Source:Fleming-doctor
George T. Fleming. "Famous doctor gives name to street: Felix Brunot, physician and philanthropist, also remembered by island: Family notable one." Pittsburgh Gazette Times, June 20, 1915, sec. 5, p. 2. Newspapers.com 85627903.
WITH some additional facts concerning the great La Fayette gradually brought to light by persistent delving, some further history of La Fayette's friend and foster-brother, Dr. Felix Bruot [sic] we will pass next week to the story of Madame Montour and her son, Henry, the scout and interpreter at Fort Pitt, whose name is familiar in a downtown alley. We know it also fairly well in Montour Run, Montour Junction and the Montour Railroad, and we once had Montours Island, now called Neville Island, but this latter is a long story.
One would naturally infer that with a character so celebrated as the Marquis de la Fayette, his biographers, especially in the encyclopedia form of biography, most frequently referred to, would give all the material facts of his life and be uniform. Going through pages of this sort one finds discrepancies, and a variance of opinion apparent as to what is material.
More than one are indefinite. Thus we are told that La Fayette lost his parents at an early age; that he sailed from a port in Spain in his own ship for the purpose of aiding the English colonies in North America to throw off their galling yoke to George III of Great Britain, that La Fayette died in 1834—but where not mentioned.
Facts About La Fayette.
Piecemeal by careful research one can get all the facts by patiently going through all that is available in the way of La Fayette's history.
First, it is surely material to know that his father was a soldier and that the great marquis inherited a taste for arms. His father was killed at the battle of Minden August 1, 1759. Minden is in Prussia and this was a French defeat by German forces under the command of Frederick, Duke of Brunswick, in the so-called Hanoverian war that began in 1756.
As La Fayette was born September 6, 1757, he was not quite two years old when his father was killed and two years before his birth his countrymen with their Indian allies had terribly punished Braddock at the battle on the Monongahela July 9, 1755. It was fated that La Fayette should visit this battle ground 70 years afterwards and to be most hospitably entertained in a mansion that stands today on the battleground—the Allen Kirkpatrick home in North Braddock, next to the Pennsylvania Station. The battleground as it appeared in 1803 is shown in the picture presented today.
When La Fayette came this house had been occupied by George Wallace for many years. He was the eldest son of Catp. George Wallace, to whom the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania granted the tract known as Braddock Fields in 1791, and it is of record that Wallace took title also by conveyance from George Thompson the same year, Thompson's father, the original tenant, by title from the proprietaries, April 1, 1769.
From the above recital it appears that when La Fayette came in 1825, the historic land about his host's home, devoid of residences, as the picture of 1803 shows, had nevertheless been seated land for 56 years.
Spellings at Variance.
We have some discrepancies in geographical data regarding La Fayette. We find his birthplace noted as Chavagnac instead of Cavagnac, as it was spelled in this column. We are informed that this is in the present Department of the Loire, and that the town is near Brioude, Auvergne.
Another authority locates the town in the Department of Haute Loire. This is as correct as if one standard authority located Tarentum in Allegheny county and another equally standard put it in Butler county. To get near La Fayette's birthplace, say simply 90 miles west of the city of Lyons.
La Fayette's mother died in 1770, when her boy was 13 years of age. No brothers or sisters are mentioned. We infer he was an only child.
The port from which he and his companions sailed for America in 1777 was Pasages.
La Fayette died in Paris May 20, 1834, aged 77. His life was not without its sorrows; for instance, his long incarceration at Olmutz by the Austrians—five years a prisoner—and harshly treated.
His son, George Washington, namesake of the immortal G. W., survived his father 15 years. He died in 1849 at the age of 70.
Although La Fayette served without pay in our Revolution, Congress afterward voted him $200,000 and a township of land, his entire estates having been confiscated during the reign of terror in France.
It is actually pleasant to write and think of La Fayette. No stain is known to rest on the purity and disinterestedness of his public services. It is consoling to know we still commemorate him in a way, but not as we did in his lifetime. Edward Everett has truly observed, "Who in all history has run through such a career with so little reproof justly or unjustly bestowed?"
