivate her and she remained in her place with that chair.

She heard the matriarch of the neighborhood, Mrs. Metcalf, giving instructions in such a calm and low manner that there seemed no alarm, unlike the theater in her own belly, where she placed her hand, listening harder now with eyes closed.

She looked up at the ceiling, begging the snot to run down her throat instead her lips.

Up there, her eyes gripped onto the pewter pitchers and relics on the cabinets and from childhood, those good old days with plenty of servants and help. She thought of her mother, Rebecca, the day when she died after giving birth to her brother, Ira, Jr., and her death bed insistence that he would not attend the common schools.

How satisfying to know that her brother was taught by Polly’s husband, Ralph Finch, in the Bath Classical School. That would have pleased Rebecca, how things fell into place, nicely arranged on a shelf. She was 14 or 15 years old then and lived with the Metcalfs for a bit in order to let the passing of her mother pass over her like a patch of stubborn overcast hash-mark days.

Rebecca Turner liked the finer things, just like her daughter, also named Rebecca, who desired to make the table settings accurately measured. The pitchers, trays, and silverware in the cabinets, the elaborate woodwork of the trim on the cupboards. But not to be here when Mary Ann needed her.

Mary Ann heard the newborn’s hysterics and tears of joy from Polly and the older women, who assured Polly that she did very well, to produce a blonde of all things. But Mary Ann still did not climb the stairs. Instead, she picked up spoiled dishes and stacked them for washing, keeping an eye on the chair, which had become a comrade now.

She found some pork, cut up potatoes, and prepared a meal for the nurses who were able to get there first. She could only do so much, just as her own mother could only go so far before surrendering, naturally, to that pulling on her end, and wait for it to pass.

1836 Distractions

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When your enemy is distracted, fighting with each other, that is when you strike.

When those in your charge are breaking from Christ, that is when they are most vulnerable to the Devil.

These were the words on the pastor’s lips during an extravagant sermon that Sunday when Henry Brother, the father our Civil War Marine Charles Brother, determined to run for sheriff in Bath, New York. It was 1836.

His wife Mary Ann was pregnant and showing well, firm, and strong. He pressed his hand against his wife’s gloved hand in the pew next to him. He admired his young family.

All the girls had bonnets that were without wrinkles. His sons had their boots without mud.

Like a team of horses, they all would carry zeal for Christ, virtue, and commerce. Their spirit – and shiny things— would beautify the village and keep out the low-brow men who were set to strike with thievery, indulgence, and lies while the citizens of Bath were distracted by their wanting, sleeping, and labors.

Henry Brother understood human character and knew that this moment, while the politicians were distracted by the Erie Canal, land grabs, and lecturing each other with clever letters to the editor, and other talking heads, well, this is when he could surprise them all, with God willing, get in the game from the back door left open by the old, forgetful, or drunk geezers.

Mary Ann elbowed her husband, sending him cross eyes and then nodding towards her delicate hand, which was now being utterly crushed by her husband’s wicked fighting in his thoughts. She could almost hear his teeth grinding with schemes.

When he let go of her hand, he was surprised to have something soft come into his mind. He thought of his sister Ellen, who was terribly sick and failing by the hour. So young and sweet.

Ellen taught him how to read and to write in quick punches, saying enough to not waste people’s time. He promised God, right then and there, he would rush to her side, but after the election.

The official records of the centennial celebration, Bath, Steuben County, New York, June 4, 6, and 7, 1893

1836 Henry Brother Helps Bath Along

Landmarks of Steuben County, New York

Finally, a most satisfying day for Henry Brother, the father of Civil War Marine, Charles Brother, when in May 6, 1836, he met with friends at the Eagle tavern. Today was a fine toast the ruling by his friends in Albany for the incorporation of Bath. It was a Friday and he, for once, had nothing to do on the following Saturday, for it looked like rain, and it looked as if another round was regularly and completely called for.

Dr. Gansevoort’s father Conrad was a big help in Albany, as was his own medical expertise in Bath, so it was with obedience that the men cut off the alcohol after the fourth round, even as the young surgeon stumbled a bit himself, who called out with a raised glass,

“Steady, good fellows, for I might have to deliver the birth of a baby and the birth of a village on the same night!!”

As Henry carefully pulled off his muddy boots at the back door, his wet hair provided an inconvenient damper to his candle. He started again to sing a ditty he had learned from Capt. Smead from the old 1812 fight:

Some soldiers are freezing,

Some coughing, some sneezing,

Some laugh and cry out with a sneer,

He never will come,

for No one hates a drum more,

Than glorious, great, granny Born-dear.

He turned around he bumped into Mary Ann, holding a candle. “Oh! There you are love. It is official! We are INCORPORATED!”

“Hush! I’ll show you official and incorporated, in corporal is more like it….”

