I love a good family mystery and when I received a hint for my second great-aunt Rosa Ellen Eccard Brown in Ancestry the other day about dying from shock received from burns, I knew I had a real whopper on my hands. I am always interested in anything with the Eccard family – they have a dramatic double suicide of my 3rd great-grandparents, Gideon and Mary Alice, that also involved some family in-fighting.[1] So, any time I see hints for the Eccards, I’m intrigued. Additionally, the name Rosa, or some variation of it, has been on that side for a few generations and now I wonder if it didn’t stem from the horrific story I’m about to tell. My own great-grandmother (who would be Rosa Ellen Eccard Brown’s niece) was named Rosa at birth and later altered it formerly to just Rose as I surprisingly found on her amended birth certificate.[2] She, in turn, named her daughter Rose Mary, or Rosie, as we all called her.[3] At this point in my genealogy journey, I don’t really believe in coincidences, so I have to think that there was a reason this name was handed down several times, likely stemming from this tragic event.
In researching Rosa Eccard for my tree, I also realized how many other trees out there were simply wrong or misattributed. Partially, this is due to Rosa’s husband, Lewis Brown, marrying multiple times and having additional children following her death. Somewhere, as it happens, things went askew on many trees that were just blindly duplicated without proper research or cross-checking. In what I can only imagine was due to his immense grief in the moment, Lewis mistakenly duplicated the birthdates of his girls on their death certificates, Rosa’s baptism date had been proposed as her birth date in county records, and some trees bizarrely have her dying in 1904, the transit permit for Rosa has two death dates on it (one occurring before the date of the accident!), the news article refers to Lewis as Charles, one birth index lists Lewis as Anson, and so forth. It was just a whirlwind of misinformation so, I hope that this blog post sets some of the facts straight and tells the story of Rosa and her children properly while helping Brown/Eccard researchers sort out some details with citations in the footnotes. (This would have made a great case for a genealogy portfolio! I should have saved it but alas…!)
Let me begin with a brief introduction to Rosa Ellen Eccard. Rosa was born on 26 August 1882 to Gideon Eccard and Mary Elizabeth Drake[4]; she was the fourth oldest child (and girl) of thirteen children. (County birth/baptism records show she was born 1 Sep 1882, but I believe this to be a baptism date as the 1900 census, her marriage record, and death certificate all show an August birth date.) She grew up in Washington Township in Pickaway County, Ohio on her father’s farm. Gideon had come from Catoctin, Maryland, and by 1876 settled in Ohio where he married Mary Alice Drake from Stoutsville in Fairfield County, the daughter of Jesse Drake and Elizabeth Valentine. Just a short distance away, Lewis Brown was born on 4 June 1879 in Perry Township in Pickaway County to Alexander Brown and Mary Carpenter.[5] (I will freely admit here that I have not explored Lewis’ line in-depth as it is not in the scope of my interest other than his approximate distance to where the Eccards lived and where Rosa grew up and possibly interacted with him socially.)
Lewis and Rosa were married on 4 July 1903 in Pickaway County[6] and their son Emmit was born a short 5 months and 7 days later on December 11, 1903, in Columbus.[7] A daughter, Mary Allice, joined the family on 15 March 1905.[8] Lewis had been working as a bookkeeper at the time of their marriage and I believe he may have taken a job in Seneca County where their third child, a daughter, named Margaret Elizabeth was born on 19 March 1906.[9] By August 1907, the family had moved back and settled at 443 Taylor Avenue (which is now best described as near-ish to the Columbus airport).
Taken from the article in the Columbus Dispatch that ran on Sunday, September 1, 1907, on the front page, the tale goes like this – on Saturday evening, August 31, 1907, Lewis Brown left their house on Taylor Avenue to go to the market to get items for Sunday.[10] At about 8 pm, Rosa started to put their three children to bed. It seems from the article that Emmit and Mary Allice must have already been upstairs in the bedroom when Rosa was carrying baby Margaret (referred to as Rosie in the article) in one arm while carrying an oil lamp in the other and she entered the bedroom, it struck the door casing and fells to the floor, exploding into flames, catching her dress on fire which then spread to baby Rosie’s (Margaret). As I’m sure she was terribly frightened of the flames and chaos around her, little Mary Allice ran to her mother, and then her dress caught on alight as well. Rosa made “frantic efforts to pat out the flames” and making what I can only assume was a gut-wrenching decision, she rationalized that she could save only one of her children and grabbed 4-year-old Emmit (who wasn’t aflame), and ran down the stairs and out onto the lawn before dropping from exhaustion and pain. Meanwhile, her two daughters were trapped inside, still burning. A young man who lived nearby heard Rosa screaming and the commotion, rushed into the house to the girls, and “beat out the fire with his arms.”
