Alvesta Cleora Scott-Browne Davis (1841-1916) possessed a brillant mind and was a remarkably advanced, modern thinker for her era and sex. She applied her considerable energies as a teacher, businesswoman, author, public speaker, avant-garde crusader, spiritualist healer, singer, musician, copywrited songwriter, and even as an excellent marksman. But, sadly, her colorful and accomplished life was repeatedly scarred by numerous tragedies, and her last years were spent in poverty.
"Kle" was the eldest of eight children of Vermont jeweller Charles W. Scott and his wife Lucy Kellum. She was devastated when her mother died in childbirth in 1855, and thirteen-year-old Alvesta was thrust into the role of raising her six surviving younger siblings. One grew up to be famed Civil War artist, Congressional Medal of Honor winner, and Indian photographer Julian Scott.
She was clearly well educated for her day, but little is known of her youth and young adulthood, other than her early education was at the local Lamoille Academy in Johnson, VT. A 1905 newspaper article stated "Mrs. Scott-Brown is a woman of fine attainments, writes and speaks five or six languages and has an excellent classical education beside."
By the early 1870's she was a music teacher in the Boston area when she met Daniel Liberty "D.L." Brown, of Lemont, Illinois -- six years her junior. Their December 30, 1873 marriage record says she had been married twice before, but those husbands, and what happened to them, has not yet been determined. It is possible she was widowed during the Civil War.
The new couple took the unusual step of hyphenating their last names (usually only seen in affluent European society) and adding an "e" to "Scott-Browne". They promptly moved to New York City and went into business together in the emerging field of phonography, which is the study and use of shorthand. They had both become proficient in this form of communication before their marriage. Their "New York College of Phonography", later the "Scott-Browne College of Phonography", conducted classes teaching Pitman shorthand in the heart of Manhattan for nearly twenty years. They published several phonography textbooks, and both monthly and weekly scholarly journals promoting their avocation.
Some sources claim that in 1878 the Scott-Brownes had the first school in the country which taught typewriting, but it may have been the second or third such school. Kle was a full business partner with the college as a teacher, co-author of textbooks, and an author of articles promoting phonography.
According to later articles in the publication "The Stenographer", the Scott-Brownes reportedly taught the first commercial stenographer in the world. D.L. set up an interview with wealthy industralist J. P. Morgan, where the young student, George Lucas, was able to astonish the financial tycoon with his ability to take shorthand for business letters. Morgan hired him on the spot at a handsome salary. Many years later, Morgan bequeathed his stenographer a large sum in his will.
In the book "History of Shorthand" by Thomas Anderson, published in London in 1882, Kle is one of only 46 people listed as the "more distinguished of American reporters". Curiously, her husband did not make the list.
Kle was apparently an avid supporter of altering the written English language to be strictly phonetic in spelling, and promoted the cause as a part of the "Spelling Reform Movement". She spoke at the "Speling Reform Asoshiashun" in New York City in 1877. Her nickname of "Kle", for "Cleora", seems to have illustrated her commitment to phonetic spelling.
Amusingly, whether through vanity or an effort to fit her ulta-modern views, Kle was sometimes known to shave as much as fifteen years off of her age in public records.
As another example of her unorthodox lifestyle, Kle appears to have seperated from Daniel and lived for several years with another man. From about 1886 to 1892 she and attorney William H. Janes shared a room in a boarding house in Manhattan. It is likely that she received a salary or some kind of allowance for her continued work with the school. But in a double loss, her husband D.L. died in 1894 when he was just 46 years old, and their school and business seems to have folded soon after.
Kle remarried just months later to successful patent attorney, inventor, and poet Clarence Ladd Davis-- who was twenty years her junior. Despite their difference in age, they were apparently drawn together by their equally brillant minds. Unfortunately, both also struggled with poor health in the years that followed, including one or more strokes for Kle, for which they were treated via Christian Scientist prayer and meditation.
Mr. Davis apparently also struggled with mental illness, and in a fit of depression in 1905 attempted suicide by repeatedly stabbing himself in the neck while on a Brooklyn street. They seemed to have parted company soon after but did not divorce.
