Early Life
Brown was born in Giles County, Tennessee, the son of Duncan and Margaret Smith Brown. His ancestors were Scots-Irish, and his grandfather, Angus Brown, was a veteran of the American Revolution. His father was an ardent Whig. Brown enrolled in the Manual Labor Academy in Spring Hill, Tennessee, and taught school in Giles County to pay his way. After studying law under Judge James Trimble, he was admitted to the bar in 1834, and briefly practiced in Pulaski, Tennessee.
In 1835, Brown moved to Texas, but quickly grew disillusioned with the lack of organization there, and returned to Tennessee after a few months. In 1836, he fought with the First Tennessee Mounted Volunteers in the Second Seminole War, and eventually rose to the rank of sergeant-major.
Read more about this topic: Neill S. Brown
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early and/or life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“...to many a mother’s heart has come the disappointment of a loss of power, a limitation of influence when early manhood takes the boy from the home, or when even before that time, in school, or where he touches the great world and begins to be bewildered with its controversies, trade and economics and politics make their imprint even while his lips are dewy with his mother’s kiss.”
—J. Ellen Foster (1840–1910)
“The life of man is of no greater importance to the universe than that of an oyster.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)