By the time help arrived though, it was already too late for the girls – their fates were determined, the poor things. The article is just horrifically descriptive, and I quote it directly here because I think it best suits the gravity of the moment. Rosa, who was conscious and speaking, had been moved to a neighbor’s house in the rear where she “lay exhausted and in great pain.” Mary Allice was “being soothed in the arms of a neighboring woman” while baby Rosie was “blackened beyond recognition, her eyes burned out, lay in a blanket on the porch.” A police wagon came and rushed the injured three to St. Anthony’s hospital. Emmit had been taken to a neighbor’s house to await his father’s return at nine o’clock. When Lewis arrived at the tragic scene, he immediately dashed off to St. Anthony’s. As she “lay in a cot,” Rosa pleaded with her husband and medical staff to “save the little ones” as she could hear Mary’s cries. She reportedly said “Don’t tell me they’re going to die. Leave me alone and save the babies.” But her pleading was for naught as both Mary Allice and little Rosie (Margaret) were pronounced deceased by 9 pm according to their transit permits.[11] Rosa was beyond help as well; she was “fatally burned and was not expected to survive more than a day” as reported in the news article. From her transit permit, the physician notes the time of her passing at 7:30 pm on September 1.[12]
What most people have missed in their trees was at this time in August 1907, Rosa was pregnant – how far along she was, I’m unsure of but most people have missed this detail because it wasn’t mentioned in the article about the oil lamp explosion. Nor was it mentioned on her death certificate anywhere. A careful researcher though would have found the death certificate for a male “Infant Brown” a few pages ahead of Rosa’s and a few after his two siblings if they would have flipped forward or backward a few pages.[13] I believe he died in utero as I did not find a matching birth certificate as I have seen with other children who died immediately after birth. I also noted there was no matching transit permit for the Transportation of a Corpse for the baby as there were for the other three which leads me to believe that he was still physically “within” his mother. (I don’t want to be graphic, but you get what I’m going for here in that he never left her body.)
According to the transit permits, the three were brought to Circleville for burial and I have to believe they’re at the Forest Cemetery where Rosa’s parents and other members of the Eccard family are interred but I’m not entirely sure and have yet to corroborate it.[14] (As of this writing, I’ve sent a letter as my email has gone ignored.) Previously mentioned earlier, Lewis would go on to marry two more times following Rosa’s death. He worked for a time as a traveling salesman, and I lost track of him after he married in Michigan in 1919.[15] Emmit was still alive in 1920 and living with his (then) deceased stepmother’s parents and his stepsiblings in Franklin County on the Donaldson farm.[16] He was 16 and I assume likely helping as a farm hand. After that, I’m not sure where he happens to go but I’m still looking for him. I’d like to think that he went on to have a happy and fulfilling life after enduring that terrifying and hideous night in 1907.
I’ll update this as I continue to research further but if you’re a Brown or an Eccard and know the full story of Lewis or Emmet Brown’s life after 1920, I sure would love to talk to you about them and make the story complete. I know Brown siblings from his marriage to the Donaldson lady had children still alive into the 1990s so there may be grandchildren who know the answers to our Eccard-Brown mystery! So please, email if that’s you!
I keep thinking about the poor Eccards… their line just had it rough, didn’t they? Rosa and her children’s deaths aside, Gideon and Mary Eccard would die in their dual suicides in 1915, Mary Drake Eccard’s sister Emma Drake would die by being struck by lightning in 1916 in one of the worst storms that had hit Ohio, Rosa’s brother Charles Eccard died after he had his legs cut off by being run over by a train in 1918 …. that poor family certainly had a run of tragedy and heartbreak. It’s just a lot for one family.