Like her youth, much of Kle's later years remain a mystery. She dabbled some as a spiritualist, corresponding across the country in trying to effect cures for others via "mental science". In 1900 she began teaching at the "Home of Truth and School of Practical Christianity" in Brooklyn, which was affiliated with the new and progressive Unity Church. She later identified her faith as a "Theosophist", or one who seeks to understand presumed mysteries of the universe, and its relationship with humanity and the divine, with the belief that uncovering such hidden knowledge or wisdom may offer a path to enlightenment and salvation.
Kle's fortunes and health continued to wane, and by 1913 she was referred to as "paralytic" due to her strokes. She struggled to support herself by teaching music, and shared a rented Brooklyn apartment with two other families, with a total of eight people, to cover expenses.
She never had any children, perhaps by choice after losing her own childhood to raising her siblings. Although the oldest, she also outlived all seven of those brothers and sisters she mothered.
Kle was still writing articles for scholarly phonography publications as late as 1915, always under the masculine sounding name of "A.C. Scott-Browne". But in September of that year, impoverished, she was admitted to the New York Home for the Aged and Infirm in Brooklyn. She died there of heart disease seven months later. Her estranged husband, Clarence Ladd Davis, attended to her cremation at the New York and New Jersey Crematory in North Bergen, New Jersey. But the ashes were released to the Stephen Merritt Funeral Home in NYC, and what happened to them is not known.
"Kle" was the eldest of eight children of Vermont jeweller Charles W. Scott and his wife Lucy Kellum. She was devastated when her mother died in childbirth in 1855, and thirteen-year-old Alvesta was thrust into the role of raising her six surviving younger siblings. One grew up to be famed Civil War artist, Congressional Medal of Honor winner, and Indian photographer Julian Scott.
She was clearly well educated for her day, but little is known of her youth and young adulthood, other than her early education was at the local Lamoille Academy in Johnson, VT. A 1905 newspaper article stated "Mrs. Scott-Brown is a woman of fine attainments, writes and speaks five or six languages and has an excellent classical education beside."
By the early 1870's she was a music teacher in the Boston area when she met Daniel Liberty "D.L." Brown, of Lemont, Illinois -- six years her junior. Their December 30, 1873 marriage record says she had been married twice before, but those husbands, and what happened to them, has not yet been determined. It is possible she was widowed during the Civil War.
The new couple took the unusual step of hyphenating their last names (usually only seen in affluent European society) and adding an "e" to "Scott-Browne". They promptly moved to New York City and went into business together in the emerging field of phonography, which is the study and use of shorthand. They had both become proficient in this form of communication before their marriage. Their "New York College of Phonography", later the "Scott-Browne College of Phonography", conducted classes teaching Pitman shorthand in the heart of Manhattan for nearly twenty years. They published several phonography textbooks, and both monthly and weekly scholarly journals promoting their avocation.
Some sources claim that in 1878 the Scott-Brownes had the first school in the country which taught typewriting, but it may have been the second or third such school. Kle was a full business partner with the college as a teacher, co-author of textbooks, and an author of articles promoting phonography.
According to later articles in the publication "The Stenographer", the Scott-Brownes reportedly taught the first commercial stenographer in the world. D.L. set up an interview with wealthy industralist J. P. Morgan, where the young student, George Lucas, was able to astonish the financial tycoon with his ability to take shorthand for business letters. Morgan hired him on the spot at a handsome salary. Many years later, Morgan bequeathed his stenographer a large sum in his will.
In the book "History of Shorthand" by Thomas Anderson, published in London in 1882, Kle is one of only 46 people listed as the "more distinguished of American reporters". Curiously, her husband did not make the list.
Kle was apparently an avid supporter of altering the written English language to be strictly phonetic in spelling, and promoted the cause as a part of the "Spelling Reform Movement". She spoke at the "Speling Reform Asoshiashun" in New York City in 1877. Her nickname of "Kle", for "Cleora", seems to have illustrated her commitment to phonetic spelling.
Amusingly, whether through vanity or an effort to fit her ulta-modern views, Kle was sometimes known to shave as much as fifteen years off of her age in public records.
As another example of her unorthodox lifestyle, Kle appears to have seperated from Daniel and lived for several years with another man. From about 1886 to 1892 she and attorney William H. Janes shared a room in a boarding house in Manhattan. It is likely that she received a salary or some kind of allowance for her continued work with the school. But in a double loss, her husband D.L. died in 1894 when he was just 46 years old, and their school and business seems to have folded soon after.
