For many years, all inventors and manufacturers having occasion to attend experiments with their productions at the Naval Proving Grounds at Indian Head, were aided in their work by Brown, the gunner. He was a very ingenious, genial, gigantic fellow, one of the most likable men in the world. There was nothing about the mechanism of guns and gunnery unfamiliar to him.

Once, during the early years of his service there, a fragment from an exploding gun struck him in the forehead, leaving a great dent. As soon as he recovered, he returned to his duties undeterred, although he had had many other close calls.

One day, a few years ago, he walked in on me at my summer home on Lake Hopatcong. During his visit, he asked me if I believed in presentiments. He said he had had a very strange presentiment of impending danger in his work at Indian Head. He told me that he had confided this to the commanding officer there, who laughed at him, and said, “Oh, Brown, at last you are losing your nerve. Go and take a two weeks’ vacation, and then come back.”

Brown did go back at the end of his vacation.

A few weeks later, while testing a new heavy gun, something went wrong. The breech block blew out, and Brown was killed.