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This book was 2024 Colorado Authors League award finalist for History.

Editor’s note: This excerpt looks at Margaret “Molly” and J.J. Brown’s son, Lawrence, through the lens of his early difficulties and relationship with his father.

Chapter 9

Mama’s Boy Lawrence

Lawrence enjoyed physical challenges and camaraderie. Fair-skinned and slight, Lawrence was malleable and sentimental, saving ticket stubs and good luck charms. He was at ease around both boys and girls, always quick to share his ready smile, especially with the latter. 

Like most children, while growing up, Lawrence thought he had the best mother in the world. It was Margaret who could claim the credit for teaching him to ride, hunt, and fish. At the Browns’ Avoca Ranch, Lawrence played with dogs and drove a carriage. He learned to dress properly in a coat and tie for dinner at the family’s fashionable home.

Margaret’s parenting style was one of indulgence. Lawrence visited the Eiffel Tower at an age when breaker boys were first sent to work in a Pennsylvania coal mine. Far removed from his impoverished start, J.J. cashed thousands of dollars of Ibex dividend checks during Lawrence’s teen years. J.J.’s parenting style was tough love, supervision, and correction.

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When writing his first will in 1902, J.J. was skeptical of his fifteen-year-old son’s maturity, so he restricted Lawrence’s inheritance. According to the terms of the will, the children would not receive their total bequests until they reached the age of thirty-five. J.J. was fearful that, after years of Margaret’s leniency, his son was on the verge of becoming a “dandy” or a “fop.” Unless his son carved his own path, he might squander the advantages given to him.

As he spent more time with his family at 1340 Penn, J.J. observed firsthand, his son’s lack of perseverance. A personable chum, rarely without friends, Lawrence’s academic record was poor, his effort half-hearted. Lawrence was, by his workaholic father’s definition, a slacker.

When he enrolled at Pennsylvania Military College (PMI) in the fall of 1902, it was Lawrence’s fourth school in six years. The institution adhered to rigor. On par with West Point, there were eighteen segments to a cadet’s day, beginning with reveille at 6:30 a.m. and ending at 9:35 p.m., when Taps played. Study and recitation consumed eight hours, with one additional hour set aside for drills. Allotting nine hours for sleep and one and a half hours for meals left a scant four hours for recreation and special duties. Eating away at this precious free time was mandatory attendance at chapel, twice a day.

Away at school, Lawrence missed more newspaper drama. On October 17, 1903 a Rocky Mountain News reporter waylaid J.J. when he was out for an evening.

“Mr. Brown, Mr. Brown, are you being sued for $50,000 for stealing the affections of another man’s wife?”

“It’s all news to me.”

“So, you don’t know Harry Call, and don’t have any relationship with his wife?”

“I met the Calls last December and lent them $10 to get back to Denver from Colorado Springs, but that’s it.”

“He says you’ve wrecked his home.”

“If Call says I have broken up his home, I think he has it wrong.”

“Would you care to make a statement?”

“Gold-Fated Family”

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“I can’t waste my time trying to set myself right through the press. Anyone may bring a suit against me, and put in whatever charges he or she desires, and I can do nothing.”

Call, who grew up in Leadville, considered a half-dozen wealthy men blackmail targets before choosing J.J. Brown. Eleven lawyers said no to Call, and three tossed him out of their offices when he offered to split the spoils if they represented him. A twelfth attorney, E.A. Wagner, believed the plaintiff’s sincerity and took the case, filing a complaint and a lawsuit against J.J. Brown. 

The newspapers had a field day writing about how J.J. had treated Mrs. Call to fancy dinners and showered her with diamonds. According to reports, she left her husband, who put a $50,000 value on his loss. After a month, Mrs. Call, a victim of domestic abuse, acknowledged in an affidavit that her husband had targeted J.J., making up the alleged story. Call ran away to his mother’s home in Pueblo, Colorado, where a sheriff’s officer named Leonard DeLue apprehended him on a newly filed larceny charge.

