In August 2019, my wife and I moved from a Virginia house and garden we had loved for twenty years to a house and garden we have come to love in Brandon. While we knew little about the history of our new residence, it clearly was not old enough to be linked with such famed 19th-century citizens as John Conant or John Howe, Jr. Quite soon, however, we discovered that it had been the home of the Brown family, whose 20th-century impact on this central Vermont town I consider every bit as interesting as those earlier iron makers and scale manufacturers.

The initial awakening came at a mixer hosted by our realtor and neighbor, Joan Rowe. Here we met Tom Brown, a retired pharmacist and gift shop owner who lived just a short walk away on High Street. We also discovered our “new home” was his “old home,” the place where he had grown up and which had continued to be a Brown residence until his mother Mary Ann’s death in November 2002.

A brief bit of research showed that despite their many decades in Brandon, the Browns had hailed from other parts of Vermont. Tom’s father, Francis Thomas Brown, was born in Barre in 1905, his family having moved from New York State some years prior. (Their patriarch, Ireland-born John Brown, was a farmer and store owner in Essex County.) By 1910, however, they were in Waterbury, where our Brandon Tom’s grandfather, Thomas P. Brown, owned a lunchroom. One imagines young Francis helping his father, thus getting the knack of serving the public early on. By 1920, however, the elder Brown was working as a salesman in the “medical industry,” while in 1930 Francis was already a pharmacist, addressing his customers’ ailments at a Morristown, Vermont, drug store. The die was surely cast for Francis T. Brown’s, and his family’s, future.

A key event came in September 1935, when Francis Thomas married Mary Ann Durkee, a Duxbury native then living in Waterbury. Records prove the Durkee family to be longtime Vermont dwellers, Mary Ann’s great-grandfather having relocated from Connecticut early in the nineteenth century, while her grandfather, John Durkee, served in the 9th Vermont Volunteers during the Civil War. Moving into the 20th century, an announcement of her engagement to Francis Brown notes that Mary Ann was a Burlington Business College graduate. She was also employed in the office of a local physician, surely a useful background for coming events.

The big moment for Brandon came just a few years later. The Brandon Union told the story in a February 1937 article titled “Browns Purchase Shangraw’s Store,” Shangraw’s being a well-located town business that had replaced the earlier Hyde’s Drug Store. Readers learned that on January 31 “Mr. and Mrs. Francis Brown, formerly of Waterbury,” had acquired the business from William Shangraw of Rutland, who had “owned the pharmacy for several years.”

The article also noted that Francis Brown was a registered pharmacist and a graduate of the Peoples Academy in Morrisville, Vermont. He came with experience, having previously served an apprenticeship and worked as a druggist in both Morrisville and Waterbury. Interestingly, it was noted that Francis’s brother Arthur was also a pharmacist who had been working at Shangraw’s but was now leaving to take a position in Waterbury. Clearly, this was a pharmaceutical family!

Nor was Mary Ann excluded, the Union story noting her four years of work with the Waterbury doctor. A keenness for community involvement was apparent in his Knights of Columbus membership and hers in the Catholic Daughters of the Americas. As well, both were said to be “active in sports and are ski enthusiasts,” habits that some readers will know were passed on to their children and grandchildren.

Initially making their home in a Franklin Street apartment, Francis and Mary Ann began expanding their family in August 1939 with the birth of Carolyn Frances Brown. A lifelong Brandon resident and professional educator, Carolyn went on to celebrate fifty years of marriage to Charles (Chuck) Memoe just prior to her death in 2013. 

The Brown family grew again when the central player in this story, Thomas Loren Brown, was born in July 1941. Soon, moreover, Tom and his older sister would have ample room to toddle around when in November 1941 the family settled into a large new place with a big yard. This, of course, is our Marble Street house mentioned at the outset. A June 26, 1941, Rutland Herald article offered details, reporting that the architects for their new “Connecticut block style” home would be Freeman, French, and Freeman of Burlington, while the contractor was Walter LaRock of Brandon. 

Only months following the housewarming a third and final addition came to the family with the June 1942 birth of William John (Bill) Brown, someone also very familiar to longtime Brandon residents.

Obviously, the Browns were doing well and becoming comfortably situated in their new world. Advertisements from those early days depict a business that extended well beyond prescription drugs to selling the full range of products and services for which the Browns would become famous.