Kle remarried just months later to successful patent attorney, inventor, and poet Clarence Ladd Davis-- who was twenty years her junior. Despite their difference in age, they were apparently drawn together by their equally brillant minds. Unfortunately, both also struggled with poor health in the years that followed, including one or more strokes for Kle, for which they were treated via Christian Scientist prayer and meditation.
Mr. Davis apparently also struggled with mental illness, and in a fit of depression in 1905 attempted suicide by repeatedly stabbing himself in the neck while on a Brooklyn street. They seemed to have parted company soon after but did not divorce.
Like her youth, much of Kle's later years remain a mystery. She dabbled some as a spiritualist, corresponding across the country in trying to effect cures for others via "mental science". In 1900 she began teaching at the "Home of Truth and School of Practical Christianity" in Brooklyn, which was affiliated with the new and progressive Unity Church. She later identified her faith as a "Theosophist", or one who seeks to understand presumed mysteries of the universe, and its relationship with humanity and the divine, with the belief that uncovering such hidden knowledge or wisdom may offer a path to enlightenment and salvation.
Kle's fortunes and health continued to wane, and by 1913 she was referred to as "paralytic" due to her strokes. She struggled to support herself by teaching music, and shared a rented Brooklyn apartment with two other families, with a total of eight people, to cover expenses.
She never had any children, perhaps by choice after losing her own childhood to raising her siblings. Although the oldest, she also outlived all seven of those brothers and sisters she mothered.
Kle was still writing articles for scholarly phonography publications as late as 1915, always under the masculine sounding name of "A.C. Scott-Browne". But in September of that year, impoverished, she was admitted to the New York Home for the Aged and Infirm in Brooklyn. She died there of heart disease seven months later. Her estranged husband, Clarence Ladd Davis, attended to her cremation at the New York and New Jersey Crematory in North Bergen, New Jersey. But the ashes were released to the Stephen Merritt Funeral Home in NYC, and what happened to them is not known.
Alvesta Cleora Scott-Browne Davis (1841-1916) possessed a brillant mind and was a remarkably advanced, modern thinker for her era and sex. She applied her considerable energies as a teacher, businesswoman, author, public speaker, avant-garde crusader, spiritualist healer, singer, musician, copywrited songwriter, and even as an excellent marksman. But, sadly, her colorful and accomplished life was repeatedly scarred by numerous tragedies, and her last years were spent in poverty.
"Kle" was the eldest of eight children of Vermont jeweller Charles W. Scott and his wife Lucy Kellum. She was devastated when her mother died in childbirth in 1855, and thirteen-year-old Alvesta was thrust into the role of raising her six surviving younger siblings. One grew up to be famed Civil War artist, Congressional Medal of Honor winner, and Indian photographer Julian Scott.
She was clearly well educated for her day, but little is known of her youth and young adulthood, other than her early education was at the local Lamoille Academy in Johnson, VT. A 1905 newspaper article stated "Mrs. Scott-Brown is a woman of fine attainments, writes and speaks five or six languages and has an excellent classical education beside."
By the early 1870's she was a music teacher in the Boston area when she met Daniel Liberty "D.L." Brown, of Lemont, Illinois -- six years her junior. Their December 30, 1873 marriage record says she had been married twice before, but those husbands, and what happened to them, has not yet been determined. It is possible she was widowed during the Civil War.
The new couple took the unusual step of hyphenating their last names (usually only seen in affluent European society) and adding an "e" to "Scott-Browne". They promptly moved to New York City and went into business together in the emerging field of phonography, which is the study and use of shorthand. They had both become proficient in this form of communication before their marriage. Their "New York College of Phonography", later the "Scott-Browne College of Phonography", conducted classes teaching Pitman shorthand in the heart of Manhattan for nearly twenty years. They published several phonography textbooks, and both monthly and weekly scholarly journals promoting their avocation.
Some sources claim that in 1878 the Scott-Brownes had the first school in the country which taught typewriting, but it may have been the second or third such school. Kle was a full business partner with the college as a teacher, co-author of textbooks, and an author of articles promoting phonography.