Call’s attorney, Wagner, removed himself as legal counsel, and the judge dismissed the suit against Mr. Brown. Furious, J.J. instructed his attorney, Stuart Walling, to demand the case come to trial. Cooler heads prevailed, and the newspapers dropped the mess, but it still sullied J.J.’s reputation.

For Margaret, the publicity might have affected her society standing. A month before the Call suit became public she initiated an exploratory meeting to form a chapter of the Alliance Francaise. Under the guidance of the French government, clubs in the United States studied the French language, history, science, and art. But, when the Francaise officers of the Denver chapter were chosen in November, (timed with the dismissal of the Call lawsuit), Margaret was not elected to a leadership position. 

By June of 1904, the Browns’ drama had died down, and Lawrence finished his second year at the military academy, ranked twenty-ninth in his class of thirty cadets. A poor speller with passable penmanship, even Lawrence’s score for military exercises was thirty points lower than the class leader’s. He did like the nattiness of a cadet’s gray coat and pants. The school’s goal was to enable young men to develop “true manhood”. In the summer of 1904, J.J. debated whether or not Lawrence should continue at the military college or enroll somewhere like Regis College in Denver, also a private institution and expensive. 

J.J. hadn’t received a dividend check for twelve months. Rumors spread that the Ibex Mining Company had closed down. In fact, the company was solvent, with $135,000 sitting idle in accounts, but no money was being distributed to any of the shareholders. John Campion worked behind the scenes, instructing Eben Smith in Los Angeles, and A.V. Meyer in Kansas City, to write a letter to Ibex President A.V. Hunter, demanding a $100,000 dividend be issued. Under pressure, Hunter complied. J.J. replenished his dwindling bank account with a check for his portion ($15,600) of the 1904 proceeds.

J.J. invested $20,000 searching for buried treasure on two new mining schemes. The Hub Gold Mining Company and the Breece Y Gold Mining Company were incorporated, with the partial backing of James Ducey, a timber baron from Michigan. Either aiding family or showing his loyalty, J.J. employed his first cousin, J.K. Brown, and his’s son, James V., as miners. Around the same time, his brother, Edward, enrolled at Regis College in Denver, where J.J. paid for his tuition, pants, garters, shoes, haircuts, medicine, and books.

To introduce Lawrence to the company he might someday join, in the summer of 1904, J.J. took his son to a place that he adored and where he had become a man: Leadville. In mining camps, men made lifetime bonds by eating bacon and stale bread, side by side. J.J. hoped to experience that same kind of bonding with his son.

The pair rode horses and burros rented from John Condon’s Livery Stable to J.J.’s mining camp, just outside Leadville in Evans Gulch. Bred for work, with sure footing on scree and rock, the animals carried a week’s worth of supplies.

Lawrence dressed in a tie, just like his father, and donned a felt hat. J.J. couldn’t be entirely casual, so he tucked his tie into his bib overalls and wore an engineer’s cap, similar to the working men who drove the Midland train. He wore heavy gloves when holding the horse’s reins because his hands hadn’t been tough and calloused in years.

The teenage boy and middle-aged man slept in tents, surrounded by open air, rather than in opulent hotel suites and dining rooms staffed with waiters. Instead of porcelain cups, they drank coffee from enamelware around a fire, while the black sky above them twinkled, as if a world full of humans had exhaled the stars.

Camp mornings smelled like juniper and cedar. With each passing minute, the lofty clouds disappeared, and the pink sky gave way to a clear blue one. There were scarcely any ripples in the pristine mountain lakes that reflected the surrounding mountains. Even though it was July, riding along camp roads, there were magical views of the peaks still covered in snow.

The two men, away from women on that trip, cooked for themselves. Each sought to win the other over. Instead of lecturing, J.J. conversed with Lawrence. During pauses about the future, the two filled the silence with baseball talk, which they both followed and enjoyed.

