OVERVIEW: OUR BROWNS OF EARLY WARREN COUNTY, TENNESSEE
By James A. Brown, Jr., and James E. Hargraves
Many -- perhaps most -- Browns in early Warren County, Tennessee, were
descendants of one William Brown, who may have been from Edinburgh, Scotland.
William's extended family, both within and beyond Warren County, is the
subject of this website.
(Absolom Brown and family, who also lived in early Warren, were not kin
to our William. DNA testing, dealt with in the concluding paragraphs
below, has reinforced conventional "paper" genealogy on this score.
[1] )
Our ancestor, William Brown, lived in Augusta County, Virginia, until the mid-to-late 1750's. [2] Then with what apparently was a stop of three years or less in Rowan Co NC, he moved to the Waxhaws region, which spans the border between North and South Carolina just south of Charlotte. He arrived in the Waxhaws with at least two children [3] and probably with his first wife.
After his first wife died, William is thought to have married Martha
Kennedy, daughter of Felix Kennedy of Augusta Co VA and Rowan Co NC. Four
of his sons were Revolutionary soldiers: Alexander, Robert, Thomas, and William.[4]
Other known children were Rebecca, Felix, Agness, Mary and John.[5]
The family remained in the Waxhaws region until the early 1780's, after which they followed a common path for Revolutionary War veterans, moving to the "overmountain" part of North Carolina that eventually became Tennessee. Then for two decades, various family members moved county-by-county down the Holston-Tennessee River Valley, from Washington County to Roane County. Then they turned westward into Smith County [6]. Meanwhile "William the Father" died in Knox County about 1806. [7]
William's three sons, Robert, Thomas and William, appear among those Smith
County residents signing the 1806 petition to form Warren County.[8]
In 1807, grandson David Brown entered a 200 acre tract in Warren.[9]
And in 1808, Alexander Brown sold land on Warren County's Hickory Creek.[10]
By 1812, William's descendants in Warren apparently included Revolutionary
soldiers Robert and Thomas (covered elsewhere at this website), perhaps a
second Thomas, two Davids, and one or two William Browns.[11] Revolutionary
soldier Alexander was not on Warren's 1812 tax list, but by 1820 there were
three "Alexander Browns" in the County -- one or more probably from
the family under discussion.[12]
(A John Brown on the 1812 Warren tax list probably was from the German Braun/Brown
family of Rowan County, North Carolina. A Jessee and a Benjamin Brown were
also in Warren in 1812, but research has not discovered their kinship.)
During the War of 1812, both David Browns from Warren marched with Tennessee
militia units into Mississippi Territory to fight the Creek Indians. One David
served with Captain James Cole's company, the other with Captain William Douglass.[13]
All these militia were under command of future president Andrew Jackson, who
had been neighbor and acquaintance to the Browns back in Waxhaws NC/SC.[14]
In 1814 the Creeks were defeated. Soon afterwards, the Warren County David
Brown who served under Captain Cole moved to former Creek lands in Monroe
County, Mississippi Territory, settling in an area that later became St. Clair
County, Alabama. He was joined by at least four other probable brothers, Thomas,
William, Alexander, and Guian Leeper Brown -- along with perhaps their father
and mother. All seem to have resided previously in Warren County or in Warren's
then-contiguous neighbor, Franklin County, Tennessee.[15]
These five brothers are thought to have been sons of Revolutionary Patriot
William Brown, who was in turn a son of the original William from Scotland.
Researchers have not, however, found a "smoking gun" to prove the
brothers' parentage. The conclusion rests instead upon a preponderance of
circumstantial evidence, including documents, naming patterns, and DNA tests.
(On DNA, see below.)
William the Patriot was probably the identical man who in 1808 ordered a 300-acre
survey in Warren's Red Banks ("Browntown") area.[16] But he
never received title for this parcel, suggesting that he moved with his sons
across the Franklin County line. William is thought to have wed Mary Ann Leeper
before migrating to middle Tennessee. They apparently had children in addition
to the five brothers: John, Robert, James, Felix, Mary Ann, Elizabeth, Sarah,
and Temperance. Some probably remained in Tennessee after others went to Alabama,
although evidence is lacking.
Brothers Alexander and Guian Leeper Brown apparently left Alabama for Arkansas
in the 1820s.[17] Brother Thomas died c1819 in Alabama, where
his estate's administrator was John Looney, another migrant from Warren County.[18]
Thomas' son William Watson Brown later moved to Arkansas, where his family
settled near descendants of Guian Leeper Brown.[19]
David Brown remained in Alabama with wife Sarah. Researchers think her maiden
name was "Miller" since her first son, born in Warren County, was
named Miller Brown. Sarah probably was related to the Alexander Miller who
signed the 1806 petition to form Warren County, and to the David Miller next
to David Brown on Warren's 1812 tax list. Sarah died in Alabama in the 1840s.
