DR. J. L. BROWN, Green Spring, was born in Onondaga County, N. Y., and is a son of Charles and Anna (Phelps) Brown, of New England birth and descendants of Plymouth colonists. His grandfather, Gen. John Brown, was a distinguished soldier of the Revolutionary war; his father served in the war of 1812, and the Doctor himself was in the late war of the Rebellion. His father and mother went to New York with their parents when but children, and were there reared and married. In 1832 they removed thence to Ashtabula County, Ohio. Both are now deceased. Dr. Brown is the youngest of a family of six children. The father being a teacher by profession, each of his children, under his instruction, received their first educational training. The Doctor attended school at the Jefferson Academy until he was eleven years old, then continued his studies at Austinburg Institute, in Ashtabula County, working for his board with the family of a dairyman, where, night and morning, he milked seven cows and drove them to pasture a distance of two and one-half miles, studying at nights by the light of a bark fire. At the age of twelve, at the request of his mother, he was taken into the family of Rev. Mr. Austin, a Presbyterian minister, there to be educated for the ministry of that denomination, and he remained about a year. At the age of thirteen he entered a drug store for a term of five years. When fifteen years old he taught his first term, thus aiding himself in furthering the great object of his life, the practice of medicine. At the age of eighteen he attended his first course of medical lectures. At twenty the Doctor was united in marriage with Miss Mary McIntyre, and soon after marriage he came to Fort Seneca, Seneca Co., Ohio, and there began the practice of medicine, with a fortune of $1.70 as the sum of his worldly possessions. He continued practice in Fort Seneca for eight years, and in the fall of 1859 removed to Green Spring. The following winter he graduated from the Cleveland Medical College, and pursued his profession until the winter of 1862-83, when he enlisted as a volunteer surgeon in the One Hundred and Sixteenth Ohio Volunteer Infantry stationed at Winchester, Va., where he continued until June 17, 1863, when he was taken prisoner at the battle of Winchester, Gen. Milroy being in command. The Doctor was then sent to Richmond with other prisoners, and confined in the historical prison "Castle Thunder," under grave charges preferred by the rebels. These charges not being sustained, after nineteen days of dungeon life, he was removed to Libby prison and put on equal footing with other prisoners of war. Here he was kept seven months and twenty-two days. At the expiration of this time he was exchanged, and returned to his regiment in Virginia, where he was appointed post-surgeon, having to report monthly to Washington the sanitary condition of all hospitals from Martinsburg, Va., to Harper's Ferry. This arduous duty Dr. Brown performed until the troops were all returned from these points to Richmond and vicinity. He then returned to his home and family at Green Spring, and soon after recommenced his profession. Previous to the war he was a pronounced anti-slavery man. With his father and his brother, the late Hon. O. P. Brown, he made addresses throughout a large portion of this State, urging the people to vote and work for the freedom of the slave. As a "boy orator" the Doctor gained a wide reputation, nor did his work consist in talk alone, for while the celebrated "underground railroad" was in operation he assisted many a poor negro to gain his liberty. The Doctor is a firm supporter of the principles of the Republican party.


Trancribed by Bonnie Walsh.
WARNER, BEERS & CO., 1886
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES, Part IV, p.700-701
ADAMS TOWNSHIP