According to later articles in the publication "The Stenographer", the Scott-Brownes reportedly taught the first commercial stenographer in the world. D.L. set up an interview with wealthy industralist J. P. Morgan, where the young student, George Lucas, was able to astonish the financial tycoon with his ability to take shorthand for business letters. Morgan hired him on the spot at a handsome salary. Many years later, Morgan bequeathed his stenographer a large sum in his will.
In the book "History of Shorthand" by Thomas Anderson, published in London in 1882, Kle is one of only 46 people listed as the "more distinguished of American reporters". Curiously, her husband did not make the list.
Kle was apparently an avid supporter of altering the written English language to be strictly phonetic in spelling, and promoted the cause as a part of the "Spelling Reform Movement". She spoke at the "Speling Reform Asoshiashun" in New York City in 1877. Her nickname of "Kle", for "Cleora", seems to have illustrated her commitment to phonetic spelling.
Amusingly, whether through vanity or an effort to fit her ulta-modern views, Kle was sometimes known to shave as much as fifteen years off of her age in public records.
As another example of her unorthodox lifestyle, Kle appears to have seperated from Daniel and lived for several years with another man. From about 1886 to 1892 she and attorney William H. Janes shared a room in a boarding house in Manhattan. It is likely that she received a salary or some kind of allowance for her continued work with the school. But in a double loss, her husband D.L. died in 1894 when he was just 46 years old, and their school and business seems to have folded soon after.
Kle remarried just months later to successful patent attorney, inventor, and poet Clarence Ladd Davis-- who was twenty years her junior. Despite their difference in age, they were apparently drawn together by their equally brillant minds. Unfortunately, both also struggled with poor health in the years that followed, including one or more strokes for Kle, for which they were treated via Christian Scientist prayer and meditation.
Mr. Davis apparently also struggled with mental illness, and in a fit of depression in 1905 attempted suicide by repeatedly stabbing himself in the neck while on a Brooklyn street. They seemed to have parted company soon after but did not divorce.
Like her youth, much of Kle's later years remain a mystery. She dabbled some as a spiritualist, corresponding across the country in trying to effect cures for others via "mental science". In 1900 she began teaching at the "Home of Truth and School of Practical Christianity" in Brooklyn, which was affiliated with the new and progressive Unity Church. She later identified her faith as a "Theosophist", or one who seeks to understand presumed mysteries of the universe, and its relationship with humanity and the divine, with the belief that uncovering such hidden knowledge or wisdom may offer a path to enlightenment and salvation.
Kle's fortunes and health continued to wane, and by 1913 she was referred to as "paralytic" due to her strokes. She struggled to support herself by teaching music, and shared a rented Brooklyn apartment with two other families, with a total of eight people, to cover expenses.
She never had any children, perhaps by choice after losing her own childhood to raising her siblings. Although the oldest, she also outlived all seven of those brothers and sisters she mothered.
Kle was still writing articles for scholarly phonography publications as late as 1915, always under the masculine sounding name of "A.C. Scott-Browne". But in September of that year, impoverished, she was admitted to the New York Home for the Aged and Infirm in Brooklyn. She died there of heart disease seven months later. Her estranged husband, Clarence Ladd Davis, attended to her cremation at the New York and New Jersey Crematory in North Bergen, New Jersey. But the ashes were released to the Stephen Merritt Funeral Home in NYC, and what happened to them is not known.
"Kle" was the eldest of eight children of Vermont jeweller Charles W. Scott and his wife Lucy Kellum. She was devastated when her mother died in childbirth in 1855, and thirteen-year-old Alvesta was thrust into the role of raising her six surviving younger siblings. One grew up to be famed Civil War artist, Congressional Medal of Honor winner, and Indian photographer Julian Scott.
She was clearly well educated for her day, but little is known of her youth and young adulthood, other than her early education was at the local Lamoille Academy in Johnson, VT. A 1905 newspaper article stated "Mrs. Scott-Brown is a woman of fine attainments, writes and speaks five or six languages and has an excellent classical education beside."
By the early 1870's she was a music teacher in the Boston area when she met Daniel Liberty "D.L." Brown, of Lemont, Illinois -- six years her junior. Their December 30, 1873 marriage record says she had been married twice before, but those husbands, and what happened to them, has not yet been determined. It is possible she was widowed during the Civil War.