David died there in 1868, by which time most of his children had moved to
Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas.[20]
Researchers years ago speculated on whether David Brown of Alabama belonged
to the Warren County family of Robert and Thomas Brown. Evidence was inconclusive
until 2002, when David's descendant James Hargraves of Elk Grove, California,
used the unusual name "Guian Leeper Brown" (with spelling variations)
to demonstrate a consistent pattern of evidence linking the Warren County
Browns to those in Arkansas, Alabama, the Holston-Tennesse Valley, Waxhaws
NC/SC, and Virginia.
Almost simultaneously, a DNA match between Victor Brown of Denison, Texas,
a descendant of Revolutionary soldier Thomas, and James A. Brown, Jr. of Arlington,
Virginia, a descendant of Miller Brown, confirmed the notion that David was
indeed a member of the Alexander-Robert-Thomas-William Brown clan of early
Warren. Then in 2003, a DNA match with Danny Brown of Branson, Missouri,
a descendant of William Watson Brown, confirmed that Thomas Brown of Alabama
was a member of the same Warren County family. More recently (June 2004) John
Pershing Brown of Manhattan, Kansas, a descendant of the original William
Brown's son Felix, showed a DNA match with Victor, James, and Danny Brown
-- thus confirming beyond any reasonable doubt the close kinship between
a "Missouri-Kansas-Oregon" group of Browns and our Browns who
lived in Warren County, Tennessee, and St. Clair County, Alabama.
As regards other Brown families in early Warren, a DNA sample from
Dan W. Brown of Wellington, New Zealand, has demonstrated clearly that the
Absolom Brown family of early Warren was not related. And yet a third distinct
family of early Warren County Browns appears to have been identified, thanks
to a DNA test for William Wayne Brown of Plantation, Florida. Moreover,
new DNA tests are underway for other Browns with roots in the Warren
and White County area, the results of which may help further to
unravel the once-impenetrable maze of Brown genealogy for that region
of Tennessee.[21]
SOURCE NOTES:
[1] The Absolom Brown family is discussed fully at http://absolombrown.com/
2] There appear to have been at least five men named "William Brown" in colonial Augusta County, Virginia. For example, the major "secondary source" for research on colonial Augusta, Lyman Chalkley, Chronicles of the Scotc[h-Irish Settlement in Virginia, reproduced at https://sites.rootsweb.com/~chalkley/, has more than 70 references to various William Browns. Research has not always been able to differentiate among these men, with the exception that references from 1760 and later almost surely involve a William other than our ancestor.
[3] Revolutionary War pension application of Thomas Brown, S3059, transcription by Mary Lu Johnson; and, Revolutionary War pension application of Robert Brown, S3057, transcribed by Mary Lu Johnson.
[4] Op. cit., Revolutionary War pension application of Thomas Brown, S3059, transcription by Mary Lu Johnson.
[5] Will of William Brown, Knox Co TN, probated 1807, transcription
by Mary Lu Johnson.
[6] NC & TN land, tax, and militia records, various, 1782-1802.
[7] Will of William Brown, ibid.
[8] Walter Womack, McMinnville at a Milestone, 1810-1960 (McMinnville
TN: Standard Publishing Co., 1960), p. 15, citing original document at TSLA.
[9] Tennessee State Library and Archives, RG 50, Microfilm 35, Book
34, p.47, reconstructed map at http://www.tngennet.org/warren/mc-plat.gif
[10] Betty
Moore Majors, Warren County, Tennessee, Deed Book A (Signal Mountain TN: Mountain
Press, 1992), p. 1, citing original page 56.
[11] Warren Co TN, Tax List, 1812, reproduced on the Warren County website
at http://www.combs-families.org/combs/records/tn/war12.htm
[12] Federal Census, Warren Co TN, 1820, reproduced on the Warren County website
at http://www.tngennet.org/warren/1820.txt
[13] National Archives, Washington DC, War of 1812 Muster Rolls, various.
[14] Revolutionary War pension application of Robert Brown, S3057, transcribed
by Mary Lu Johnson.
[15] Mississippi Territory, Census, Monroe County, 1816, transcription by
Judy Voran; and, Franklin Co TN, Tax List, 1812, reproduced on the Franklin
County website at http://www.tngennet.org/franklin/frantax.htm
[16] Warren County website,
http://www.tngennet.org/warren/redbanks/
[17] Arkansas Territory, censuses and tax lists, various, reproduced
at http://www.ancestry.com
[18] St. Clair Co AL, Orphans' Court Minutes, June 29, 1819.
[19] Federal Census, Marion Co AR, 1860, reproduced at http://www.ancestry.com
[20] The Heritage of St. Clair County, Alabama (Clanton AL: Heritage Publishing
Consultants, Inc. and Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1998), p. 126.
[21] For more detailed information and for updates, see the Brown DNA Study's
website, at http://brownsociety.org/
