Butte County
Biographies
CHARLES LOT BROWNING, M.D.
CHARLES
LOT BROWNING, M.D.--An eminent and eminently successful physician whose
scientific and humanitarian work has both conferred distinction on the
community in which he has lived and labored, and has brought him the rewards of
prosperity and comfortable independence, is Dr. Charles Lot Browning, who was
born a native son near Woodland, Yolo County, September 7, 1861. His father was
W.Y. Browning, the well-known pioneer, who was born in Jackson County, Tenn.,
on March 15, 1829, and was himself the son of Charles Browning, a native of
North Carolina, where he was born on February 4, 1799. With his parents he
moved first to Tennessee and then to Kentucky, and in the Blue Grass State he
married Miss Elizabeth Crawford, who was born there November 4, 1803.
W.Y. Browning was brought up in Monroe
County, Ky., working on a farm and attending the public schools. When he had
almost reached his majority he left home for Missouri, and in the spring of
1850 joined an ox-team train and crossed the plains to the Pacific Coast. About
four months after he started on his hazardous trip he arrived at Hangtown, on
August 22, 1850, and not long afterward began mining near Drytown. Abandoning
placer mining in the spring of 1851, he went north to Gibsonville where he was
luckier in finding the shining dust, and in the fall of the same year reached
Marysville where he passed the winter. The next spring, after visiting Yolo
County, he opened headquarters at Sacramento, and undertook freighting to the
various mines in the vicinity. He also took up a claim three miles northwest of
Woodland, in Yolo County, and there he raised stock until 1854.
Now more or less familiar with the state
of affairs here, and enthusiastic about the new country, to reach which he had
made such sacrifices, Mr. Browning returned to his old home in Kentucky, by way
of Panama, to bring back his parents and his brother, R. W. Browning. With
these he again crossed the plains, and he also brought a herd of a hundred
cattle, or at least started to drive that number across the prairies, for at
the end of his six months’ journey he had but a third of the drove left. These
he made the beginning of his stock-in-trade, and prospering very fairly as the
result of his enterprise, he again crossed the Isthmus of Panama, in 1856,
making for Moniteau County, Mo., where he had been when a young man of twenty,
and where, on March 27, he married Miss Rowena Howard, a native of that county,
whose mother later died in Yolo County, California, at the advanced age of
ninety-two years. Soon after his marriage Mr. Browning returned to California
with his wife, and settled again on his claim until 1858, and then engaged in
farming near Buckeye until 1860. He next lived near Woodland, five miles
southwest of the town, and in 1862 secured still another ranch of five hundred
forty acres, which he brought under a high state of cultivation and where, in
1903, he built one of the finest rural residences in that section. About 1908,
Mr. Browning died at the age of seventy-eight years. Mrs. Browning still
resides at the old home, near Woodland, the mother of two boys and four girls.
The third eldest of these children,
Charles Lot Browning, was brought up on his father's farm and sent to the
public schools, after which he graduated, in 1879, from Hesperian College with
the A. B. degree. He also attended Heald’s Business College in San Francisco in
1881, and on his return to Woodland took up bookkeeping for a few years. He was
deputy sheriff under Jason Atkins and then under R. H. Beamer, serving in that
capacity for six years, and for two years he was city editor of the Daily
Democrat, where he greatly enlarged his knowledge of real life and human
nature.
Having decided to take up the study of
medicine, Mr. Browning entered the Cooper Medical College, and in 1894 graduated
with honors and the degree of M. D. Straightaway he was appointed by Governor
Budd as physician and surgeon-in-chief at Folsom State Prison, where he
remained for five years. Concluding that engagement, he devoted a year in San
Francisco to post-graduate work and the acquiring of more practical clinic
experience.
In 1902, Dr. Browning, now well-known as a
metropolitan practitioner, located in Butte County, choosing Chico as his field
of activity, after a conversation with his friend, Joseph Sproul, whom he had
come to visit. The decision could not have been wiser for either the ambitious
doctor or the growing city, and it is safe to say that no one has ever
regretted the move. Among scientific societies with which the Doctor is
affiliated, may be mentioned in particular, the County, State and American
Medical.
Dr. Browning and Miss Lesley Tannahill, a
native of Redwood City and a graduate nurse from the San Francisco Hahnemann
College, were married, some years ago, the equally ambitious wife becoming indeed
a valuable helpmate to her husband. They have three children: Bettie, Lesley
and Jean.
An active Democrat and a member of the
County Central Committee, of which he was chairman, Dr. Browning was also a
member of the State Central Committee. He was the Democratic nominee in 1910
for railroad commissioner. Dr. Browning is a member of the Knights of Pythias,
the Red Men, the Eagles, and the Native Sons.
Transcribed by Marie Hassard 03 April 2008.
Source:
"History of Butte County, Cal.," by George C. Mansfield, Pages
850-851, Historic Record
Co, Los Angeles, CA, 1918.
© 2008 Marie Hassard.
Golden Nugget Library's Butte County Biographies