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George William Brown (October 13, 1812 – September 8, 1890) was an American politician, judge and academic. He was
mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...
of
Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic, and the 30th most populous city in the United States with a population of 585,708 in 2020. Baltimore was ...
from 1860 to 1861, professor in
University of Maryland School of Law The University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law (formerly University of Maryland School of Law) is the law school of the University of Maryland, Baltimore and is located in Baltimore City, Maryland, U.S. Its location places Maryland L ...
, and 2nd Chief Judge and Supreme Bench of Baltimore City. He was founder and president of the Bar Association of Baltimore City and the Library Company of the Baltimore Bar.


Career

Brown was admitted to the bar in 1834. Brown was a founder of the Library Company of the Baltimore Bar (1840) and from 1861 to 1874, he was its president. He was a founder of the Maryland Historical Society in 1844. The first digest of Maryland Court of Appeals decisions was compiled with his assistance and published in 1849. Brown was
mayor In many countries, a mayor is the highest-ranking official in a municipal government such as that of a city or a town. Worldwide, there is a wide variance in local laws and customs regarding the powers and responsibilities of a mayor as well ...
of
Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...
from 1860 to 1861 and a delegate to the Constitutional Convention in Baltimore in 1867. From 1871 to 1873, he was a University of Maryland School of Law professor from 1871 to 1873. He was elected in 1872 to serve as 2nd Chief Judge, Supreme Bench of Baltimore City, a position he held from 1873 to 1888. He was founder (1880) and 11th president of the Bar Association of Baltimore City from 1889 to 1890.


Pratt Street Riot

Brown played an important role in controlling the Pratt Street Riot, where the first bloodshed of the Civil War occurred, on April 19, 1861. During the riot, Brown accompanied a column of the Sixth Massachusetts regiment through the streets. When the column he was leading was assailed by the mob, "the mayor's patience was soon exhausted, and he seized a musket from the hands of one of the men and killed a man therewith." Immediately following the Riot, Baltimore saw much lawlessness, as citizens destroyed the offices of pro-Union German newspapers and looted shops in search of guns and other weapons. Mayor Brown and Maryland businessmen visited the White House to urge President
Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation thro ...
to reroute
Union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''U ...
troops around Baltimore city to
Annapolis Annapolis ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Maryland and the county seat of, and only incorporated city in, Anne Arundel County. Situated on the Chesapeake Bay at the mouth of the Severn River, south of Baltimore and about east o ...
to avoid further confrontations that they felt would result from additional troops passing through the city. In the few days following the Pratt Street Riot, Governor Hicks likely assented to Mayor Brown's decision to dispatch the Maryland militiamen to destroy the railroad bridges over the rivers north of the city, to prevent more troops from passing through Baltimore. This was an act both Hicks and Brown would later deny—though Isaac R. Trimble, commanding Baltimore militia companies immediately following the Riot—later claimed that Brown authorized destruction of the railroad bridges, which may explain Brown's later arrest and imprisonment by federal authorities. Shortly thereafter, a Maryland militia captain and Baltimore County farmer, John Merryman, was arrested, held at Fort McHenry and later denied a writ of
habeas corpus ''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
, on grounds that President Lincoln had suspended the writ (but only along rail lines in Maryland). This arrest sparked the case of '' Ex parte Merryman''. President Lincoln agreed to reroute
Union Union commonly refers to: * Trade union, an organization of workers * Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets Union may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * Union (band), an American rock group ** ''U ...
troops around Baltimore to Annapolis, so they could then travel to Washington. Northern troops (state militia companies) were able to arrive in Washington, thus avoiding further bloodshed in Baltimore.


