By: Neil E. Mellen
Biographical sketches of Eli Huston Brown (1841–1911) agree that Eli’s father was John McClarty Brown but disagree on the identity of John McClarty Brown’s parents.
The sketch in W. H. Perrin’s Kentucky: A History of the State says:
Eli H. Brown . . . is a son of John Mc. and Minerva J. (Murray) Brown, the former a native of Nelson County and the latter of Washington County. His grandfather, Joseph Brown, came from Virginia, and settled in Nelson County.[1]
John M. Gresham’s Biographical Cyclopedia of the Commonwealth of Kentucky adds:
Eli H. Brown is a son of John McClarty and Minerva (Murray) Brown. . . . Robert J. Brown (grandfather), a native of Maryland, was one of the earliest settlers of Nelson County, where he was a farmer and trader. He married a Miss McClarty, and died when his son, John McClarty Brown (father), was an infant. His widow married a Mr. Hughes, and died in 1852.[2]
This article provides biographical information about John McClarty Brown, reviews the evidence as to his parentage, and concludes that he was the son of Samuel Brown and Rachel McClarty.
John McClarty Brown
John McClarty Brown was reportedly born 7 May 1799 in Nelson County, Kentucky.[3] I have found no primary sources documenting his residence or activities until his mid-twenties. Later records usually refer to him as John Mc. Brown or John McBrown; the latter form is more common.[4]
John married Minerva Jane Murray in 1824 or 1825 in Breckinridge County, Kentucky.[5] He moved to Meade County, Kentucky around 1825.[6] He owned land in Brandenburg with his father-in-law, John Murray, and there are hints that they had a commercial partnership.[7]
John was granted tavern licenses in 1826, 1828, and 1829.[8] By 1833, John McBrown and his uncles, Samuel McClarty and John McClarty, were “Merchants trading at Brandenburg under the stile and firm of John McBrown & Co.”[9] The firm had a mill and distillery in Harrison County, Indiana, across the Ohio River from Brandenburg.[10] John moved to Harrison County around 1833.[11] He was back in Meade County by 1836.[12] John was also a partner “in the mercantile business” with his brother-in-law, Horace G. Percefull, before Horace’s death in 1839.[13]
He was active in civic affairs in Meade County. He was a trustee of the town of Brandenburg in 1827, 1831, 1836, and 1837; a delegate to the state National Republican convention in December 1831; postmaster at Brandenburg in 1833; and trustee of the Brandenburg Academy starting in 1836.[14] He was the first master of the Masonic lodge in Brandenburg in 1842 and lodge secretary in 1844.[15]
The Meade County Court appointed him commissioner to settle estates in April 1841; tax commissioner in January 1842; constable in February 1842; tobacco inspector in December 1843; and deputy sheriff in July 1844.[16]
John last appears in the Meade County records in 1844.[17] He moved back to Harrison County, Indiana by 1845 and lived there until at least 1849.[18]
John was in Hancock County, Kentucky by 1851.[19] The Biographical Cyclopedia says he was secretary and treasurer of the Trabue Coal Company until 1857. He was an agent for several insurance companies in the late 1850s.[20]
He was appointed examiner for the taking of depositions by the Hancock Circuit Court in August 1851 and Deputy Clerk of the Hancock County Court in November 1851.[21] He was a jury commissioner for the Hancock Circuit Court in March 1853, notary public in April 1853, and a judge of elections from 1854 to 1861.[22]
John served as Justice of the Peace from June 1853 until August 1862.[23] He was elected county judge in August 1862 and re-elected in 1864.[24]
His participation in state and national politics included serving as a delegate to a state Whig convention in 1851, to two Union conventions in 1863, and to a convention to select presidential electors in 1864.[25] He was a member of the Hawesville Masonic lodge.[26]
John was “suddenly taken ill” and became incapacitated around 1 May 1865.[27] He reportedly died in August 1865.[28]
Joseph Brown
Most online family trees say that John McClarty Brown’s parents were Joseph Brown and Margaret Huston. Joseph was born about 1755.[29] Joseph’s family probably moved to Cumberland County, Pennsylvania (now Mifflin County) in the 1760s.[30]
Joseph enlisted for three tours in the colonial militia in 1776, 1777, and 1779.[31] He married Margaret Huston in Cumberland County around 1780.[32] They moved to northern Nelson County, Kentucky (later part of Spencer County) by 1791.[33] He served as constable of Spencer County from 1826 to 1830.[34]
Joseph died 15 September 1837.[35] Margaret died 21 November 1845.[36] Administration of her estate was granted to John T. Brown on 5 October 1846.[37]
On 3 April 1848, “the heirs of Joseph Brown Decd” sold “the farm on which Joseph Brown lived and died.”[38] The deed names Joseph’s heirs: Jane Brown, Nancy Carter, Asa Brown, Margaret Brown, James H. Brown, Samuel Brown, William J. Davis and Elizabeth Davis his wife, Jonah Gist and Abigail Gist his wife, and John T. Brown.[39] The fact that John McClarty Brown is not listed as an heir indicates that he was not the son of Joseph Brown.