For example, a Brown’s Brandon Union ad from June 1940 congratulated Brandon’s class of 1940, while noting that the shop offered not only “Hall Mark Graduations cards,” but also a “complete line of Gifts for Men and Women.” Customers could find stationery with their initials in gold or silver for only $.89 per box, while other Brown’s ads offered such products as Vitamin B capsules and a full pint of McKesson’s milk of magnesia for just $.33. As could be anticipated, the Browns were also busy beyond their pharmacy and homemaking activities. A February 1941 “Social Note,” for instance, informed Union readers that “Mrs. Francis T. Brown” had recently helped to serve supper at the Goshen ski area “snack shack,” the meal being provided for “members and friends of the Brandon Winter Sports Club.”

As the years, and then decades, passed, Brown’s Pharmacy continued to serve the needs of town residents in boundless ways, being not only located in the heart of Brandon but after a fashion truly becoming the heart of Brandon. Along with selling milk of magnesia, Brown’s also served their neighbors in such ways as hosting fundraising food sales for Brandon High School and St. Thomas’ Church. At one time, you could even find a full range of fishing supplies at Brown’s. Many would also be drawn there for ice cream and the soda fountain, classic drugstore features.

Memorable changes would come in the 1960s and ‘70s as the now-grown sons Tom and Bill joined the team behind the counter, both having earned pharmacy degrees at the University of Connecticut. They were thus positioned to take some of the workload off their father, taking over the business when Francis retired in 1972. (While seasonally enjoying a residence on Lake Dunmore, he continued to make his full-time home on Marble Street until his passing in 1988.)

Readers new to Brandon will surely ask: Where in town was Brown’s Pharmacy? Initially, the business shared the corner structure that housed the First National Bank (now Bar Harbor Bank), old photos clearly showing the large illuminated sign that marked the spot at their address, 4 Park Street, and is now the location of an ATM. An early 1950s move, however, saw Brown’s shift across today’s “Bankers Alley” to 6 Park Street, a site now home to the National Bank of Middlebury. Many details can be found in this Brandon Reporter article by Jim Peck. (The author also thanks Jim Peck for providing the June 1941 Rutland Herald story about construction of the Brown’s Marble Street home.)

Major expansion would take place when, in 1972, the family purchased the neighboring Vermont Public Service Building at 10 Park Street. It was a step that allowed Tom and his wife, Judy Gregory Brown, to live out their dream of creating a well-stocked gift shop that in 1995 would become a separate operation from the pharmacy. It was a business to be named Brown’s of Brandon and set within the 6 Park Street location. Bill Brown, meanwhile, would continue the busy and well-respected Brown’s Pharmacy at 10 Park Street (now Mae’s Place), while an interior doorway still allowed customers to move easily between the gift shop and pharmacy.

Brown’s of Brandon would go on to gain fame not only locally but across a large region of the state. Tom and Judy operated their business with great attention to detail and quality, their wide selection of greeting cards and eye-catching seasonal window displays still being well-remembered (and missed) by longtime town dwellers.

The year 2027 will mark two decades since both Brown’s of Brandon and Brown’s Pharmacy closed their doors. Various reasons were given in Rutland Herald articles that appeared in 2007. Tom and Judy Brown, for example, cited expected retirement pleasures as a strong pull, with its opportunities for travel, outdoor recreation, and time spent with their children and grandchildren. Bill Brown mentioned a similar anticipation of retirement activities, but he also spoke of the pressures being placed on businesses like Brown’s Pharmacy by larger chain drugstores such as the Rite Aid that was now operating in Brandon. Indeed, he said, he would work for a short time there as a pharmacist.

While Bill Brown has since moved to Utah, Tom has soldiered on in his High Street home, though sadly he lost Judy in 2016. Fortunately, there was time for enjoyable moments with family and friends in the Brandon area as well as other spots around the country. Along with winter sports (skiing continuing to be a family-wide love), there has been much time on the water, with windsurfing becoming a major draw.

July 21, 2026, was a milestone birthday for Tom Brown, and this author was honored by an invitation to join him along with children Kristi, Megan, and Todd, plus several handsome grandchildren. Of course, many old friends and longtime Brandon residents were there as well, all being present to give Tom a good slap on the back, and in their various ways, to thank him and the Brown family for all the good things they have done for this town starting way back in 1937. I, in turn, thank Tom Brown for the invaluable aid he has given me in writing this piece and in gathering the accompanying photographs.