Brown, Frederick Wallen (1860–1899) and Katie “Kate” Darling (Lawrence) (1853–1917)

Frederick and Katie Brown were Seventh-day Adventist missionaries active in medical and city mission work. Both served separately as missionaries to India with different missionary societies; met and married in India in 1891 and then in 1892 returned on furlough. Frederick became a physician and, during his medical studies, he converted to Seventh-day Adventism in 1897. Together they returned as Adventist missionaries to India in late 1898, and they spent about a year there before Frederick’s tragic death in late 1899.

Early Background and Mission Service

Frederick Wallen Brown was born at Spofford, New York, in 1860, the son of Rev. Winsor Brown (1833-1904) and Julette Holmes Brown (1824-1912) from Borodino, New York.¹ He was baptized into the Free Will Baptist Church at age 15. In 1881, he received a license to preach. His parents dedicated him to become a missionary to India before he was born. He was invited to go as a missionary by the Free Will Baptist Mission Board at the close of his theological studies at Hillsdale College in Michigan, and in 1888, he sailed with the school’s support as their missionary.²

In 1890, he was appointed Indian secretary by his Society. He acted in this capacity until he returned to America two years later. On October 1, 1891, he married Kate Darling Lawrence in Darjeeling.³ In 1893, he united with the Disciple Church (Disciples of Christ), and while employed by the Christian Women’s Board of Missions, they traveled to nearly every state in the union to raise awareness for overseas missions. In 1895, he entered the Medical Department at the University of Michigan, and it was while he was here that he discovered the “Third Angel’s Message.” In 1897, he accepted the Spirit of Prophecy (Ellen White’s prophetic ministry) and started observing the seventh-day Sabbath. He then entered American Medical Missionary College. In July 1897, they officially joined the Seventh-day Adventist Church in Battle Creek, and in preparation for their return to India as missionaries, he was ordained as an Adventist minister on November 12, 1898.⁴

Kate Lawrence was a native of Illinois and united with the Disciple Church at age 14. She felt a call to serve as a foreign missionary in a “call” that “was so clear, distinct, and plain, that from that time to the present.” she never “for a moment doubted” that God had indeed called her to “labor for Him.” In 1889, under the Christian Women’s Board of Missions, she left for India where she engaged in zenana⁵ work, had charge of two orphanages (one each for girls and boys), and trained a “large class of native Bible women” and oversaw sixteen day schools.⁶

Adventist Missionaries to India

On November 9, 1898, the General Conference Committee voted to recommend to the Foreign Mission Board that the Browns go to India as missionaries.⁷ They left Battle Creek by train on November 16, 1898, starting a lengthy journey to India, from which they had been absent six years. He felt the delay had been providential: “[T]he dear Father knew what we lacked in knowledge of himself and his plan, so he did not permit us to return until he had brought us into entire harmony and fellowship with the third angel’s message and its heralds.”⁸ After two weeks observing city mission work in New York City, they left on the American mail steamer, “Paris” on December 14, 1898.⁹ After seven days, they arrived in England. Then, they left England on the steamship “Valetta,” which took the party of seven adults (with Drs. R. S. and Olive P. Ingersoll, Mrs. Olney, Mr. R. W. Yeoman, and Mr. I. D. Richardson) along with their own two children (Winnifred [1892-1935] and Lawrence Doddridge [1895-1924]). The party arrived in Calcutta on February 9, 1899. They praised the Lord as they heard the Bengali language and met old missionary acquaintances.¹⁰ They believed God providentially led them back, even as they faced opposition. He wrote frequently in Adventist Church publications for others to volunteer to come and help them.¹¹ For his part, Dores Alanzo Robinson¹² (1848-1899) rejoiced at the arrival of these missionary reinforcements. By the time they arrived, “a second place” had been arranged to conduct medical missionary work, and before they could even get started, there were patients waiting to receive treatment.¹³ Mrs. Brown’s expertise, along with Miss Mae Taylor¹⁴ (1863-1952), and together they began a new day school for children at 154 Bow Bazaar.¹⁵ Ms. Taylor taught the general elementary classes, and Mrs. Brown taught the very first Adventist kindergarten class.¹⁶

After a time, the Browns were able expand their ministry thanks to contacts made through colporteur ministry, as they relocated to the town of Naini Tal to establish a mission station in northwestern India. They initially faced some stiff opposition.¹⁷ He described how he looked for opportunities to share his faith while walking, and he began a Bible class on the book of Daniel with a group of men.¹⁸ Six months after their arrival back in India, he reported:

I never have known such mean and uncalled-for opposition to truth as I have seen here in India, and this opposition is growing and spreading. Even from those who should be friendly comes this bitter spirit. All sorts of untrue reports are circulated about us and our work. There has lately been printed in one of the religious journals of this country an insidious attack upon our canvassers and the “Oriental Watchman,” our Indian paper.¹⁹

Despite this, he reported baptizing a woman and actively shared his faith, carrying on an extensive correspondence with contacts he made. He worried about the “gloomy” prospect of famine and the spread of disease.²⁰

