Browne, Peercy N.

Submitted by Mike Miller 8/01

Percy Newby Browne, lawyer, with offices in the Slattery Building at Shreveport, has enjoyed many congenial and useful relations with his community in his profession and through various civic and social organizations.

Mr. Browne was born at Lake Providence, Louisiana, son of Benjamin F. and Laura Ella (Eppes) Browne. His great-grandfather on both sides participated in the Revolutionary war. His paternal grandfather was a soldier in the War of 1812, being an officer under General Scott on the campaign against the Creek Indians in 1837. Benjamin Browne, now eighty-three years of age is a veteran of the Civil war, having entered the Confederate army at the age of eighteen. He fought under Lee in Virginia as an artilleryman until wounded at second battle of Fredericksburg, after which he was commissioned and assigned special duty in Alabama in the enlistment department.

Laura Ella Eppes, mother of P. N. Browne, was born at Eppes, Louisiana, near Delhi, daughter of Dr. John Wayles Eppes, and granddaughter of James B. Eppes of the distinguished Eppes family of Virginia. A daughter of John and Martha Wayles, Martha Wayles, married John Skelton, and after his death she became the wife of Thomas Jefferson, the great Virginia statesman.

Percy N. Browne was educated in grammar and high schools, took special work in Columbia University at New York, and after his admission to the bar engaged in practice, being now a member of the law firm, E. W. and P. N. Browne. This firm handles a large general law business and acts as attorney for the American National Bank of Shreveport and for various insurance companies.

Mr. Browne, though past draft age at the outbreak of the World war, volunteered as a private, and had been ordered to the Field Artillery Training Camp at Camp Taylor at Louisville, Kentucky,. at the time of the armistice. He is a democrat, a member of the Masonic Order, belongs to the Shreveport City Chub, is a charter member of McFarland Post No. 14 of the American Legion at Shreveport, and Shreveport Voiture of Las Societe National Des 40 Hommes Et 8 Chevaux; he belongs to the Isaac Walton League of America, the Shreveport Chamber of Commerce, the Louisiana Bar Association and is a member of the Board of Stewards of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Shreveport, and was one of the organizers of the Four Square Bible Class which has a membership of over one thousand.

Mr. Browne married at Shreveport, June 15, 1920, Miss Honora Palmer, who was born in Shreveport, July 16, 1899, daughter of the late Sterling and Leola (Scott) Palmer, and grand-daughter of Doctor J. J. Scott, a prominent pioneer of Shreveport, who settled in that city shortly after the Civil war and was influentially identified with many phases of the early history of northwestern Louisiana. Mrs. Browne has two brothers, who were soldiers in the World war, Eugene Palmer and Sterling Palmer. Eugene Palmer was overseas a year, being at the front at the time of the armistice. Mrs. Browne is a member of the Shreveport Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, and the present recording secretary of the chapter. She is a member of the Woman's Department Club of Shreveport, and the First Presbyterian Church. Mr. and Mrs. Browne have one daughter, Eugenia Scott Browne, born September 6, 1921, at Shreveport.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 318-319, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.