GALION'S BROWNELLA COTTAGE,
an eccentric bishop and maybe a ghost or two

The:"cottage" was the nearly life-long, Galion home of William Montgomery Brown said to be one of the most fascinating individuals in Galion's history and probably in the history of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the 20th Century.

According to his obituary, he was "...the first Bishop of his communion to be tried for heresy since the Reformation, and the first of any creed in America to be disposed for heretical teachings."

Brownella was Brown's home from its construction which began in 1885 to his death in 1937 except for a period when he served the church in Arkansas.

Construction of the cottage was paid for by a wealthy philanthropist from Cleveland.  Turns out Brown married that Cleveland lady's niece and adopted daughter, Ella Scranton Bradford.  The cottage name was created from the groom's and bride's names.

Brown was born in 1855 near Orville.  When he was 7 his widowed mother could not support her young family and "bound out" Brown to a neighbor who pretty much enslaved young Brown.  When he was 15 the county rescued him and he wound up with a pious family of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

That set the stage for his scholarly ricochet through adolescence, seminary at Kenyon College and divinity

school.  He married young Ms. Bradford, was ordained at Trinity Cathedral in Cleveland in 1883 and then was assigned to a Galion parish.

In 1897 Brown was elected Bishop of Arkansas and sent to Little Rock.  His support of a black Episcopal church there and his changing views led to his loss of support from the Church.

Obsessed with the idea he held the key to world salvation he and Ella returned to Galion where he had a nervous breakdown.  During his recuperation he began reading the works of Karl Marx and Charles Darwin.  He resigned his position as Bishop in 1912.

From then to1920 Brown underwent a startling conversion process.  His acceptance of socialism and Marxism led him to communism--not the variety that has since become loathed by the West.  He went on to accept "Brother Jesus" not as a real person but as an exponent of ethical ideas.

He suggested that Christianity derived from sun worship.

When the church general conference met in 1922 the church bishops presented a petition to indict Brown for heresy and ultimately convicted him.  He was deposed in 1925 and died in his beloved Brownella Cottage.

While such a colorful, controversial figure is hard to imagine in a small community like Galion, he apparently was well liked in the community and his will was generous including funds to support a hospital or home for the aged in town.

Extensive coverage of his trial, funeral and will in the New York Times attests to the fact he did, indeed, spill the beans "all over the place."

Today, the cottage often hosts paranormal investigations where stories abound of the Brown's continuing to roam the halls of Brownella, where there are tales of strange noises and visions of lights coming on and going off in the house.

And then it happened!  As friend Nancy Meinzer was pondering portraits of Marx, Stalin and Lenin (left) in one of the cottage's rooms a human-like shadow suddenly appeared on the wall to her right--then faded.  We examined the digital image in the camera and sought explanation it was simply Nancy's shadow from rear window light.

Or, was it?  

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http://www.galionhistory.com/
When and where?