Brunot's Name on List
It is pleasant also to know we have commemorated Dr. Felix Brunot, friend and foster brother of La Fayette. On the bronze tablet on the church wall in Oliver avenue, unveiled June 3 by the Pittsburgh Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, the fifth name is Surgeon Felix Brunot, commemorating him and 23 other Colonial and Revolutionary heroes who were interred in the burial grounds about the First Presbyterian and Trinity Protestant Episcopal Churches.
The biographer of Felix Reville Brunot, Charles Lewis Slattery, writing of the boyhood of young Felix, laments that few names and events stand out clearly that can be used in estimating influence upon the after life of Felix R. Brunot. The Rev. Mr. Slattery, dean of the Faribault Cathedral, has given us a good book. He admits that the chief influence upon the boy's early life was his eccentric and affectionate grandfather.
It was shortly after La Fayette's visit that Dr. and Mrs. Brunot removed from their island to the city. The lavish hospitality of their country mansion became burdensome upon the doctor's purse and became too great a task upon Mrs. Brunot's health. Though a physician, Felix Brunot rarely took a fee. His inheritance gradually diminished under his eager generosity.
Coming to Pittsburgh he took a house on the lower end of Liberty street and here he maintained an office. He kept a large supply of drugs and medicines on hand that he might prescribe directly for his patients.
The Rev. Dr. James J. Marks, a prominent Presbyterian divine, and chaplain of the Sixty-third Pennsylvania Volunteers in the Civil War, passed his last years at Santa Monica, Cal. He was acquainted with a boyhood playmate of Felix R. Brunot and writing Mr. Slattery tells all we can learn of the good old doctor.
Dr. Marks was told that Dr. Brunot was small in stature and dark visaged. He was thoroughly French in manner, vivacity and speech. He talked quickly and was rapid in reply. He was somewhat sedentary in his habits—rarely seen on the streets.
Popular in Pittsburgh.
He was a popular idol in Pittsburgh of those days and highly esteemed as a healer of all human maladies. On many occasions his house resembled a hospital. Multitudes came and his fame continued to spread.
Dr. Brunot charged but a pittance for his medicines and a small fee for professional advice. He instructed the people who came to him and many were first taught how many ills there are to which human flesh is heir.
Dr. Brunot's sympathy and charity were proverbial. There were pathetic scenes oft-times for the suffering poor, the lame and the blind eagerly sought his skill—often too eagerly, for some were beyond it. It was a passion with the doctor to cure.
He never visited patients. His rooms were full of odors and fragrances, for he was an industrial collector of every plant, root or leaf that had any balm for human suffering, wherever to be found.
Dr. Marks describes Mrs. Brunot, as he heard it, as a small woman, French in manner and broken in speech, kind-hearted and motherly.
There was frequently seen around her a circle of country women, some carrying crying children. She was tender and sympathetic to all regardless of caste or lowliness of life.
Those were days of the log cabins, rude wind-shaken structures, smoky, and a poor shelter to wind and storm.
Food was of the plainest sort; "hog and hominy" as they yet call it in the South, was the principal diet, and even the tough digestion of the borderers was apt to become impaired.
The common people of that day were poorly dressed. Homespun was the garment stuff in most cases. Venerable persons were few. People wore out by privations and hardships. Most aged people were sufferers.
Many Persons Aided.
To all such Dr. Brunot and his patient wife had ever a kind ear and an open hand. Mrs. Brunot ever at hand was a valuable assistant to the doctor with her motherly approval of all the doctor said.
With the atmosphere of such a character, it is not surprising that Felix R. Brunot developed into the great philanthropist he became, an honor to Pittsburgh and the country he served in war and peace.
Dr. Brunot was one of the first to employ electricity as a curative process. His library and home became a source of ever increasing delight to young Felix and he daily visited his grandparents.
Dr. Brunot having become a Free Mason and outside the Mother Church, was through his son Sanson's influence induced to become a regular worshipper at Trinity Church. Sanson was ordained a minister of the Episcopal Church, and founded parishes in Greensburg and Blairsville.
Hilary Brunot, father of Felix R., was early a vestryman of Trinity parish. Sanson also founded Christ Episcopal Church in Allegheny, now North Side, and for this congregation Dr. Brunot built their first edifice.
