Bedford Brown

A Senator from North Carolina; born in Caswell County, N.C., near Greensboro, June 6, 1795; graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1813; studied law; admitted to the bar in 1815 but did not practice; planter; elected to the house of commons of North Carolina in 1815, 1816, 1817, and 1823; member, State senate 1828-1829; elected in 1829 as a Jacksonian (later Democrat) to the United States Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John Branch; reelected in 1835 and served from December 9, 1829, until November 16, 1840, when he resigned, because he would not obey the instructions of the general assembly of North Carolina; chairman, Committee on Agriculture (Twenty-third and Twenty-fourth Congresses), Committee on Revolutionary Claims (Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Congresses), Committee to Audit and Control the Contingent Expense (Twenty-fifth Congress); again elected to the State senate in 1842; unsuccessful candidate for election to the United States Senate in 1842; moved to Missouri in 1843; subsequently moved to Virginia; returned to North Carolina and engaged in agricultural pursuits; member, State senate 1858-1860; delegate to the reconstruction convention in 1865; again elected to the State senate in 1868, but was not permitted to take his seat; died at “Rose Hill,” Caswell County, N.C., near Greensboro, December 6, 1870; interment in the family cemetery at ‘Rose Hill.’

Bibliography

Dictionary of American Biography; Jones, Houston. Bedford Brown: States Rights Unionist. Carrolton, Ga.: West Georgia College, 1955.

Bedford Brown (Photograph Courtesy H. G. Jones)

Bedford Brown (June 6, 1795 - December 6, 1870) was an American lawyer and planter from Yanceyville in Caswell County, North Carolina. He was a member of the Democratic Party, who served in the North Carolina Senate and United States Senator from the State of North Carolina between 1829 and 1840.

Bedford Brown [http://www.rootsweb.com/~ncccha/memoranda/communities/locusthill/locusthill.html

Brown was born June 6, 1795 in what now is Locust Hill Township, Caswell County, North Carolina, the son of Jethro Brown and Lucy Williamson Brown. After attending the University of North Carolina for one year, Brown was elected to the North Carolina House of Commons. In 1828, upon the death of Bartlett Yancey, Jr., Brown was chosen in a special election to replace Yancey in the North Carolina Senate. Like Bartlett Yancey, Jr., before him, Brown was elected Speaker of the North Carolina Senate.

In 1829, he was elected as a Jacksonian (the party that would become the Democratic Party) to succeed John Branch as a United States Senator from North Carolina. In the Senate, he chaired several committees, including the Agriculture Committee. Brown resigned his seat in 1840 due to a dispute with the state legislature. He was elected to the state Senate again in 1842, before spending some years out of the state.

Leading up to the Civil War, Brown, a state senator again from 1858-1860, counselled in favor of North Carolina's remaining in the Union. However, after President Lincoln requested troops from North Carolina to serve in the Union Army, Brown, along with most of his colleagues, supported secession.

In 1868 Brown, still a Democrat, was again elected to the North Carolina Senate. However, the Reconstruction Republicans controlled the North Carolina Legislature and refused to seat Brown. He was replaced by Republican John W. Stephens. For more on John W. Stephens, including his murder in Yanceyville, North Carolina, by the Ku Klux Klan and the resulting Kirk-Holden war, go to the Caswell County Historical Association.

On July 13, 1816, Brown married Mary Lumpkin Glenn. They had seven children: William Livingston, Bedford, Jr., Wilson Glenn, Isabella Virginia, Laura, and Rosalie. Brown was buried on the grounds at Rose Hill just outside Yanceyville, North Carolina.

The accompanying photograph (carte-de-viste) by famous Civil War photographer Mathew Brady probably was made when Bedford Brown was in Washington, D.C., as commissioner seeking readmission of North Carolina into the Union after the Civil War. As a pre-war Unionist, Brown was one of only a few Southern politicians for whom Brady had enough sympathy to grant the favor of a sitting. Note that images of Senator Bedford Brown often are confused with those of his son, Dr. Bedford Brown, M.D. Even the Library of Congress uses an incorrect photograph in its Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

Bibliography

• Dictionary of North Carolina Biography, William S. Powell, Ed. (1979) at 240-241 (Article by H. G. Jones)
• Bedford Brown: States Rights Unionist, Houston G. Jones (1955)

External links

• Caswell County Historical Association
• Caswell County North Carolina GenWeb
• Caswell County Family Tree
• Congressional Biography

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