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Rannals S. Brownlee was descended from John Brownlee, (1665-1747) the third Laird of Torfoot through his son Thomas (1694-1773) the fourth Laird.

He was one of the successful agriculturists and large stock dealers of Mahoning county, who resides on his fine farm on sections 8 and 9 in Coitsville township, was born October 22, 1842 on an adjoining farm.  He is the son of John and Jennie (Patterson) Brownlee, the former of whom was born in January 1806, in Scotland, and died in Ohio in 1887, at the age of eight-one years.  He was a son of Joseph A. Brownlee, who died in Scotland.  The mother of our subject was born in 1811, in Scotland.  After marriage, about 1831, John Brownlee and wife settled on the farm where our subject was born, buying one hundred acres for seven dollars per acre, this land being but poorly improved.  Later he owned two hundred acres.  They had a family of seven children, and all grew to maturity except one.  Margaret died at the age of fifty years; Ellen died at the age of fourteen years; Jane, widow of Emmett Marstelar, has three daughters and five sons, and lives in Mercer county, Pennsylvania; Alexander died in the army, where he contracted disease in 1863, age twenty-four years; James P. also died in the army; Rannals S. is the subject of this sketch; and W. W. owns the old homestead farm, consisting of two hundred and eighty acres, and has six children.  The mother of this family passed away in 1889.

Rannals S. Brownlee was reared on the farm, and obtained a good common school education.  His father proposed to send him to college, but his tastes were more in the direction of an agricultural life.  On May 18, 1869, he married Miss M. E. Bailey, of this township, and three children were born to this marriage, namely:  Jennie E., who married W. A. Palmer of Jamestown, New York; Bessie E., who is the wife of Dr. H. Brookwater of Columbiana county, Ohio, and they have one son; and Margaret, who is a young lady at home, a graduate of the Coitsville high school, and attended Oberlin College, but did not graduate; she is highly accomplished, especially in music.

Mr. Brownlee owns one hundred and seventy acres of fine land, on which he has erected two sets of buildings and three barns.  He has been engaged in stock dealing for a long period, is also a wholesale butcher and sells his meat in Youngstown.  He keeps some fifteen head of cattle, three of horses, and but sixty sheep since the demand for wool has fallen off.  In politics Mr. Brownlee is a Republican, and has served in a number of local offices very efficiently.  He has been township trustee some four terms and assessor for two terms, and is treasurer and trustee of the Presbyterian church, to which the family belongs.  The family is one which has long been most highly regarded in this locality, and is prominent in social and business life.

Genealogical and Family History of Eastern Ohio.   New York, Lewis Pub. Co., 1903. Page 732-733.