When G. P. Edwards and his wife Gertrude returned to America, the India Mission requested the Browns to take charge of their mission station at Karmatar (Santhal country) about 168 miles northwest of Calcutta (and about 1,000 feet higher elevation).²¹ D. A. Robinson had also recently founded the Home for Destitute Indian Children that was initially started in Calcutta and to be relocated at the newly leased farm at Karmatar, where there was growing school and dispensary. Soon after his arrival, seeking to find a better way to cultivate the fields, he ordered an American plough. Unfortunately, the local bullocks were “afraid of the stranger,” and they refused to pull the ploughs so that eventually it had been discarded by one of the mission buildings.²²

Final Years and Legacy

The Browns had only been there a few days while preparing for the transfer of the orphanage when Smallpox broke out. D. A. Robinson (the India mission superintendent) “took under their care a destitute family of children” who brought smallpox to the mission. Pastors Robinson and Brown had refused to get vaccinated for smallpox, whereas most of the other missionaries including the children had been vaccinated and therefore these two adult men got it in its most severe or what was termed “malignant” form.²³ When Robinson returned to Calcutta from Karmatar, he became ill with fever, but he initially thought it was just a common fever. Upon his return to the mission station, he discovered the fever had spread across the mission. Frederick Brown had become seriously ill, too. The disease quickly spread among the children. Dr. Ingersoll, along with Miss Royer, attended to them, along with their children, who also became ill, including Frederick’s son, Lawrence. Recognizing the dire situation, Adventist missionaries left Calcutta to help treat the sick missionaries in Karmatar. This group included Georgia Burrus, Dr. Place, and Noneballa (Nanibala), a Bengali nurse, all of whom came to assist with the sick.²⁴ When they arrived, Mrs. Brown recalled seeing the nurses in their fresh nurses’ uniforms, “she thought of Jacob’s vision of angels.”²⁵

As they ministered in this “hospital of sorrow,” eventually it became apparent that despite their heroic efforts, Frederick tragically died on December 21, 1899, and then just over a week later (December 29), Pastor Robinson also passed away.²⁶ The two men were buried next to one another “under a tree in the fields that they had plowed for the next sowing season” near the Karmatar Mission Station.²⁷ The missionaries sent a simple cablegram received on January 1, 1900, “Elders Robinson Brown died smallpox Karmatar.”²⁸

W. A. Spicer, who became the India Mission Superintendent after this loss, hoped that the death of these missionaries would prove like a seed that as a result of their life and example would inspire many others to follow Jesus.²⁹ He prayed that there would be others inspired by their example to fill their place. “Brother Brown had been with us but a short time, but we knew him to be alive with zeal for the Lord, and we know that he is resting in the Lord in his death.”³⁰

Kate Laurence Brown returned with her children to the United States arriving on March 31, 1900.³¹ She returned to Bloomington, Illinois, to be near family, and she became active in the Churches of Christ where she regularly gave talks about missions. She died there in 1917.³² It was reported that to the “very last her interest in missions was as keen as the day she left for India.”³³

When W. S. Mead visited the graves of these early missionaries in 1915, he recalled how the stones that mark these graves, “plain and substantial, solid and erect” were fitting memorials to commemorate the sacrifice of their lives.³⁴ His early death, along with D. A. Robinson, contributed to the later memorialization of these two pioneer men as the earliest martyrs “who laid down their lives” to help establish an Adventist missionary presence in India.³⁵ N. C. Wilson later described him as one of the “early workers and leaders” for the early beginnings of Adventism in India.³⁶ Other later missionaries described visiting their graves as “heartening to realize” how the “blessed hope” that “inspired those pioneers is the same dominant theme of our message today and that it cheers us on as it once did them.”³⁷ At the 1944 centennial commemorating the Great Disappointment, the General Conference listed him on their “Honor Roll” of notable Seventh-day Adventists who died in foreign mission service.³⁸

Sources

Brown, F. W. “Journey to India.” ARH, March 7, 1899.

Brown, F. W. “The Message in the East.” ARH, March 28, 1899.

Brown, F. W. “Naini Tal, India.” The Missionary Magazine, October 1899.

Brown, F. W. “Northwestern India.” ARH, October 24, 1899.

Brown, F. W. “Northwestern India.” ARH, October 31, 1899.

“Departures.” The Missionary Magazine, January 1899.

General Conference Committee Minutes, November 9, 1898, 15. https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Minutes/GCC/GCC1898.pdf#search=%22F%2E%20W%2E%20Brown%22.

“Honor Roll of Seventh-day Adventists Who Died in Foreign Mission Service.” The Youth Instructor, October 17, 1944.

Obituary. ARH, [14] March 27, 1900.

“Sad News.” The Signs of the Times, January 24, 1900.

Spicer, W. A. “From India.” ARH, February 13, 1900.

Spicer, W. A. “Some Facts About Early Work in India.” Far Eastern Tidings, May 8, 1941.

W[hite], W. C. “Obituary.” Union Conference Record, March 1, 1900.