Sanson's health broke down and he went to Key West, Fla., in the hope that a milder climate would restore it. He established a parish at Key West that flourished and burned his candle, we are told, to the socket. He died in 1835, aged 30.
Dr. Felix Brunot died in Pittsburgh May 23, 1838, aged 86 years and five months. He came to Pittsburgh and purchased Brunot's Island in 1797. His good wife, formerly Elizabeth Kreider, he married in Philadelphia, her home, in 1789. She was his second wife, the first, whom he married in Annapolis, Md., did not long survive.
Six sons and one daughter were born of the second marriage. Two sons became physicians, two lawyers, one a minister and one an officer in the United States army, Hilary, the father of Felix R. Brunot.
Mrs. Brunot died in Pittsburgh September 5, 1845, aged 78. In 1850 Hilary Brunot retired from the manufacturing business in which he engaged after his resignation from the army. His home and white lead factory occupied the site and adjacent property of the present Pennstylvania [sic] Station, usually spoken of as the Union Depot.
Service in Council.
He was a man of great force and led a blameless life, prominent in Pittsburgh for many years, serving in councils and always public-spirited and enterprising. He died in Pittsburgh March 26, 1872. His wife Ann Reville, died the following year, aged 75, her husband attaining the age of 77. He entered actual service after his graduation at West Point and was wounded at Fort Erie in 1814.
Eight children were born to this couple, the eldest Felix R. Brunot, for 73 years a revered citizen of Pittsburgh, who was born in the United States Arsenal at Newport, Ky., February 7, 1820, and died at his home in Verona, Pa., May 9, 1898.
To do justice to his exemplary and well-spent life has required a small volume. His services on the great battlefields of the Civil War, notably at Gettysburg, alone entitles him to the grateful memory of his townsmen.
His great achievements as the executive of the noble band of Pittsburgh men and women who successfully conducted the Sanitary Fair in Pittsburgh in June, 1864, are part of Pittsburgh's Civil War history.
His conferrees on the executive committee have all passed away, but their names are worthy to recall always. They were James Park, Jr., James O'Connor, James I. Bennett, John Watt, John W. Chalfant, Thomas M. Howe, John H. Shoenberger, William S. Haven, B. F. Jones, Mark W. Watson and Charles W. Batchelor.
Then, too, the services of Felix R. Brunot as the president of the famous Board of Indian Commissioners, appointed by President Grant in 1869, of which board Mr. Brunot was the first appointed and the president, these services alone would occupy pages if given proper recognition.
Names to Honor.
When we honor the family name, Brunot, even in the quiet suburban street in old Sheraden borough, now our Twentieth Ward, we honor a name that stands for all that is upright in human life, and we must ever remember that the names of Dr. Brunot and the great La Fayette are indissolubly connected. Their lives were cotemporaneous. They were as brotherly and loved each other as well as though they were of the same blood.
In mention of La Fayette and the Brunots we have been speaking of persons of wealth, education and refinement, friends of America, of French birth or extraction. Contra, we come now to the consideration of other French friends that our local geography and municipality have also commemorated.
The name is Montour, and we pass from the gentle life of the home of elegance to the wild life of the forest; from the palace to the wigwam and the open air of the wilderness.
The Montours were sufficiently French and sufficiently loyal to obtain mention under the topical outline we are now pursuing in the contemplation of local names commemorated by reason of French birth, name or association.
The name Montour opens so vast a field of our Pennsylvania history and so much hereabouts that it cannot have justice done even slightly in the remaining space today.
In the meantime the reader who desires may walk through Montour way from Sixth to Seventh avenues and consider whether the family has been well commemorated or not.
A Chicago friend sends a clipping pertaining to the Lincoln highway wherein it is stated that a carriage used by La Fayette in his famous tour in America is preserved in the interesting collection of historical equipages in the Studebaker Administration Building at South Bend, Ind. That it is still fit for use is evidenced by the statement that J. M. Studebaker will occupy it for the Lincoln inaugural carriage in the forthcoming festivities arranged there in the Lincoln highway tour proceedings.
