Laurel Hill’s Many Histories: Icy’s Scrapbooks

Several years ago, I found myself alone in the office of the J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace Preservation Trust, Inc. While browsing, I discovered the scrapbooks of Icy Bowman Brown, the last private owner of the property. During my youth, Icy had shown me these books, which then were at least a dozen. I used these books for research on my book on “The Dear Old Hills of Patrick:” J. E. B. Stuart and Patrick County, Virginia. The book covers my relationship with Icy and her husband, along with our efforts to save the site. 

I found many interesting tidbits of history relating to the birthplace. One is that in 1952, members of the Stuart family approached the Browns about moving Archibald Stuart, who had died in 1855, to Saltville, Virginia, to rest beside his wife, Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart, in the appropriately named Elizabeth Cemetery. The cemetery is named for Patrick Henry’s sister, also known as Madam Russell.

George Elbert “Sug pronounced Shug” Brown (June 16, 1908 to February 13, 1991) married Icy Bowman (November 2, 1907 to July 9, 1990). On August 10, 1941, the couple had twins George William Brown (August 10-14, 1941) and Elbert Bowman Brown (August 10, 1941-March 28, 1994). The loss of one baby led the couple to keep Bowman at home even though he had Down’s Syndrome. Years after her death, I discovered a lock of hair from the dead son in one of Icy’s scrapbooks. The Browns lived and worked on this farm known as Laurel Hill for nearly all of the twentieth century. 

In 1957, George Elbert Brown exercised the Power of Attorney on his father’s estate due to Thomas Brown’s age and disability. Four years later, George acquired his mother, Lillia Sparger Brown’s land, just as the Centennial of the Civil War began in the early 1960s.

In December 1932, the Commonwealth of Virginia placed a historical highway marker, possibly written by Douglas Southall Freeman, at the farm to commemorate J. E. B. Stuart’s one hundredth birthday. For sixty years, it was all that noted the significance of the property. Many people stopped at the next house up the road from the sign, and there they met George Elbert and Icy Bowman Brown. If you visited “Shug” and Icy to ask about Laurel Hill, you would be given an introduction by viewing scrapbooks collected by Icy and a walking tour by “Shug” and when you were just about to leave, they would walk into their closet and hand you a brick they believed came from the house Jeb Stuart was born in. Years earlier, Tom Brown picked up the bricks from his pasture to plant a tobacco crop. Oral tradition is that he filled in the Stuarts’ old well, and his son brought most of the rest into his home to give away to tourists. I found one of these bricks in the Bassett Historical Center, and over the years, many people have told me they have one of the Laurel Hill Bricks.

Icy served on the Board of Directors of the United Fund, Patrick County Bicentennial Commission, R. J. Reynolds Hospital Auxiliary, and the Patrick County Historical Society. She was a member of the National Trust of Historic Preservation and the Virginia Historical Society. 

Perusing the scrapbooks, you can see how much Icy and her husband, George Elbert “Sug” Brown, did to try to save the site, including plans around the 1976 Bicentennial of the United States, which did not come to fruition. There are multiple newspaper clippings from Patrick County newspapers, The Enterprise and The Bull Mountain Bugle, including Judge Hooker accepting the portrait of J. E. B. Stuart that hung in the courthouse until Martin Clark took it down. There was Glenn Handy portraying J. E. B. Stuart, horse and all, in the bicentennial parade in 1976. As part of Patrick County’s celebration of the Civil War Centennial on May 10, 1964, “Shug” Brown gave tours of Laurel Hill.

Preserving Laurel Hill was the dream of many of these families, but no more than Icy and “Sug.” It was this dream that led this author to their front door as a child, and a dream to preserve the Laurel Hill Farm. Without Icy’s preserving the history of her farm, we would know much less about the Laurel Hill Farm.

My mother told a story that in the summer of 1969, she drove her white 1964 Volkswagen Beetle to the front yard of the small white home visible today from the house site at Laurel Hill. That July, men from Earth first walked on the moon, and the Beatles were recording their final album, Abbey Road, in London. My mother was a tall, slim woman with black hair, and I, her son, was nearly nine years old with blondish hair and green eyes. We walked to the front door because I had fixated on the farm’s Virginia Historical Highway Marker titled “Stuart’s Birthplace.” As only a boy could, I questioned her every time we passed by until she stopped at the house, hoping to satisfy my interest. 

This was the first of many days “Shug” Brown led me around the pasture, speaking of the property’s history and his memories of the locations of the Stuart house, white and slave cemeteries, and the old well used by the Stuarts. This was the first of many days Icy Bowman Brown showed me her scrapbooks full of information about Laurel Hill and every Christmas card she ever received. That day in 1969 and many times later, I noticed the picture on the end table when I entered the home. The black and white photo showed a seated man in a military uniform with a full beard, a saber, knee high boots, and a large, plumed hat. For George Elbert “Shug” Brown and his wife, Icy Bowman Brown, James Ewell Brown Stuart was a member of the family.

Thanks to Eric and Amy Brown Sawyers for allowing me to scan Icy Bowman Brown’s scrapbooks and helping to preserve this vital part of our history.

Coming next week: A Gentleman and a Scholar Burke Davis.