Robert Brown
The only Robert Brown found in Nelson County around the birth of John McClarty Brown was the man who married Susannah Pottinger 30 March 1791.[40] He died by 22 November 1814, when his widow was appointed administratrix of his estate.[41] His probate records list as his heirs Dennis Brown, Polly Brown, and William Brown.[42] This indicates that Robert was not the father of John McClarty Brown.
Samuel Brown and Rachel McClarty
Although the Biographical Cyclopedia says that John McClarty Brown’s father was Robert Brown, the information in that sketch matches Samuel Brown and Rachel McClarty, who married in Nelson County on 8 July 1798.[43] Their marriage bond and consent identify Rachel as a daughter of John McClarty. Rachel’s mother was Nancy Huston, the sister of Joseph Brown’s wife Margaret.[44] Rachel was born about 1784 in Pennsylvania.[45]
On 6 November 1800, Rachel Brown married William Hughes in Nelson County.[46] William was born about 1776 in Pennsylvania, and was the son of John and Elizabeth Hughes.[47] An 1812 deed lists “William Hughs and Rachel his wife” as heirs of John McClarty, confirming that this is the same Rachel McClarty who married Samuel Brown.[48] Rachel’s remarriage is consistent with the Biographical Cyclopedia’s statement that John McClarty Brown’s father died when his son was an infant and his mother then married a Mr. Hughes.
William and Rachel lived on the waters of Ashes Creek in northern Nelson County.[49] They moved to Spencer County, Indiana around 1820.[50] By the end of the 1820s, William and Rachel settled on a farm about a mile west of Rockport that was owned by a James Hughes.[51] James Hughes sold the property to Rachel’s brothers, Samuel and John McClarty in 1833, and the McClarty brothers sold their half shares to Rachel in 1844 and 1845.[52] Rachel sold the property to her oldest son, William S. Hughes, in 1847.[53]
William Hughes, Rachel’s husband, died 5 August 1849.[54] William and Rachel’s son, William S. Hughes, died 14 February 1850.[55] His administrator noted on 2 November 1851 that William S. Hughes’s heirs included “his mother Rachael Hughs senr. since deceased.”[56] This indicates that Rachel died in 1850 or 1851, a year or two earlier than stated in the Biographical Cyclopedia.
When William S. Hughes’s estate was settled, each of his seven surviving Hughes siblings received a payment of $96.98 and John Brown received a payment of $45.72.[57]
What does this mean? Under Indiana probate law, half of William S. Hughes’s intestate estate passed to his mother and the other half to his seven surviving siblings.[58] At Rachel’s death, her half share passed to her eight children – the seven Hughes siblings and John McClarty Brown. As a result, each of the seven Hughes siblings would have inherited 1/14 of William S. Hughes’s property directly from him and 1/16 from their mother, while John McClarty Brown would have inherited 1/16 of William S. Hughes’s property from her. The amounts in the administrator’s account approximate these fractions.[59]
Conclusion
One cannot expect perfect
accuracy from the biographical sketches of Eli Huston Brown, which were written
almost a century after Eli’s grandfather died. Although the account in the Biographical
Cyclopedia seems to be generally correct, the evidence suggests that John
McClarty Brown was the son of Samuel Brown and Rachel McClarty Brown Hughes. For
those interested in this family, the next step will be to try to identify the
parents of Samuel Brown.
[1] W. H. Perrin, J. H. Battle, and G. C. Kniffin, Kentucky. A History of the State, 8th ed. (Louisville: F. A. Battey and Co., 1888), 749.
[2] Biographical Cyclopedia of the Commonwealth of Kentucky (Chicago: John M. Gresham Co., 1896), 245.
[3] Biographical Cyclopedia, supra.
[4] See, e.g., Meade County, KY Tax List, 1827, 2 (Brown, John M); 1828, 15 (McBrown, John); 1829, 4 (Brown, John Mc).
