Edward Smith Brown

Edward Smith Brown, son of Daniel and Nancy Hobson (Walton) Browne, was born in Cumberland county, Virginia, April 7, 1818, died January 3, 1908, in Lynchburg, Virginia. He came from good stock in every sense of the word, for his parents were more than ordinary people. While leading the quiet simple life of the country gentry of those days, they were of a strong mental caliber, educated, refined, and of high character. In early life Edward S. Brown led the life of a Virginia planter's son. aiding in the affairs of a large farm and family, and attending the best available country schools. He completed his education at the Randolph-Macon College, then ranking among the best institutions of the south, and was among the first graduates along with Bishop McTyeire and was under the tutelage of the Rev. Dr. Landon B. Garland, afterwards for many years, and up to his death, the chancellor of the Vanderbilt University. Throughout the long and useful life of Mr. Brown his thirst for knowledge was unabated, and he remained a student to the very end. He was admitted to the bar in the early forties, and he practiced his profession in Cumberland and other counties in Virginia, continuing until near the close of his life, acquiring a reputation for legal ability of a high order, ranking among the leading members of his profession. Enjoying fine social connections, and being a man of steady and industrious habits, noted for his thoroughness and painstaking diligence in all his work, he acquired an extensive practice and the esteem and confidence of his fellowmen. In 1866 Mr. Brown removed to Lynchburg and shortly afterwards formed a partnership with Charles L. Mosby, one of the ablest and most accomplished lawyers in the history of the state. Mr. Mosby being considerably older than Mr. Brown and always in delicate health, the chief labors of the firm devolved wholly upon Mr. Brown, and during the last ten years of this connection, which continued until the death of Mr. Mosby, the senior member of the firm rarely came to the office, and then only on short visits. The firm, of which William C. Ivey was a partner for a time, stood very high in legal and business circles, and took a leading part in the greater part of the important litigation of Lynchburg and the surrounding country. In the complex and protracted litigation over the will of Samuel Miller, involving about a million and a half dollars, and arousing deep interest throughout the state, the work of the firm was conspicuous. The contest presented many phases of great difficulty and engaged the talents of leading lawyers in this part of the commonwealth, but it is believed that Mr. Brown was as serviceable and influential in that conflict and bore himself with as much honor and ability as the best of them. He was concerned in many other cases of importance and difficulty, particularly in the court of appeals, where it was said to be his rule to carry every case that was not decided exactly to his liking. That dignified and stately forum seemed more congenial to his predilections than the guerilla contests of the inferior courts.

    The most prominent traits of Mr. Brown's professional style and characteristics were his thoroughness of preparation, his patient, persistent, tireless work in examining every phase of his cause and every question his mind could suggest as likely to arise. He wanted to read and study the outgiving of every court in Europe and in America that had given an opinion upon the matter in hand. It was not unusual for him to visit Washington and Richmond and spend several days searching the large law libraries of those cities on the hunt for authorities to sustain his contentions, or better, down the position of his adversary. His capacity for labor in his researches was equal to his apparent love of it, and he spared not himself day or night. No drudgery of detail, no forbidding array of facts and figures, no complications of legal principle or conflicting testimony ever dismayed him, or turned him aside from mastering every detail of his cause. This arose largely from his conscientious loyalty to his client and his profound conviction of his duty, and he gave himself without stint to the full performance of every trust confided to him. It must not be thought from his searching after authorities that he followed blindly previous opinion of courts or text-writers. On the contrary he was a man of most independent judgment and held to his own opinions with the utmost tenacity. He was also prominently noted for his strong determination and courage in the face of any difficulty or danger, though he never seemed to lose the calm equanimity of his temper.

    The long, hard struggle he made for the recovery of his property in the state of Kansas which had been confiscated by the United States government during the war, illustrated his prominent characteristics. Finding after the close of the war that his valuable properties there had been confiscated as belonging to an alien enemy, that they had been taken and sold in the forms of law, but against its equity, and by considerable hard and dangerous work he might prove that the proceeds had been appropriated by corrupt Federal marshals in collusion with conniving and still more corrupt judges, many of whom still held authority and influence, and knowing that the battle must be waged in a forum strongly prejudiced against him, yet with tireless energy and patient persistence he waged for years the unequal contest amid hostile surroundings until he finally wrung from the despoilers a considerable part of their ill-gotten gains. In the course of the litigation several appeals were taken by him to the Supreme Court of the United States, and arising out of these matters and through Mr. Brown's instrumentality articles of impeachment were presented by the house of representatives against a judge of the United States court in Kansas, charging bribery, corruption and high misdemeanors in office. Mr. Brown was one of the chief witnesses who testified against him, with the result that the judge resigned his office pending the hearing of the charges. In all his professional career, as well as in his business affairs, he loved justice, scorned deception and trickery, and was absolutely without fear of man. In early life he joined the Methodist church, and after moving to Lynchburg he united with the Court Street Methodist Church, to which he was zealously devoted and a constant attendant to the last. He was especially fond of Bible study, and devoted to teaching it in his Sunday school class, which in his latter days, despite the increasing feebleness of age, he would never consent to give up. He carried on his labors almost to the day of his death, for when he was stricken with his last illness, just a few days before the end, he was in the midst of preparing legal documents and engaged in Biblical research. In this and in all things else he fought a good fight and kept the faith, and his religious life was even as the "path of the just that shineth more and more unto the perfect day." He was a just man who daily walked in his uprightness. His was the life of a Christian gentleman, charitable to all his kind, slow to anger and full of good words. In his family he was amiable, kind-hearted, hospitable and helpful; as a friend he was faithful and sympathetic, and when he went to his reward he left a blessed memory. No man in all Lynchburg was more beloved than he.

    Though he always took an intelligent and lively interest in all the public questions of the day and the affairs of his country, yet he had no taste for politics and never sought public office. But recognizing the ability and high character of the man, his county people prior to the civil war elected him to the legislature and he represented them in the house of delegates with the same industry and fidelity which he brought to the discharge of every duty.

    Mr. Brown married, in 1845, Jane Margaret Winfree, of Lynchburg, Virginia, daughter of Christopher and Cornelia ( Meyer) Winfree, and took her to his home, "Sunny Side," an attractive country seat a few miles below Cumberland Court House. Here they resided for some years, he leading the life of a country lawyer of the olden time in one of the most prosperous and largest slaveholding counties of the state, and in a community of the highest social advantages until after the close of the civil war. Their children were: 1. Cornelia Walton, born April 6, 1846. 2. Mary Virginia, born January 9, 1849; married, November 5, 1867, John Winston Ivey, son of Peter and Sallie (Lawson) Ivey; children: Otelia Walton, born March 2, 1872; Mary Winston, born October 20, 1878. 3. Anne, born October 7, 1856. (Encyclopedia of Virginia Biographies, Vol. IV. Publ. 1915. Transcribed by Chris Davis) 

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