Brownell Mountain's History
After visiting Brownell Mountain a few times, we became interested in researching the history of the mountain. It was obvious to us from the beginning that the mountain had been named after the Brownell family, because at the bottom there were Brownell's living there. We began our search for information in the hopes of finding just some general information about the size and previous uses for the mountain. We started by looking at an old map of Williston (the Wallings Map of 1875), and found in place of Brownell Mountain a place called Ferris Hill. Immediately our curiousity perked and we wanted to know why it was changed and why it had been named that in the first place. We looked in such books as Hemenway's (a history of Vermont aging back to the 18th and 19th centuries) and other histories of Williston. We never actually found anything that told us exactly what we wanted, but we found information about people who it could have been named for. Back in 1809 there was a man named Hiram Ferris from New York who was the pilot of the first steam boat on Lake Champlain. He was a member of the Champlain Transportation Company from 1809 until 1858. As far as we could tell that was the most influential thing a Ferris had done and came to the conclusion that the mountain was named after him. That was all we were able to find about the Ferris's and began researching the Brownells. We found that one of the original settlers of Williston was a man named Samuel A. Brownell. He acquired much land over the years. His fifth son, Chauncy Wells Brownell was a very famous man of his area. His brick house at 544 Brownell road is still in existence and we drive by it every day on out way to the site. He was a farmer and logger who owned his own sawmill. He provided the wooden shims for the new railway system coming to Vermont. He owned the first Morgan horse, mowing machine, and family piano in Chittenden county. Also, in 1850 he had a store in Essex and there was a corner called Brownell Corner. He was well liked by immigrants, especially the the Irish immigrants, because he would take trips to NYC and hire the immigrants to work at his farm for a few years until they were able to get up on their own feet and buy their own land and things. Also, from 1860 until 1861 he was a representative to the legislature. At the time of his death he owned 1000 acres of land. We are guessing that it was Chauncy Wells Brownell that the mountain was then named after.