[5] DAR GRC report, series 1, vol. 289, 90 gives the marriage date as 17 January 1824; Michael L. Cook and Bettie Anne Cook, Breckinridge County Kentucky Records, vol. 1 (Evansville, IN: Cook Publications, 1977), 214 say 15 January 1825.
[6] Meade County, KY Tax List, 1825, 2.
[7] Meade County, KY Deed Book A, 331, 340; Deed Book B, 119 (debt owed John Murray and John McBrown “for cash advanced goods wares & merchandize and other articles of trade &c.”); Meade County, KY tax book, 1828, 15 (Murray & McBrown taxed on store house in Brandenburg); Harrison County, IN Circuit Court Order Book G, 448 (execution on “the entire Stock of goods purchased of” John Murray and John McBrown).
[8] Meade County, KY County Court Order Book A, 205; Book B, 61, 115.
[9] Meade County, KY Circuit Court Order Book C, 62.
[10] Harrison County, IN Deed Book I, 149, 150, 306; Deed Book K, 137; Harrison County, IN Circuit Court Order Book G, 298; Harrison County, IN County Commissioners’ Records, 1846, 169.
[11] Meade County, KY Tax List, 1833, 17; Harrison County, IN Circuit Court Order Book D on FHL film 2450819, images 374 and 467.
[12] Meade County, KY County Court Order Book C, 133; Meade County, KY Tax List, 1837, 21.
[13] Harrison County, IN Will Book B, 130; Meade County, KY Deed Book C, 459,489, Book D, 389.
[14] Meade County, KY County Court Order Book B, 28, 216; Book C, 133, 184; “Public Notice,” Louisville (KY) Daily Journal, 19 December 1831, 2; “Post Office Department,” 22 in William A. Weaver, Register of all Officers and Agents, Civil, Military, and Naval, in the Service of the United States, on the Thirtieth September, 1833 (Washington: Francis P. Blair, 1833); Acts of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, December Session, 1836 (Frankfort: A. G. Hodges, 1837), 14.
[15] Rob Morris, The History of Freemasonry in Kentucky (Louisville: self-published, 1859), 487; email to the author from the Grand Lodge of Kentucky, 16 November 2023.
[16] Meade County, KY County Court Order Book C, 380, 429, 436; Order Book D, 60, 102.
[17] Meade County, KY Tax List, 1844, 25.
[18] Harrison County, IN Deed Book Q, 325; Walter S. Beanblossom, School Enumeration for Harrison County, Ind. 1846 & 1847 (Hartford, KY: McDowell Publications, 1977), 47, 106; Harrison County, IN Circuit Court Order Book I (1849-1852), 59.
[19] Hancock County, KY Tax List, 1851, 16.
[20] “A List of Licenses issued to Agents of Foreign Insurance Companies,” Annual Report of the Auditor of Public Accounts of the State of Kentucky for the Fiscal Year ending October 10, 1859 (Frankfort: Jno. B. Major, 1860), 366, 370, 372.
[21] Hancock County, KY Circuit Court Orders, vol. 4 (1850-1854), 155; Hancock County, KY County Court Orders 1848-1855, 193.
[22] Hancock County, KY Circuit Court Orders, vol. 4 (1850-1854), 319; Hancock County, KY County Court Orders 1848-1855, 278, 372, 461; Hancock County, KY County Court Orders 1856-1860, 92, 104, 326; Hancock County, KY County Court Orders 1860-1865, 42, 66.
[23] Hancock County, KY County Court Orders 1848-1855, 290; Hancock County, KY County Court Orders 1861-1865, 188.
[24] Hancock County, KY County Court Orders 1861-1865, 189.
[25] “Whig Meeting in Hancock,” The Louisville (KY) Daily Courier, 1 February 1851, 3; “Union Meeting in Hancock County,” The Louisville (KY) Daily Journal, 16 March 1863, 4; “Union Meeting in Hancock County,” The Louisville (KY) Daily Journal, 4 May 1863, 4; “Hawesville, Hancock County, Ky.,” The Louisville (KY) Daily Journal, 7 May 1864, 2.
[26] Morris, History of Freemasonry, supra, 574, 486.
[27] Acts of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, Passed at the Adjourned Session (January, 1865), vol. 2 (Frankfort: State Printing Office, 1865), 513.