It was a special time for father and son. J.J. was twenty when his own father died, and the two never had an opportunity to travel or work on something together. John Brown had been overwhelmed, working as a coal miner and raising five motherless children. J.J. had depended upon Eben Smith and John Tobin for parenting advice, but by 1904, his mentor had moved to California and his father-in-law had died.

J.J. decided against Lawrence returning to Pennsylvania Military College in September. Instead, he enrolled him at the prestigious Phillips Academy in New Hampshire. The rigorous school was a precursor to an Ivy League education. J.J. made a hasty exit after dropping his son off and scrambled to New York for stashed-away funds to keep his Leadville mines running. He boarded another train and headed west, retrieving Margaret and Helen from the St. Louis World’s Fair along the way.

Returning to Denver, Margaret, ever the dutiful daughter, looked after her mother, who was in steadily declining health. It certainly did not help Johanna Tobin’s fragile state when Margaret’s younger sister divorced her first husband and remarried. Forever after, Aunt Nell was known as the family’s black sheep because she married a German or divorced an American. The Tobin woman demonstrated courage by leaving an unhappy marriage, whether rebellious or heartbroken.

Lawrence was also in the doghouse. J.J. was livid when his son was dismissed from Phillips Academy in 1905 for violating the rules. He and his classmates had visited Boston, where shenanigans ensued. Word got back to the academy, and Lawrence was expelled. Returning home, he lapsed into a life of leisure, hanging around with friends. His father waited for the right day to convey that decisions have consequences. Meticulous about the dates on leases, contracts, and loans, J.J. remembered his son’s birthday, August 30th.

In 1905, Lawrence took off on horseback to celebrate his eighteenth birthday, disappearing without explaining his whereabouts to his father. When the son returned home to 1340 Penn, J.J. was waiting to confront Lawrence, and the family squabble turned into fresh copy of the Browns in Denver newspapers.

“Where have you been?”

“I don’t have to say or explain anymore; I’m eighteen.” 

His father charged back. “You’re a cigarette fiend.” 

“I’ll do as I please.”

“It is affecting your brain.”

“You can’t tell me what to do anymore.”

Lawrence reached down to the ground and grabbed a hand full of rocks.

“Don’t throw those, Lawrence, don’t you dare.”

As he flung the rocks at J.J., Lawrence let loose with a string of abusive language.

J.J. took long strides back into 1340 Penn, well aware of what he was about to do. His son was right. He was no longer a child as of that day; he was an adult. In the entryway, below the shining gold ceiling, next to the ornately carved staircase, J.J. placed the phone receiver to his ear and turned the crank.

“Get me the police, I’m under attack.” 

Officer Gannon responded quickly to the millionaire miner’s home, where he met J.J. 

J.J. pointed at Lawrence. “See him, that’s my son. He’s abusive. Arrest him.”

“Are you sure, Mr. Brown, you can’t just settle this within the family?”

“I insist you arrest him.”

Officer Gannon escorted Lawrence Brown to a Denver police station. An agitated J.J. arrived, still worked up about his son’s lack of respect. He addressed Sergeant McClanathan, who was working the desk, and thought the father would say the altercation with his son was a mistake.

“You may hold him here overnight. In the morning, I am filing a warrant for assault and battery against Lawrence Palmer Brown.”

Lawrence spent his 18th birthday in jail. His distraught mother caught a train and raced back to Denver from Newport, Rhode Island. The charges evaporated, there was no follow-up on the incident in the Denver newspapers, and J.J. hired private instructors to ensure Lawrence completed a high school education. His son’s job for the next several years would be to disappoint his father consistently.

Jody Pritzl is the author of five books. An 80’s transplant from Wisconsin, she exited a 30-year corporate gig in Denver to become a writer. Pritzl earned a communications degree from Metropolitan State University and a master’s degree from Regis University. She volunteers at the Molly Brown House Museum and is a member of the Colorado Authors League. Learn more about Pritzl