1835 Classical Storm Training Required

Sailing Ship in Storm (Library of Congress)

Until Henry Brother could incorporate the town and set up some boundaries, both literally and mentally, he could not bear the responsibilities of the poor children in the neighborhood. It was not as if he blew them off completely; he tried to help with store credit and mill scraps. The reality was stark.

It was 1835 and Henry had plenty on his plate. Valentine was 9, Cornelia 8, Rebecca 6, H. H. was 2 but could not be held or contained, and his wife was pregnant. Henry knew that the misfortunate children of the village needed proper bending, but first he had to set his house in order.

He enrolled Val at the Bath Classical School with Ralph Knickerbocker Finch, the spirited young man from Dartmouth College, who just arrived in Bath, New York. There was a sigh from Mary Ann, realizing the cost would throw the budget off, but the regimental program would answer Val’s constant questions. It was not long before H.H. followed and, thanks to Finch, he learned to sit long enough to pass his lessons.

Finch was an immediate celebrity, perhaps because he came over for dinner with stories and only the burdens of an academic. Or perhaps because he tied the knot with Mary Ann’s best friend. Perhaps because Finch mastered philosophy, logic, and reason.

The common schools were, according to Henry, just drilling for seat work, run by women, who reacted to all the cries of the children, spoiling them for real work. Comforting them with emotionalism. It was backwards and even dangerous, he said, for boys to be with girls, mentally.

Yes, Finch was a powerful force in the lives of his boys, something the church elders warned Henry of, thinking his thrilling, action-packed but secular stories from Homer, Shakespeare, and Virgil would compete with biblical lessons. Even Mary Ann suggested that Finch had gone too far, with H. H. now getting nightmares and carving sailing vessels into the woodwork under the tables and chairs. The craft assignments alone, she reported, were draining her ink wells.

But Henry was firm: his sons would study the traditional Greek and Latin that disciplined the founding fathers, for the hottest business was still untouched – the debate about true liberty of all – with arguments and more suffering still to come. If his boys would inherit a mess, at least he could provide tools for the battle.

1834 Gossip about Narcissa

Now 26 years old, Mary Ann Brother, the mother of Civil War Marine Charles Brother, sat in her front room, nursing her baby, “H. H.”, named after Bishop Henry Hobart.

It was 1834, ten years before Charles was born, but it was a familiar chair for her, the same place where she would nurse him too. Here she watched the traffic both on the stairs to the 2nd floor and out on Morris Street in Bath.

Pulling back the curtains, lifting her rear end, Mary Ann watched as Mr. Fowler greeted Mrs. Metcalfe and she returned to her breast, “What turn of events now?”

Soon, Mrs. Metcalfe entered the Brother home with just a short-tempered knock. The baby’s dark eyes shot back at her, reminding her of her husband’s mischievous appetite. “No harm in a good story, right Henry?”

Mrs. Metcalfe reported on the farewell party for the Narcissa Prentiss family, who were moving to Allegany County and then to Angelica. Narcissa, also 26, was an old classmate of Mary Ann’s but not yet married. This was because she had been trained, even pressed, to be a missionary.

Few men could tolerate the constant verbiage from the do-gooders or the thought of converting Indians. Mary glanced down at H. H. “I won’t make you pivot so hard and fast like that, son… How safe you are that I’m too tired!!”

Years later, reading in the biographies about Narcissa, famous for the massacre, Mary Ann winced, unable to stop the nausea, to learn that her friend had only met Mr. Whitman the hour before they married.

Despite being a physician, her groom could not control the disease they brought to the frontier. And Narcissa could not stop their ravenousness and riots over their new friends turning against them.

A Quiet Gossip (Library of Congress)

1832 Dreams of Henry Hobart

Henry Brother and his wife Mary Ann buried their baby in 1832 at the Grove Cemetery in Bath, New York. Words were spoken by their Episcopalian minister to never lose sight that God’s plan is not for you to see.

On their walk home, Henry kept thinking it wouldn't do that the baby that died was to have his name and take after the name of his grandfather, indentured servant, and Revolutionary War patriot Heinrich Bruder. So what Henry want now were not some comforting verse but something more energetic, almost athletic like those of Bishop Hobart. Yes, those punchy truths would have been preferred to solve a problem instead of those from their local neighbor. The bishop’s sharp way was the correction they needed, to scrub out the loss.

By the time they walked onto the back porch, greeting their pets, Henry determined to try for another child as soon as could be arranged and to name him Henry Hobart. The agenda locked in something to look forward to.

At night he reached for Mary Ann, who was asleep. Despite the July heat, he pulled her close in that automatic manner lovers know even when blind with exhaustion, announcing, “What about the name ‘Henry Hobart’ for our next child?”

But it was too hot. He pulled away and placed his arms above his head, locking them behind his head and had visions of announcing the name of the boy, sharing it with the church elders, thinking of their appropriate reactions.

As things cooled off, he returned to Mary Ann. Her responsive, slow touch brought to him round to the simple, low-key order that their local pastor liked to talk about: you can make all the plans you want.