[28] An Illustrated Historical Atlas Map of Daviess County, Ky. (Leo McDonough & Co., 1876), 41 (death in August 1865); Biographical Cyclopedia, supra (county judge until 3 August 1865).
[29] Online image at FindAGrave.com (Joseph Brown, FindAGrave memorial # 42146235) (“died Sep. 15, 1837 in his 83rd year”); Revolutionary War Pension File of Joseph Brown (W8385) (aged 78 years in June 1833).
[30] John Martin Stroup and Raymond Martin Bell, The Genesis of Mifflin County Pennsylvania (Lewistown, PA: Mifflin County Historical Society, 1973), 25, 66.
[31] Pension File of Joseph Brown, supra.
[32] Pension File of Joseph Brown, supra (married shortly after he left the service in March 1779; their oldest child in her 61st year in 1843); Robert P. Moore, Bloomfield Chaplin and Fairfield: A History and Genealogy of Northeastern Nelson County, Kentucky (Bardstown: Nelson County Genealogical Roundtable, 2003), 272.
[33] Nelson County, KY List of Tithables, 1791 on FHL film 9670, image 119.
[34] Spencer County, KY County Court Order Book A (1824-1828), 237; Order Book B (1828-1838), 102.
[35] Online image at FindAGrave.com (Joseph Brown), supra; Pension File of Joseph Brown, supra.
[36] Online image at FindAGrave.com (Margaret Brown, FindAGrave memorial # 42146275).
[37] Spencer County, KY County Court Order Book C (1838-1848), 411.
[38] Spencer County, KY Deed Book H, 100.
[39] Another son of Joseph and Margaret Brown, Joseph, Jr., died in 1833; see Spencer County, KY Will Book A, 403.
[40] Nelson County, KY Marriage Bonds on FHL film 9665, image 243; Nelson County, KY Marriage Returns on FHL film 9669, image 481; Nelson County, KY Marriage Register 1785-1859 on FHL film 9664, image 8.
[41] Nelson County, KY County Court Order Book 1811-1816, 316.
[42] Nelson County, KY Will Book E, 233; see also George N. Mackenzie, ed., Colonial Families of the United States of America, vol. 2 (Baltimore: Seaforth Press, 1911), 594-595.
[43] Nelson County, KY Marriage Returns on FHL film 9669, image 375; Nelson County, KY Marriage Bonds on FHL film 9665, image 238. The minister’s return says the marriage was in July 1799, but the bond and consent are both dated July 1798 – a date that fits better with their son’s birth in May 1799.
[44] Moore, Bloomfield Chaplin and Fairfield, supra; Family Bible of William D. Huston at www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/138539398.
[45] 1850 census, Spencer County, IN, 47B.
[46] Nelson County, KY Marriage Returns on FHL Film 9669, image 372; Nelson County, KY Marriage Bonds on FHL film 9666, image 404.
[47] 1850 census, Spencer County, IN, 47B; Nelson County, KY Deed Book 9, 283 and Deed Book 14, 14; compare Moore, Bloomfield Chaplin and Fairfield, supra, 268-269.
[48] Nelson County, KY Deed Book 9, 410.
[49] Nelson County, KY Deed Book 9, 283 and Deed Book 14, 14. After the creation of Spencer County, Kentucky, the tract straddled the county line, see Nelson County, KY Deed Book 16, 362.
[50] Nelson County, KY Deed Book 14, 14; 1850 census, Spencer County, IN, 47B (birthplaces of children); History of Warrick, Spencer, and Perry Counties, Indiana (Chicago: Goodspeed Bros., 1885), 259.
[51] Spencer County, IN Deed Book 1, 301 (land purchased by James Hughes in 1829) and Deed Book 10, 93 (William Hughes and wife had resided on the property “say 15 or 20 years” in 1845).
[52] Spencer County, IN Deed Book 2, 274, Deed Book 9, 40; Deed Book 10, 93.
[53] Spencer County, IN Deed Book 11, 129.
[54] 1850 census mortality schedule for Spencer County, IN on FHL film 2259481, image 508.
[55] Ibid.
[56] Spencer County, IN Complete Probate Record, vol. 1 (1853-1854), 440.
[57] Spencer County, IN Complete Probate Record, vol. 2 (1853-1857), 56.
[58] The Revised Statutes of the State of Indiana (Indianapolis: Dowling and Cole, 1843), 434.
[59] My calculations suggest that John McClarty Brown received 46 cents too much and the Hughes siblings as a group received two cents too little, probably because of minor arithmetical and rounding errors.
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