Sunday, November 11, 2018 marks the centennial anniversary of the Armistice that brought an end to carnage that was known as the Great War. When the guns fell silent across the ravaged land of the Western Front a hundred years ago at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, it was 5:00 a.m. Monday, Indiana time. According to contemporary reports, three hours later throngs of happy citizens were marching around Monument Circle singing, shouting, and making merry with every noisemaking device available — cans, pans, bells, whistles, and horns. Thousands of workers poured out of factories and railroad shops joining thousands of zealous downtown store employees in a mass of humanity on the city streets. The public schools dismissed pupils at noon. There was a spirit of high carnival and whizzbanger hours’ and hours of record joy in the Hoosier capital. Celebrations continued into the evening with people packing the Circle singing and applauding each time a flag of the Allies was displayed.
Everyday thousands of vehicles cross the intersection of Emerson Ave. and Washington St. without giving much thought to a small park on the northwest corner called Brown’s Corner Park or Brown’s Triangle. A large boulder sits on the site, affixed with bronze tablet, honoring the memory of Second Lieutenant Hilton U. Brown, Jr. who lost his life at the battle front in the Argonne on November 3, 1918.
When the marker was dedicated in 1926, over a thousand citizens gathered to hear former Butler University president Thomas Carr Howe, Sr., Governor Ed Jackson, and others pay tribute to this fallen son of Irvington and all who had made the ultimate sacrifice in what had become known as World War I.
Hilton Ultimus Brown, Jr., son of Hilton U. and Jennie Hannah Brown, was born on August 9, 1894 in the house that stood atop the hill opposite this park. He “played at mimic warfare on these grounds,” and received his elementary education at the Irvington School, IPS No. 57. Brown continued his studies at Shortridge High School and at Butler College where he was a member of the Phi Delta Theta fraternity. Brown was a newspaper correspondent when he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the First Officers Training School at Ft. Benjamin Harrison in August 1917. The following month he went overseas to France where he was assigned to Battery D, 7th Field Artillery, 1st Division. Hilton U. Brown, Jr. was awarded the Croix-de-Guerre posthumously — “A very brave officer, animated by a high spirit of sacrifice, died gloriously while commanding his battery under concentrated enemy fire.” He lies with his fallen brethren in the American-Sedan Cemetery in Beaumont, France.
The giant old rock on which the plaque is affixed was a landmark on the Irvington Butler College campus. It stood outside of the Irwin Athletic Field “upon which [Brown] had played…before he joined the colors.” It was a popular resting spot for students, especially couples, who paused upon it “during the balmy days of many springs and many summers.”
In the early 1980s, the original plaque was removed from the stone by vandals and lost. In 1983 the Irvington Community Council’s parks committee, under the leadership of Mike Feeney, had a new plaque made but with a different inscription. A small ceremony was held with the sister of Hilton U. Brown, Jr., Jean Brown Wagoner, in attendance. Sometime later, the original plaque was found along the banks of Pleasant Run and given to the Irvington Historical Society. It may be seen today at the Bona Thompson Memorial Center.
Although this memorial rock is a tribute to Hilton U. Brown, Jr., in a larger sense it recalls the sacrifice made by all Butler College students and Irvingtonians who lost their lives in the Great War:
2LT Carl Christian Amelung; PVT Bryan Lott Ammon; CPL Paul Ellis Burns; SGT Victor Lawson Burns; PVT Conwell Burnside Carson; 2LT Kenneth Victor Elliott; CPL Dean Weston Fuller; 2LT John Charles Good; 2LT Robert Edward Kennington; SGT Henry Reinhold Leukhardt; Seaman 2-C Alphonso Napoleon McGaw; PVT Wilson Russell Mercer; CPL Guy Griffith Michael; CPL Marsh Whitney Nottingham; CPT Victor Hugo Nysewander; SFC William G. Payne; PVT Marvin Francis Race; John Foster Richardson; LT Bruce Pettibone Robison; PVT John Chester Smith; 1LT MacCrea Stephenson; Seaman 1-C Henry Clarence Toon; EM 3-C Timothy Francis Thomas Treacy
