William Gannaway Brownlow - Family

Family

Brownlow married Eliza O'Brien (1819–1914) in 1836. They had seven children: Susan, John Bell, James Patton, Mary, Fannie, Annie, and Caledonia Temple. Eliza O'Brien Brownlow lived at the family's home on East Cumberland Avenue in Knoxville until her death in 1914 at the age of 94. In the 1890s and early 1900s, numerous visitors, including three presidents (William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and William Howard Taft), called on Eliza Brownlow when visiting Knoxville.

The Brownlows' older son, John Bell Brownlow (1839–1922), was a colonel in the Union Army during the Civil War. In the decades following his father's death, he helped finance the development of a Knoxville neighborhood (just north of modern Fourth and Gill) which for years was known as "Brownlow." Brownlow Elementary School, which served this neighborhood from 1913 to 1995, still stands, and has been converted into urban lofts.

The Brownlows' younger son, James Patton Brownlow (1842–1879), was also a colonel in the Union Army during the Civil War, though he was later brevetted to brigadier general by President Andrew Johnson. He served as an adjutant general in the state guard during his father's term as governor.

Walter P. Brownlow (1851–1910), a nephew of Parson Brownlow, served as a U.S. congressman from Tennessee's 1st district from 1897 until his death. James Stewart Martin (1826–1907), another nephew of Parson Brownlow (the son of his sister, Nancy), served as a U.S. congressman from Illinois in the mid-1870s. Louis Brownlow (1879–1963), a prominent 20th-century political scientist and city planner, was a grandson of one of Parson Brownlow's first cousins. He served a tumultuous 3-year term as Knoxville's city manager in the 1920s.