BROWN, HENRY FRANKLIN (1891-1969)

BROWN, HENRY FRANKLIN, woolen mill owner and operator; b. Nelson, 21 May 1891, s/o Clarence Egbert Brown and Catherine Mary Ambrose; m. 1914, Edith Saunders Flett, d/o Harvey Flett and Rebecca Jane Vye; d. Newcastle, 17 Jul 1969.

At around age twelve Henry F. ("Harry") Brown went to work in the Flett Carding Mill, of which his grandfather, Thomas Ambrose, was manager. When his grandfather died in 1908 he took over operation of the mill for the Flett family. He was an employee of the Fletts until 1929 and then leased the plant from them. When they decided to dispose of it in 1931, he bought it. He promptly dismantled it, sold the old machinery, and erected a new mill on the Brown property at Nelson. This was in operation by 1933.

Unlike its predecessor, Brown's Woolen Mill not only carded wool but manufactured yarn. Its machines picked, carded, spun, spooled, twisted, and finally skeined the wool. The mill had a nominal capacity of 250 pounds a day, but during World War II it produced up to 350 pounds. In the war years, "thousands upon thousands of socks, mitts, helmets, sweaters, scarves, etc. were knit by the skilled fingers of Miramichi women from Brown yarn, for the Canadian armed forces and for refugee children." There was not enough wool available in New Brunswick to keep the mill supplied, and shipments had to be brought in from Quebec and Ontario. Between ten and twenty persons were employed at the plant at any given time, including Brown's wife, Edith S. Flett, who was the bookkeeper and supervisor of the business.

Ever the "hustling manager," Brown expanded and improved the mill in the early 1950s and continued to operate it until 1963, when he was past seventy years of age. Then "feeling his life and vigor flagging," and with nobody interested in taking over the mill, he shut it down. This brought to an end at Nelson a line of business which had originated with a grant of £50 offered by the Northumberland Agricultural Society in 1850 for the erection of a "carding, fulling, and dressing machine."

Brown was president of the Highland Society in 1938. In 1948 he was elected president of the County Liberal Association. From 1953 to 1955 he was president of the Miramichi Hospital Board. He was an elder of St James and St John United Church. When he died in 1969, at age seventy-eight, he left his wife and two daughters as his survivors.