WORKS CITED:
[1] Pamela Jill Moore, “The Eccard Family Tragedy Explained,” Serendipity Tree, 4 January 2019 (https://www.serendipitytree.com/the-eccard-family-tragedy-explained : accessed 28 December 2023).
[2] State of Ohio Office of Vital Statistics, birth certificate, 1911095358 (1911), Rose May Jones; Department of Health, Columbus. Note: birth affidavit on file correcting name but name is not noted on this certificate. The Ohio birth index shows her birth name as Rosa Jones. See Ohio, Birth Index, 1908-1964 on Ancestry.com for confirmation of this fact.
[3] State of Ohio, Office of Vital Statistics, birth certificate, 1930093859 (1930), Rose Stewart ; Department of Health, Columbus.
[4] Pickaway County, Ohio, Births and death, v 1-2 1867-1886, 1882 section, p. 41, for “Eccard, Rose E,” parents listed as Gideon Eccard and Mary Drake; Pickaway County Courthouse, Circleville, Ohio; FHL microfilm 288391, image 387 of 534.
[5] Pickaway County, Ohio, Births and death, v 1-2 1867-1886, 1879 section, p. 41, for “Brown, Lewis M,” parents listed as Alex Brown and Mary Carpenter; Pickaway County Courthouse, Circleville, Ohio; FHL microfilm 288391, image 347 of 534.
[6] Pickaway County Ohio, marriage record no. 95 (1903), Brown-Eccard, Pickaway County Courthouse, Circleville; FHL microfilm 1927442, image 496 of 654.
[7] Franklin County, Ohio, Births and death, v 7-10 1897-1907, 1903 section, for “Brown, Emmit,” parents listed as Anson Brown and Rose Eccard; Franklin County Courthouse, Columbus, Ohio; FHL microfilm 285137, image 465 of 732.
[8] Franklin County, Ohio, Births and death, v 7-10 1897-1907, 1903 section, for “Brown, Mary Allice,” parents listed as L M Brown and Rosa Eccard; Franklin County Courthouse, Columbus, Ohio; FHL microfilm 285137, image 492 of 732.
[9] Seneca County, Ohio, Seneca Birth Records 1902-1909, 1906 section, p. 9, for “Brown, Margaret Elizabeth,” parents listed as Lewis Brown and Rosa Eccard; Seneca County Courthouse, Tiffin, Ohio; FHL microfilm 388651, image 488 of 609.
[10] “Babies Burn to Death and Mother Dying as Result of Explosion,” Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch, 1 September 1907, p.1, col. 1; image copy, NewsBank.com (http://www.newsbank.com ; accessed 27 December 2023).
[11] Pickaway County, Ohio, certificates of death, 1907-1908, transit permits 4310 for Rosie E Brown and 4307 for Mary A Brown; Pickaway County Courthouse, Circleville, Ohio; FHL microfilm 3439012, images 710 and 711/1838. Note: Pickaway County has included transit permits for the transportation of corpses from other counties in their death certificate files. This does not mean the person died in Pickaway County, but they were simply brought there for burial.
[12] Pickaway County, Ohio, certificates of death, 1907-1908, transit permit 4309 for Mrs. Rosa Brown and 4307; Pickaway County Courthouse, Circleville, Ohio; FHL microfilm 3439012, images 709/1838. Note: Pickaway County has included transit permits for the transportation of corpses from other counties in their death certificate files. This does not mean the person died in Pickaway County, but they were simply brought there for burial.
[13] Franklin County, Ohio, death certificate no 2 (1907), Infant Brown; Board of Health, Columbus; FHL microfilm 4258056, image 2,100 of 3,099.
[14] Find a Grave, database with images (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 28 December 2023), memorial 11862697, Gideon E Eccard (1850-1915), Forest Hill Cemetery, Circleville, Pickaway County, Ohio; gravestone photo by dahokli.
[15] Monroe County, Michigan, marriage record no. 1303 (1919), Brown-Girton ; image, Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : accessed 27 December 2023); citing Michigan Department of Community Health, Division for Vital Records and Health Statistics, Marriage Records, 1867-1952.
[16] 1920 U.S. census, Franklin County, Ohio, population schedule, Hamilton, p. 8B, dwelling 179, family 182, Emmet Brown in the Joseph Donaldson household; image, Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : accessed 28 December 2023); citing NARA microfilm publication T625, roll 1379.