The new couple took the unusual step of hyphenating their last names (usually only seen in affluent European society) and adding an "e" to "Scott-Browne". They promptly moved to New York City and went into business together in the emerging field of phonography, which is the study and use of shorthand. They had both become proficient in this form of communication before their marriage. Their "New York College of Phonography", later the "Scott-Browne College of Phonography", conducted classes teaching Pitman shorthand in the heart of Manhattan for nearly twenty years. They published several phonography textbooks, and both monthly and weekly scholarly journals promoting their avocation.
Some sources claim that in 1878 the Scott-Brownes had the first school in the country which taught typewriting, but it may have been the second or third such school. Kle was a full business partner with the college as a teacher, co-author of textbooks, and an author of articles promoting phonography.
According to later articles in the publication "The Stenographer", the Scott-Brownes reportedly taught the first commercial stenographer in the world. D.L. set up an interview with wealthy industralist J. P. Morgan, where the young student, George Lucas, was able to astonish the financial tycoon with his ability to take shorthand for business letters. Morgan hired him on the spot at a handsome salary. Many years later, Morgan bequeathed his stenographer a large sum in his will.
In the book "History of Shorthand" by Thomas Anderson, published in London in 1882, Kle is one of only 46 people listed as the "more distinguished of American reporters". Curiously, her husband did not make the list.
Kle was apparently an avid supporter of altering the written English language to be strictly phonetic in spelling, and promoted the cause as a part of the "Spelling Reform Movement". She spoke at the "Speling Reform Asoshiashun" in New York City in 1877. Her nickname of "Kle", for "Cleora", seems to have illustrated her commitment to phonetic spelling.
Amusingly, whether through vanity or an effort to fit her ulta-modern views, Kle was sometimes known to shave as much as fifteen years off of her age in public records.
As another example of her unorthodox lifestyle, Kle appears to have seperated from Daniel and lived for several years with another man. From about 1886 to 1892 she and attorney William H. Janes shared a room in a boarding house in Manhattan. It is likely that she received a salary or some kind of allowance for her continued work with the school. But in a double loss, her husband D.L. died in 1894 when he was just 46 years old, and their school and business seems to have folded soon after.
Kle remarried just months later to successful patent attorney, inventor, and poet Clarence Ladd Davis-- who was twenty years her junior. Despite their difference in age, they were apparently drawn together by their equally brillant minds. Unfortunately, both also struggled with poor health in the years that followed, including one or more strokes for Kle, for which they were treated via Christian Scientist prayer and meditation.
Mr. Davis apparently also struggled with mental illness, and in a fit of depression in 1905 attempted suicide by repeatedly stabbing himself in the neck while on a Brooklyn street. They seemed to have parted company soon after but did not divorce.
Like her youth, much of Kle's later years remain a mystery. She dabbled some as a spiritualist, corresponding across the country in trying to effect cures for others via "mental science". In 1900 she began teaching at the "Home of Truth and School of Practical Christianity" in Brooklyn, which was affiliated with the new and progressive Unity Church. She later identified her faith as a "Theosophist", or one who seeks to understand presumed mysteries of the universe, and its relationship with humanity and the divine, with the belief that uncovering such hidden knowledge or wisdom may offer a path to enlightenment and salvation.
Kle's fortunes and health continued to wane, and by 1913 she was referred to as "paralytic" due to her strokes. She struggled to support herself by teaching music, and shared a rented Brooklyn apartment with two other families, with a total of eight people, to cover expenses.
She never had any children, perhaps by choice after losing her own childhood to raising her siblings. Although the oldest, she also outlived all seven of those brothers and sisters she mothered.
Kle was still writing articles for scholarly phonography publications as late as 1915, always under the masculine sounding name of "A.C. Scott-Browne". But in September of that year, impoverished, she was admitted to the New York Home for the Aged and Infirm in Brooklyn. She died there of heart disease seven months later. Her estranged husband, Clarence Ladd Davis, attended to her cremation at the New York and New Jersey Crematory in North Bergen, New Jersey. But the ashes were released to the Stephen Merritt Funeral Home in NYC, and what happened to them is not known.
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