Notes

1. For a genealogical tree with a guide to sources and U.S. Census records, see: https://www.ancestry.com/invite-ui/accept?token=3n65Rz7g9X9Bccn4WtkLSQOichmCVYQipwnXcuDHWIQ=.↩

2. “Departures,” The Missionary Magazine, January 1899, 35.↩

3. Ibid. See also “India, Select Marriages, 1792-1948,” database accessible from http://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FGJ5-97L.↩

4. M. B. De Graw, “God’s Spirit in Battle Creek College,” ARH, November 22, 1898, 755.↩

5. Zenana is the portion of a home in India where women were secluded.↩

6. “Departures,” The Missionary Magazine, January 1899, 36.↩

7. General Conference Committee Minutes, November 9, 1898, 15. https://documents.adventistarchives.org/Minutes/GCC/GCC1898.pdf#search=%22F%2E%20W%2E%20Brown%22.↩

8. F. W. Brown, “Journey to India,” ARH, March 7, 1899, 155.↩

9. “Departures,” The Missionary Magazine, January 1899, 34.↩

10. F. W. Brown, “The Message in the East,” ARH, March 28, 1899, 204.↩

11. Ibid.↩

12. Brian E. Strayer, “Robinson, Dores Alanzo (1848-1899),” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, October 4, 2020, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=FA28&highlight=Robinson.↩

13. D. A. Robinson, “Calcutta, India,” ARH, April 11, 1899, 12.↩

14. The earliest records spell her name as “Mae” although later records also spell her name as “May.” See: Gordon E. Christo and Rosenita M. Christo, “Quantock, Martha May (Taylor) (1863-1952) and Walter W. (1875-1904),” Encyclopedia of Seventh-day Adventists, August 2, 2021, https://encyclopedia.adventist.org/article?id=9GUO&highlight=Mae+Taylor.↩

15. Ibid. The location appears in “‘FIRSTS’ in the Southern Asia Division,” The Church Officers’ Gazette, December 1941, 31-32.↩

16. Edwar W. Pohlman, “‘First the Blade, Then the Ear,’” Eastern Tidings, September 15, 1945, 1.↩

17. F. W. Brown, ““Northwestern India,” ARH, October 24, 1899, [14] 690.↩

18. F. W. Brown, “Northwestern India,” ARH, October 31, 1899, [12] 708.↩

19. F. W. Brown, “Naini Tal, India,” The Missionary Magazine, October 1899, 446.↩

20. Ibid.↩

21. Some historians have incorrectly credited Robinson and Brown with starting the Karmatar Mission Station, but this is incorrect. Early sources clearly point to G. P. Edwards. See Images: 1893-1993: The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Southern Asia, that incorrectly makes this assertion. A similar mistake is made by J. John Wycliffe, “Planting the Seed: How Adventist Work Began in Southern Asia,” ARH, September 30, 1993, 6-9.↩

22. W. A. Spicer, “Some Facts About Early Work in India,” Far Eastern Tidings, May 8, 1941, 4-7.↩

23. Fern G. Babcock, Frontline India (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 1994), 9; Robert H. Pierson, Faith Triumphant (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald, 1974), 352.↩

24. W. A. Spicer, “From India,” ARH, February 13, 1900, 107-108.↩

25. W. A. Spicer, “Some Facts About Early Work in India,” Far Eastern Tidings, May 8, 1941, 6.↩

26. See death announcement The Weekly Pantagraph, January 19, 1900, 10.↩

27. W. C. W[hite], “Obituary,” Union Conference Record, March 1, 1900, 16; see death notice, The Oriental Watchman, February 1900, 32.↩

28. “Sad News from the Orient,” The Medical Missionary, February 1900, 52-53.↩

29. W. A. Spicer, “From India,” ARH, February 13, 1900, 107-108.↩

30. Ibid.↩

31. See under “Brief Mention,” The Missionary Magazine, May 1900, 240.↩

32. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/69694207/kate-brown. Her tombstone mistakenly says she died in 1918, but this appears to be a mistake based upon local obituaries that reported her death a year earlier. See Obituary, The Pantagraph, May 18, 1917, 7.↩

33. “Mrs. Kate Lawrence Brown,” in United Christian Missionary Society, They Went to India: Biographies of Missionaries of the Disciples of Christ (1948), 20-21. Accessed from https://digitalcommons.acu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?params=/context/crs_books/article/1480/&path_info=ACU_TheyWentToIndiaBiographiesOfMissionariesOfTheDisciplesOfChrist_UnitedChristianMissionarySociety.pdf.↩

34. W. A. Mead, “Calcutta, India,” ARH, September 30, 1915, 13.↩

35. Oliver Montgomery, “Visiting Stations in the Northeast India Union Mission,” ARH, May 30, 1919, 14.↩

36. N. C. Wilson, “Southern Asia Division,” ARH, June 1, 1944, 10-11.↩

37. A. F. Tarr, “Visiting Outposts in India,” ARH, April 6, 1944, 12-13.↩

38. “Honor Roll of Seventh-day Adventists Who Died in Foreign Mission Service,” The Youth Instructor, October 17, 1944, 36.↩