Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 03.djvu/635

* BROWN. 559 BROWN. for the Eastern District of Michigan, anil for several months in 1868 he was judge of the Circuit Court of Warae County. In 1875 he was appointed by President Hayes United States district judge, which position he held until December, 1890, when he was appointed by Presi- ilcnt Harrison to the vacancy on the Supreme Court bench caused by the death of Justice Samuel ililler. In 1895 he compiled a valuable volume of admiralty reports. BROWN, He.bt Kibke (1814-86). An American sculptor, well known for works in bronze. He was bom in Leyden, Mass., studied portrait painting in Boston, spent several years in Italy, and then settled in Brooklyn, X. Y. He made the first bronze statue ever east in the United States. His best-known statues are those of De Witt Clinton (in Greenwood Ceme- tery, Brooklyn), of Nathanael Greene and of tieneral Scott (in Washington), and of Lincoln (in Union Square, New York). In 1S57 he undertook the decoration of the State House, Columbia. S. C, which, however, was destroyed during the Civil War. He also made portrait busts of William Cullen Bryant and Dr. Willard Parker. BROWN, .Jacob (1775-1828). An American soldier, prominent as an officer in the War of 1812. He was bom in Bucks County, Pa., re- moved to New Y'ork in 1798 : taught school and studied law in New Y'ork City: served as mili- tary secretary to Alexander Hamilton, and, re- moving to Jefferson County, founded the village of Brownsville. He here entered the State mili- tia, was made brigadier-general in 1810. and early in 1812 was placed in command of the frontier from Oswego to Lake Saint Francis. He gained successes over the British at Ogdensburg and Sackett's Harbor on October 4, 1812, and May 29. 1813. respectively; and in July, 1813, was appointed brigadier-general in the regular United States Army. In Janu.ary, 1814, he was • raised to the rank of major-general, and soon afterwards succeeded Wilkinson as commander of the Northern Department, though nominally Izard, who was then busy with the Wilkinson court of inquiry, was his superior. He took pos- session of Fort Erie on July 3. defeated General Rial I at Chippewa (where General Scott com- manded) on the 5th, and on the 2oth met General Drummond in the battle of Lundy's Lane, General Scott having the principal com- mand. After the war he remained for some time in command of the Northern Depai-tment, and from 1821 until his death he was general- in-chief of the United States Army. BROWN, J. Appletox (1844-1902). An American painter, born in Newburv^port, Mass. He studied in Boston under Benjamin C. Porter, and afterwards under Emile Lambinet in Paris. In 1891 he established his studio in New Y^ork City, and the following year became a member of the Society of American Artists. His last picture, exhibited at the Society in 1902, "The Grain Field," was a typical example of his delicate personal handling of color. Other works by him are: "Old Road Near Paris," and "On the Merrimae at Newburyport." BROWN, John, of Haddington (1722-87). A Scottish clergyman and commentator. He was born at Carpow, in Perthshire. He showed an early disposition to piety, and a taste for learn- ing as well. While herd-boy to a shepherd on the hills, he acquired a good knowledge of Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, so astonishing the country- folk by his attainments that they credited him with diabolical assistance. After a brief career as a peddler, he enlisted in a regiment of militia raised against the Jacobites in 1745; after the need for these services was over, he became a schoolmaster near Kinross, studying theology in his spare hours. In 1750 he was licensed as a preacher, and in the following year set over the congregation of Haddington, which he never left, though called (in 1784) to the pastorate of the Dutch Church in New York. His holy and de- voted character was universally respected. David Hume was once prevailed upon to go and hear him, and is said to have exclaimed: "That old man preaches as if Christ were at his elbow." His best-known work was the iielf-l>itcri>rftitig Bible (1778), a complete library of scriptural knowledge, long immensely popular in Scotland. He published a great variety of sennons and tracts. For his life, consult the preface to his Select Reniains, ed. by his son, the Rev. William Brown (Edinburgh, 1856). BROWN, John (1800-59). An American abolitionist of the extremely radical type. He was born in Torrington, Conn., May 9, 1800, of Puritan ancestry. In his earlier years he en- gaged in the wool business and in a variety of other pursuits, in all of which he was uniformly unsuccessful. He was twice married, and be- came the father of a score of children, but he seems not to have shown either the disposition or the ability properly to maintain a family. His roaming career in Ohio, Connecticut, and New Y'ork was not such as to secure for him the standing even of an average citizen. He was, however, a man of much natural force, and upon becoming imbued with the single idea which con- trolled his later life he appeared as an agitatof of great power, although manifesting many of the characteristics of the fanatic. His life work has given rise to a marked diversity of opinion, some considering his deeds highly reprehensible if not criminal, while others have regarded his life and death as scarcely different from those of a martyr. The latter view was early prevalent throughout the North, and was upheld by many reputable abolitionists (q.v. ), by the leaders among whom Brown seems to have been encour- aged and assisted from the beginning of his work in Kansas until the time of the final catastrophe in Virginia. Brown first appeared as a public character in the struggle which the free-State • men were making for the control of Kansas (q.v.). He was somewhat prominent at Law- rence in the critical days of December, 1855. and soon made himself notorious by the massacre of five of his opponents at Pottawatomie on the night of May 24, 1850. This was followed, on -.June 2, by his capture at Black Jack of Captain Pate. In the follow- ing .ugust he won national renown by the heroic stand which he made at Osawatomie against an overwhelming force of invaders from Mis- souri. While he thus took a most vigorous share in the critical border war, he became the expo- nent of the bloodiest and most unscrupulous type of frontier ruffianism. After the conclusion of violence in Kansas Brown seems to have main- tained relations with his respectable and wealthy sjTiipathizers in the Northeastern States, and by