Brown farm location research notes

Date: August 31, 2026

This is a working research log. It separates evidence from leads and is updated as the investigation continues.

Current suspected location

• Working pin: 39.09744, -86.73592.
• This is a practical place to focus further research. It is not yet tied to W. H. Brown by a Greene County deed, tax duplicate, death certificate, or coroner record.
• BLM PLSS geometry places the pin in Section 27, Township 8 North, Range 3 West. That boundary check does not establish ownership.

What the contemporary account establishes

• The November 12, 1936 accident notice says that Joseph Henry “Joe Boy” Flinn was fatally wounded while the party was hunting in woods on the W. H. Brown farm near Solsberry.
• The newspaper notice is reproduced on the public site in media/accident-newspaper.jpg.
• A second clipping, headlined “Youth Is Killed Near Solsberry,” gives a fuller narrative of the accident and repeats the W. H. Brown farm location. The clipping image is preserved at media/youth-killed-near-solsberry.jpg. Publication title and exact issue date still need verification from the newspaper page or archive record.

Transcript: “Youth Is Killed Near Solsberry”

YOUTH IS KILLED NEAR SOLSBERRY

Indianapolis Boy, 5, Fatally Wounded in Gun Mishap Thursday.

The first hunting accident in Greene county during the current season occurred late Thursday and cost the life of five-year-old Joseph Henry Flinn, son of Mr. and Mrs. Joseph G. Flinn of Indianapolis.

Young Flinn was wounded fatally by the accidental discharge of a shotgun when he tripped over it in a woods near Solsberry, in the northeastern part of the county. The lad was with his parents and George Hendrixson of Indianapolis, who were hunting in a woods on the W. H. Brown farm, when they paused for a drink of water. Hendrixson propped his loaded gun against a stone. The Flinn boy happened to stumble against the weapon and it fired, the charge striking him in the chest.

He was taken to a Bloomington physician’s office where he was pronounced dead. His father is a bus driver.

Map observations

• Principal source: 1937 Hixson Beech Creek Township plat, Indiana State Library.
• Section 28 is labeled Wm. Gray, not W. H. Brown.
• A nearby Brown label appears to read “F+W Brown 40.” This reading and its exact placement need confirmation from the original image or a clearer copy.
• No map examined so far provides a clean label for W. H. Brown. The plat alone does not prove which Brown farm was named in the newspaper.

Useful supporting sources

• 1937 Hixson atlas record, Indiana State Library
• BLM National PLSS CadNSDI map service
• Charles Thomas Fulford memorial, Find a Grave, which reproduces a November 16, 1936 Bloomington Herald-Telephone item that separately mentions the Flinn accident and George Hendrixson
• November 13, 1936 newspaper date index at NewspaperArchive, which includes the Linton Daily Citizen issue sought for additional local coverage. The article image is not freely exposed; the Library of Congress catalog record identifies NewspaperArchive as the paper's digital source.
• Greene County Recorder information
• Bloomfield-Eastern Greene County Public Library local history and genealogy

George Hendrixson lead

• The 1936 accident notice names George Hendrixson of Indianapolis as a member of the hunting party and owner of the shotgun.
• The strongest present candidate is George Lawrence Hendrixson’s individual Find a Grave memorial: born August 7, 1901; died February 14, 1947; buried in Section G at Washington Park East Cemetery in Indianapolis. The cemetery-section index independently lists the same burial.
• The Indiana State Library’s Indianapolis Commercial Newspaper Death Index has a separate entry for Hendrixson, George L.: age 45; newspaper date February 19, 1947; cause of death, coronary occlusion; and place of death, 1756 Brookside Ave., Indianapolis. Open the State Library index search.
• A family-provided 1947 obituary identifies George L. Hendrixson as a Greyhound bus driver for 18 years. It says he was born in Indianapolis, lived there all his life, served 13 months overseas in World War I, and died at his home at 1756 Brookside Ave. The notice also names his wife Victoria, son Wayne, four daughters, his father Earl D. Hendrixson, siblings, and four grandchildren.
• The obituary’s son Wayne is identified by his own Find a Grave memorial as Joseph Wayne Hendrixson, son of George Lawrence and Victoria Dorothy Williamson Hendrixson. He was born August 8, 1935 in Indiana, died March 5, 1971 in Indianapolis at age 35, and was buried at Washington Park East Cemetery (Section KA, Lot 39B, Space 3). He married Sandra Jean Pake in 1954.

• Family research independently confirms that Joseph G. Flinn was also a Greyhound bus driver. That shared occupation, the nearby Indianapolis addresses, and the rare Hendrixson spelling make the identification of George Lawrence Hendrixson as the man named in the 1936 accident account compelling.
• George died February 14, 1947—10 years, 3 months, and 2 days after the November 12, 1936 accident (about 3,746 days later).
• The February 14 death date on the memorial, the index’s age 45, and its February 19 newspaper date are mutually consistent.
• The grave inscription identifies him as an Indiana World War I artillery bugler. The 56th Artillery (Coast Artillery Corps) was a U.S. Army unit. U.S. Army unit history.
• The State Library describes the Indianapolis Commercial as a statistics-focused business paper. Its original microfilm is held on the library’s second floor, so the indexed entry may be a death listing rather than a narrative obituary. No separate online obituary has been located so far.

Relationship and address context

• The Flinn family address in the 1936 accident report is 1944 Ruckle St., Indianapolis. George’s 1947 death-index address is 1756 Brookside Ave., Indianapolis.
• Using the present-day mapped locations for those street addresses, they are about 1.12 miles straight-line apart and about 1.55 miles by current roads. These are modern-map measurements only; they do not establish that George lived at Brookside in 1936, nor do they reconstruct the 1936 street network.
• The proximity is useful context, but it is not proof of a personal relationship. A 1936 city directory, 1940 census, George’s death certificate, or the original accident report could provide the link.

Next record work

1. Search the Greene County Recorder’s grantor and grantee indices for Brown variants from 1934 through 1937.
2. Check 1936 Beech Creek Township tax duplicates through the Greene County Auditor.
3. Once a likely Brown owner is identified, obtain the deed book/page and legal description, then compare it to the plat and working pin.
4. Request or locate any Greene County coroner or death record that gives a more specific accident location.

Outreach

August 31, 2026: A research inquiry was sent to John M. Barr of Old Northwest Genealogy, asking about Greene County land-record and PLSS work.