PHRONIE

The ALEXANDRIA PAPERS #4 

S O P H R O N I A   C A R T E R

Nicholas Brown was born in Maryland to Ed and Peggy Brown, served as a young boy during the American Revolution, was involved in the Whiskey Rebellion in Southwest Pennsylvania before moving to Kentucky.  After a few years, he purchased land in Harrison Township.  He also speculated on land and traveled frequently down the National Road to Jewett, Illinois, leaving family in Harrison and Union Townships.  When his son died in Illinois, he returned to Kirkersville to stay and is buried at Wesleyan Chapel not far from his farm.

Nicholas' descendants include the wife of Karl Foster, former Licking County Commissioner, Nicholas C. Brown, Jr, who ran the Licking County Home, served on the Board of Education for Union Schools south of Granville, and whose mother was killed by a train at Union Station.  More important to Alexandria, Nick had a daughter named Katherine.  Katy married Eli Holmes, whose family and the Browns had known each other since Pennsylvania, perhaps earlier.  Eli and Katy had a daughter Nancy, who married Enos Wilkin.  In turn, they had a daughter Elizabeth "Libbie" Wilkin, who married Alexandria native Henry Judson "Jud" Carter, son of Lyman and Sephronia Carter who farmed the old Helon Rose farm on the east side of State Route 37 as you leave Alexandria.

The Carters had come from Vermont to Granville a couple of generations earlier.  Lyman Carter, Jud's father, owned lots 30 and 31 which took in both sides of Worthington Road on the east side of Scott's corners along the South Road SR 37) and York Road.  Lyman also had an out lot almost across from George Davison's farm.  Jud was a childhood friend of Watson Davison.  Their family farms were close to each other on Worthington Road.  They went turkey hunting together, probably on the Davison farm south of Alexandria on the Worthington Road.  There is an old story about Jud and Wat tracking a turkey through fresh tracks in the snow.  They shot it and discovered the turkey was larger than either boy could manage to carry.  To get this prize turkey home, each boy grabbed a leg, and they dragged it through the snow leaving an odd track that was visible for weeks until the snow melted.  Once home with their trophy bird, the turkey was immediately scalded, cleaned, and cooked.  It is said the turkey supplied the Davisons, the Carters, and several neighbors for a few days.

Judson and Libbie had a daughter Sophronia, named for her paternal grandmother, and she briefly married Willoughby D. Brooks, the son of David C. Brooks, who was named in honor of Alexandria's famous son, Dr. Willoughby Dayton Miller.

What makes Phronie interesting is that she lived in what I like to think of as Alexandria's 'Golden Age.'  The New Business Block was recently completed, and both her husband and father worked their trade as merchants in the new Brooks Building.  Her uncle-in-law, Dr. Willoughby Dayton Miller had served the German Kaiser as Court Dentist and his publications were groundbreaking, well received, and still required reading for any aspiring dentist.  To this day, Dr. Miller has statues at both the Ohio State University and the University of Michigan.  Miller's tombstone is the only tombstone in Maple Grove Cemetery in the shape of a cross.  Phronie would have known her cousin was killed by a train at Union Station south of Granville.  Phronie lived with her parents and in the Summer of 1906, in Alexandria, life seemed perfect.  The twenty-five-year-old Phronie was engaged to be married and looked forward to her wedding.

Phronie was a pianist.  She played at the Congregational Church on Mill Street.  This church was the choice for many of Alexandria's oldest families at the turn of the Century.  Among members of this church were Dr. Willoughby D. Miller and his wife Caroline, David C. and Sarah (Miller) Brooks, and Phronie's parents, Judson and Libbie Carter, as well as Jud's childhood friend Wat Davison and his wife, Hester (Beaumont) Davison - daughter of Isaiah Beaumont.  When the Congregational Church disbanded in 1920, she transferred to the Alexandria Baptist Church and played piano there.  Old time residents recall walking by her house on summer evenings and stopping to hear her practice.  She played the piano her whole life.  To this day, there is music on file at the Baptist Church with her name on it.

Phronie lived in an age when the town had a band and a baseball team, a new high school, and a fireproof brick town hall.  Her Dad, Jud, played saxophone.  Phronie witnessed the transformation of the town as automobiles replaced horses.  Phronie would have known the Rugg family as small-town merchants and remembered the Buxton's "Old Red Tavern."  Phronie would have witnessed huge steam engines thrashing on the Reese Farms.  She would have heard the train whistle as it stopped at the station or crossed Northridge or Granville Roads until it no longer stopped in Alexandria.  She would have witnessed Alexandria's expansion on Main, Granville, and North Liberty Streets.  She would have seen the fire burn downtown and seen it rebuilt.  She would have seen a fire claim the Town Hall and the bricks reused for homes.  She would have welcomed a new neighbor several doors down, Edith Scott of Indianapolis, when Edith married Professor Lawrence Irwin and moved to town.  She would have mourned with Edith when Lawrence died some ten years later of tuberculosis.  She probably played piano for the funeral.  She would have heard all about the Alexandria Bank robbery.  She was a member of Alexandria's Literary Society and left some of her recollections at the library.  Phronie lived in Alexandria's Golden Age.

When my parents moved to Alexandria from Indiana in the 1950s, we were newcomers.  Unlike most other people in town, we had no relatives here.  Then we discovered that the Honorable N.T. Brown and his grandfather, Nicholas Brown, were our direct ancestors.  This made Phronie a distant cousin.  The world became a bit smaller.