William Riley Brown
June 22, 1808 – October
8, 1903
Which Will is
which?? Both pictures are said to be
William Riley Brown.
I vote for the one
on the right.
William Riley Brown is our oldest Brown ancestor. All the information I have on him is a
compilation of the genealogical work of the late Professor June Welch, Mr. V.
A. Brown of Rowlett Texas,
and Ms. Helen Brown of Kerrville
Texas.
Family
legend has it that William’s father emigrated from England to North Carolina. He married his wife there. We believe that she was an American Indian
but there is no proof of this. In 1860,
she was living with William, and is recorded as “L. Brown.” We do not know exactly how many children they
had, but one brother, Joseph Brown, was born in South Carolina in 1800. William was born in Abbeville District South Carolina
in 1808. When William was very young,
the family moved to Hall and Gwinnett
County Georgia. He served in the local Georgia Guard unit
there. He moved to Alabama in 1835 and settled on Muscadine Creek where he spent the rest of his life. There, he married Elizabeth Hooper and they
had ten children together (the youngest was James
Edward).
His
eldest son, Private Henry J. Brown, served in the Civil War in the 48th
Alabama Infantry, company I of the Confederate Army.
According to his unit
records, Henry enlisted on 26 Apr 1862 in Abernathy. Records show him “absent sick” from 9 Aug
1862 at Cedar Run thru 17 Sep 62 at Sharpsburg.
He appears on the register of Chimborazo hospital #5
in Richmond VA.
He was admitted on 21 Jul 1862 and died on 13 Oct 1862 of continuing
typhoid fever.
He
is buried in Richmond’s Oakwood Cemetery.
I originally thought he was buried in Hollywood cemetery in Richmond.
I went there, and I took pictures of what I thought was his grave. It turns out that all soldiers that died in Chimborazo hospital were buried in Oakwood Cemetery.
There are 17,000 confederate graves and few are marked. Henry’s grave is not marked.
His
wife Elizabeth died and he married Mary McGee on December 25, 1865. They had one son, Virgil.
During
his life, William was a devoted Methodist church leader. He served as Justice of the Peace and I saw
his name as officiating a few Brown weddings (but I could never prove they were
relatives).
He died at the home of
his son John William in Muscadine at the age of 95.
Elizabeth Hooper
1808 – April 18, 1863
Elizabeth
was always the same age as William on the census records so we believe she was
born in 1808. However, her tombstone says she was
born in 1816. She died on April 18 1863. There is much documented on this Hooper line
in the DAR. Flora Hooper Collier wrote a
book about the Southern Branch of the Hooper family that is of interest to us.
Richard Hooper, John Cleveland, and Thomas Gilbert are
listed with the DAR as Revolutionary War patriots.