(Samuel) Brown Wylie III

Title

Birth Date

26 June 1854

Death Date

24 April 1899

Occupation

Professor (Chemistry)

Biographical Text

Samuel Brown Wylie III, who went by “Brown,” was born to Rebecca Dennis and Theophilus Wylie in Oxford, Ohio, on 26 June 1854. He graduated from Indiana University in 1876 and started teaching in the chemistry department. He married Sarah Seabrook Mitchell (1857-1899) on 20 June 1877, and they had four children: Theo (b. 1878), Samuel (b. 1882), Reba (b. 1884), and Laurence (b. 1887). The family lived in the Wylie House with Theophilus and Rebecca from 1877 until 1885, when they moved to a house on North Walnut Street. They later moved to Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, where Brown taught at Geneva College. In 1890, the couple were struggling and in debt, and Sarah took their oldest son, Theo, to St. Luke’s School in Bustleton, Pennsylvania. Brown took their other three children to visit their grandparents in Bloomington that summer. Tragically, Brown died of Bright’s disease during their visit, on 8 September 1890, and is buried in Rose Hill Cemetery. The three younger children stayed at the Wylie House with their aunt Louisa, cousins, and grandparents, and Sarah moved to Boston with Theo so that he could attend school. Sarah died on 24 April 1899, at the age of 41, in Springfield, Massachusetts.