Page:Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography volume 5.djvu/624

 VIRGINIA BIOGRAPHY

children, as follows: Lavinia Newton, died November 25, 1881 ; Harriet Sheppard, died May 6, 1885 ; John Dudley George, of whom further.

John Dudley George Brown, the youngest child of Joseph Booth and Fannie Lavinia (Taylor) Brown, was born June 16, 1868, in Hanover county, Virginia, and there passed the years of his childhood and early youth. He received a splendid education, attending the Oakland Academy at the town oi- that name in Virginia, and later the Uni- versity of Virginia, at Charlottesville in that state, from which he graduated with the class of 1892. In the year 1893 he left the parental roof and took up his abode in New- port News. His course at the University had been in law, and upon his admission to the Virginian bar he opened an office in Newport News and began at once upon the practice of his profession. For this career he was particularly well fitted, being pos- sessed of a strong yet mobile mind, gjeat self-possession, and a very persuasive elo- quence. To these striking qualification he added that of being an indefatigable worker, so that he was always prepared with every detail of his cases. With such noteworthy abilities it is not astonishing that he quickly developed an excellent practice and became a leader of the bar in his district, and tlie more so as he was more than punctilious in his regard for all the interests entrusted to him. In short he established a most envi- able reputation, second to none in that part of the state. When Newport News was in- cor]3orated as a city, he was chosen the first police justice, an office which he held up to the time of his death. Judge Brown was united in marriage, October 14, 1896, with Nellie Allen, of Bridgeton, New Jersey, daughter of Dr. O. I\I. and Harriet (North- rup) Allen, old and honored residents of that place. To them were born two chil- dren, Allen Dudley, August 9, 1897, and Malcolm Taylor, July 21, 1898.

Judge Brown was a young man at the time of his death and one whose career had scarcely passed its threshold to judge by the illusive promises held out by a future which was never to materialize. His powers were at their heighth, his popularity and reputa- tion were on the increase and the bright be- ginning seemed to point to a still more bril- liant denoument. But when all is said it was more as a man, than in virtue of any

position or honor that he had or might have achieved, that he made the impression that he did upon his community. He was typical of the old-fashioned, yet progressive South- ern gentleman, so typical, indeed, that it was he who was chosen by that clever come- dian, Walter Kelly, as the basis of his char- acter impersonation of a "Virginia Justice" in the sketch of the same name. Indeed it may he. said that it was in this connection that Judge Brown's fame was blown the farthest, for if he was known pretty well throughout V^irginia in his more formal ca- pacity, there is scarcely a country where English is spoken that he was not known as the figure about which so much of kindly and gracious humor was most appropriately centered. His character was one which awakened at once respect and affection and it is said of him that even in his capacity as judge, which it would seem impossible to hold without making enemies, that, as a fact, he hardly had one. Whole-souled and generous, loving and beloved in his home, with a genial comraderie with all men, Judge Brown went through life exerting a bene- ficent efifect upon all with whom he came in contact and left at his death a gap which it will be alike difficult to forget or to fill.

William Duncan Judkins. The derivation of the surname Judkins is somewhat ob- scure. In some cases it is supposed to be derived like Judson from the personal name Judd or Jude, Judkin meaning little Jude 01 little Judd. Most of the Judson and Jud- kins families in England are said to trace their origin to the neighborhood of the town of Leeds, and the surname is said to be still common in the county of Yorkshire, and there is now a prominent family of the name of Judkins living in Heyford, Northampton, England. The arms of the Judkins are thus heraldically described : Argent two bars bules in chief three mullets of the second. According to the register of the University of Oxford, William Judkins,. the first known ancestor of the family, was a fellow of All Souls in 1542-43. The name was early plant- ed in America, lioth in Virginia and New England.

William Duncan Judkins, the well-known merchant and broker of New York, was born at Woodbury, Fairfax county, Vir- ginia, in December, 1836. His father was Rev. William Elliott Judkins, born April