History of Pickens, (Pickens County) South Carolina United States of America

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Joseph Emerson Brown, governor of Georgia, was born in Pickens district, S. C., April 15, 1821. His father removed to Georgia and settled in Union county, where he cultivated a farm. The lad was brought up to the life of a common farm laborer, and until nineteen years of age had little schooling. In November, 1840, he walked most of the way to Calhoun academy in South Carolina, where, without money to pay his tuition, he secured admission, and pursued his studies with characteristic persistence. Returning to Georgia, he paid the cost of his tuition by teaching school. He read law in his leisure hours, and was admitted to the Georgia bar in 1845. He then continued his legal studies at Yale college law school, and returning to Georgia in November, 1846, began his practice of the law in Canton. He was elected state senator in 1849; presidential elector in 1852; judge of the superior court of the Blue Ridge circuit in 1855; governor of Georgia in 1857; re-elected in 1859, 1861, and 1863?the established usage of the commonwealth being set aside, which disallowed an executive over two consecutive terms. He took an active part in the civil war, first as a state rights Democrat, and then as a secessionist of the most pronounced type, his first acts being the seizure of Forts Pulaski and Jackson, before his state had seceded, and of the U.S. arsenal at Augusta immediately after. He equipped and put into the field for state service, during Sherman's invasion, an army of ten thousand, mainly old men and youths usually exempt from military service. At the close of the way he was arrested by the U. S. authorities and imprisoned for a time. He advised the acceptance of the reconstruction measures of Congress, and, in consequence, incurred for a time popular disfavor, the legislature of Georgia, in 1868, electing Joshua Hill U. S. senator over him. This was the only political defeat he ever sustained, as he was always successful in securing the majority veto of the people. He was appointed the same year chief justice of the supreme court of Georgia for twelve years, which judicial position he resigned in 1870, to become president of the Western and Atlantic railroad, holding this office for twenty years. In 1880 he was appointed by Governor Colquitt U. S. senator, in place of Gen. John B. Gordon, resigned, and he was elected by the general assembly by over two-thirds majority for the remainder of the term, and re-elected in 1884. His term expired March 3, 1891, when he declined a re-election, and retired to private life and to the care of his largely increasing business interests, which extended to the development of the material wealth of Georgia in all sections of the state. He gave more than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to educational institutions, churches and benevolences. He opposed the policy of conscription as adopted by the Confederate administration in a correspondence with President Davis, which is historical. He died at his home in Atlanta, Ga., Nov. 30, 1894.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Pickens, (Pickens County) South Carolina

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