Annmary Brown Memorial

The Annmary Brown Memorial at 21 Brown Street was built in 1907 by Rush Christopher Hawkins as a memorial to his wife, who was the daughter of Nicholas Brown 1811 and the granddaughter of Nicholas Brown 1786, whose name the University adopted in 1804, and sister of Carrie Brown Bajnotti, whose memorial is Carrie Tower. Norman Isham was the architect of the Annmary Brown Memorial, a one-story granite structure with a low hip roof and impressive bronze doors. The building, which has no windows, resembles a tomb, as indeed it is, as both Rush Hawkins and Annmary Brown Hawkins are buried in an enclosure at the east end of the building. The slabs above their graves can be viewed through a grate, and each year on March 9, the birthday of Annmary Brown, her grave is decorated with flowers. General Hawkins had planned the building with its two art rooms, a personal treasure room, an office, and the rare book room, around the walls of which were originally arranged 450 incunabula, open for viewing by visitors. Hawkins pursued the goal of acquiring the first book of each of the presses which were printing by 1500, and he did realize a collection of 225 first and second books from 130 of the 238 fifteenth-century presses. He engaged Alfred W. Pollard to prepare a catalogue of the collection, which was published in 1910 by the Oxford University Press. In addition to the incunabula, the Memorial housed Hawkins’ collection of paintings, a collection of manuscripts, and another collection which included books by or about anyone named Hawkins. The Memorial was deeded to the University in 1948, at which time Margaret B. Stillwell, librarian of the collections since 1917, joined the staff of the University with the rank of full professor and continued in that position until her retirement in 1953. The Annmary Brown Memorial collections, except for the paintings, were removed to the John Hay Library in 1990.