Brighthope

William Phineas Browne (1804-1869), a native of Vermont became a leading pioneer of Alabama's coal industry, and operated the state's first systematic underground coal mines near Montevallo, Shelby County, Alabama, commencing in 1851. Browne was an attorney by training but pursued many and varied business interests, including mining coal and iron ore, constructing canals, and investing in real-estate ventures. In addition to his business interests, Browne was occasionally involved in politics, serving as an alderman in Mobile in 1841, a member of the Alabama Legislature in 1845-46, and a delegate to the 1860 Democratic National Convention. Plentiful correspondence between him and his family, as well as his business associates, give an inside look at antebellum Alabama from the perspective of an industrialist, rather than that of the many cotton planters who dominated the state.