Background
William Hughey Brown was born on January 15, 1815 in North Huntington Township, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, the son of James and Sarah Brown.
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William Hughey Brown
Edit ProfileEducation
Brown's education was limited to the usual courses taught in the common schools of that day.
Career
By turns, William Hughey Brown was employed as a laborer on the old Portage Canal, worked on a farm in the summer, and dug coal in the winter. While working as a coal digger, the idea occurred to him that many people would rather buy their coal than come to the mines and dig it. So he bought a horse and wagon and began to peddle coal.
In a short time, he had a number of other men with teams hauling coal for him. Next (1845 - 56) he began to float coal down the Monongahela River, and sold it in Pittsburgh. His profits soon enabled him to buy a coal mine of his own; two years later, he formed a partnership with the owners of the Kensington Iron Works in Pittsburgh. The firm, under Brown's direction, began mining and operating in coal at the Nine-Mile Run on the Monongahela. They furnished coal to passenger boats and steamboats. Also, they established a few coke ovens at the mines.
In 1858 Brown attempted an experiment that places him among America's business pioneers, that of towing coal by steamers down the Ohlo River. Prior to this, coal had been floated down in barges, a class of large keel-boats. But the expenses absorbed all the profits.
Brown conceived the plan of towing a number of flatboats with steamers. He collected twelve boats, loaded some 230, 000 bushels of coal on board, attached the steamer Grampus on one side and the General Larimer on the other, and started them down the river in charge of his son Samuel S. Brown.
The venture succeeded beyond all expectation. There was now no limit to the future coal industry of the Pittsburgh district. In the same year Brown entered the firm of Reis, Brown & Berger, and bought a large rollingmill at New Castle, Pennsylvania. On this occasion he is said to have given his personal check for $100, 000 in order to complete the deal, --ample evidence of the wealth he had accumulated.
He retired from active business in 1873, suffered a paralytic stroke, and died in the Kirkbride Asylum, Philadelphia.
Achievements
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At the outbreak of the Civil War, Brown secured contracts for supplying coal to the fleet of the Federal forces at Cairo, Memphis, and Vicksburg. During this period he also shipped coal to St. Louis for the gas works of that city. These were years of great activity and responsibility; also of great risks and personal danger. Many times he barely escaped capture by regular armed forces and also by guerrilla bands, but so far as is known, he never lost a single cargo of coal. At the time of his death in 1875, he had fifteen steamboats in operation on the Ohio River.
Personality
In his obituary notices he was described as "a mental and physical giant, " but he broke down from overwork.
Connections
On September 3, 1840, he had married Mary Smith, daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth Smith of Minersville, Pennsylvania.
