By Tom Perry
James Ewell Brown, the son of Chancellor John Brown of Augusta County, Virginia, came into the world on May 6, 1789. He made his way to Wythe County after possibly being educated at Washington College and on May 12, 1812, took the oath as an Attorney. Four years later, he became Deputy Clerk of the County Court in Wythe County under his future father-in-law, Robert Crockett. He married Maria Crockett, the daughter of Robert and Jennie Lewis Stuart, on September 22, 1818. Jennie’s grandparents were John and Agatha Lewis Stuart. John Stuart descended from David Stuart, the brother of Archibald “The Immigrant” Stuart, who came to Pennsylvania and then to Augusta County. The following April, Brown became Clerk of Superior Court. His career continued to succeed as Brown was the Commonwealth Attorney by 1827, but that same year, he lost his first wife, Maria. They had two children: Jane (1819-1873), who did not marry, and Frances Peyton (1821-1859), who married Colonel Joseph Kent (1820-1866).
The late historian Mary B. Kegley noted that Brown submitted a plan for the “erection of the new poor house” and served as a Trustee for the town of Evansham, which became Wytheville in 1825. Wytheville Presbyterian Church lists Brown as a Trustee in 1836. In 1839, Brown became a Judge serving across southwest Virginia in Carroll, Pulaski, and Wythe Counties.
J. E. Brown married Anne Dabney Stuart (1798-1842), the sister of Archibald Stuart, and had one son with her, Alexander Stuart Brown (1831-1859). This was the second marriage for both, as Anne married William L. McDowell first.
Brown began a long and fruitful life in Wythe County and took a special interest in helping his nephews, including William Alexander Stuart, John Dabney Stuart, and J. E. B. Stuart. The Stuart family visited him often in the 1840s and 1850s with good reason. Brown had a home large enough to accommodate them all. In 1841, Brown purchased the Adams’ home on Pepper’s Ferry Road just outside of Wytheville. The home Cobbler Springs still stands near the new industrial park just down the road from the preserved Wythe County Poorhouse. The home was the house used in Pat Woltz’s painting, Laurel Hill 1842, as it was the closest family home that resembled what the Stuart home may have looked like before archaeology was completed.
“Cobbler Springs was originally a 2 room cabin, then a two over two house, and then the wings were built in the back. It has 10 foot planks, harvested from the land, in the living room that go, literally, wall to wall. It’s amazing to see how long they are. It also has the biggest hand hewn logs (as braces), underneath the original part, that I have ever seen. They are massive. It was built by an officer who reported to the fort at Fort Chiswell. It was originally built in the late 1700s. Judge Brown’s son was Jeb’s best friend, Alexander Stuart Brown.”
There was a strong, obvious connection between Brown and Archibald Stuart. Their names appear in the Patrick County Deed Books, often associated with Brown, going on bonds for Stuart, such as $1000 in 1835 and $678.21 in 1846. When Archibald Stuart got into financial trouble in 1840, James Ewell Brown purchased the items for $850.70 at an auction of Archibald’s property and, no doubt, returned them to his brother-in-law.
When James Ewell Brown died on November 2, 1852, in Hillsville, Virginia, William Alexander Stuart ordered a coffin from Fleming Rich for his uncle, who had done so much for the Stuart family. J. E. B. Stuart wrote from West Point, New York, about the man who gave him his name and the nickname, “In him I have lost my best friend.” Brown rests today in St. John’s Lutheran Church in Wytheville, with his two wives and children, never knowing that his namesake would become a famous Civil War General.
Tom Perry can be reached at freestateofpatrick@yahoo.com, and the J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace website is www.jebstuart.org.