Imprisonment

On May 13, 1861, the Union army entered Baltimore, occupied the city, and declared
martial law Martial law is the imposition of direct military control of normal civil functions or suspension of civil law by a government, especially in response to an emergency where civil forces are overwhelmed, or in an occupied territory. Use Martia ...
. Mayor Brown was arrested on September 12, 1861 at his home. He was imprisoned at
Fort McHenry Fort McHenry is a historical American coastal pentagonal bastion fort on Locust Point, now a neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. It is best known for its role in the War of 1812, when it successfully defended Baltimore Harbor from an attack ...
for one night, then transported to Fort Monroe in Hampton Roads, Virginia, and held for two weeks. Afterwards he was moved to Fort Warren in Boston Harbor and held for fourteen months. Brown was released on November 27, 1862. He returned to Baltimore and resumed his law practice. Francis Key Howard, the grandson of
Francis Scott Key Francis Scott Key (August 1, 1779January 11, 1843) was an American lawyer, author, and amateur poet from Frederick, Maryland, who wrote the lyrics for the American national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner". Key observed the British bombardment ...
, was also made a prisoner.


Later life

While speaking at St. John's College in Annapolis, MD, in 1869, Brown made reference to “A great university hereafter to be established in Baltimore … planned … by the wealthiest of her citizens, a native of this county Anne_Arundel_County_.html" ;"title="Anne_Arundel_County.html" ;"title="Anne Arundel County">Anne Arundel County ">Anne_Arundel_County.html" ;"title="Anne Arundel County">Anne Arundel County ” While Brown did not name the individual, he was referring to Johns Hopkins, who in 1867 had announced his intention to found a university and a hospital upon his death. Brown and Hopkins were contemporaries and respected each other, so it was not surprising that Brown should be named one of the twelve original trustees of the
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
. After Hopkins’ death on December 24, 1873, and the settling of his estate, the trustees began in earnest to plan the new university. While it was
Daniel Coit Gilman Daniel Coit Gilman (; July 6, 1831 – October 13, 1908) was an American educator and academic. Gilman was instrumental in founding the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale College, and subsequently served as the second president of the University ...
’s idea to found the first research university in the United States, based on the German model, Brown heartily supported the idea. Brown also took part in debates over how much of the old classical curriculum should be preserved in the new scheme. Should Greek and Latin be replaced by modern languages? Should students be allowed to choose elective courses, or should their classes be prescribed by their course of study? How was religion to be integrated into a sectarian institution? Brown offered his own ideas, one of which was that the university should send into the world “upright, refined, and highly cultivated young men.” He also declared that the aim of the new university should be “to bring together a competent corps of professors, some of whom, if possible, should be teachers in the largest sense, that is, should have the ability and the leisure too, to add something by their writings and discoveries to the world’s stock of literature and science….” This idea was paraphrased and endorsed by President Gilman in his Inaugural Address delivered on February 22, 1876. Almost three years before he died, Brown wrote his memoir. In it, he referred to
Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
Johns Hopkins as a "wealthy Union man" and a member of a committee of bankers who gave $500,000 to the city of Baltimore after the first blood in the Civil War was shed there. Hopkins selected Brown as one of the trustees of the university (but not of the hospital) who would oversee the construction and founding of the institutions now known as the
Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...
and
Johns Hopkins Hospital The Johns Hopkins Hospital (JHH) is the teaching hospital and biomedical research facility of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, located in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. It was founded in 1889 using money from a bequest of over $7 million (1873 mo ...
.Mitchell, Charles W. Maryland Voices of the Civil War. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007


See also

* Baltimore Plot * George Proctor Kane * 1860 United States presidential election * Thomas Holliday Hicks * John Merryman * '' Ex parte Merryman'' *
Maryland, My Maryland "Maryland, My Maryland" was the state song of the U.S. state of Maryland from 1939 until 2021. The song is set to the melody of "Lauriger Horatius" — the same tune "O Tannenbaum" was taken from. The lyrics are from a nine-stanza poem written by ...
* Henry Stump


References


External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, George William 1812 births 1890 deaths Mayors of Baltimore Maryland Constitutional Unionists Maryland state court judges People of Maryland in the American Civil War 19th-century American judges