unty, South Carolina, and was the eldest of eleven children.
His family was English. His grandfather fought manfully against the
British and Tories in the Revolutionary War. His father fought under
Andrew Jackson during the War of 1812, and was at the battle of New
Orleans on the 8th of January, 1815.

Joe Brown was born in 1821. His parents were not so well off as to be
able to send the lad continuously to school as he grew up. He had to
"take his chances." He was compelled to work in the fields in season,
and was permitted to go to school only when there was nothing for him
to do on the little farm. He did farm labor from the time he was eight
until he reached the age of nineteen, and the schooling he had received
was only of the most haphazard kind.

Before he was grown, his father moved from South Carolina into Georgia,
settling in Union County, near a little valley named Gaddistown. Up to
this time, though young Brown was nineteen years of age, he had learned
nothing but reading, writing, and arithmetic, and very little of
these. He was now compelled to work harder than ever. Settling in a new
country, and on new land that had to be cleared before it would yield a
crop, the Browns had as much as they could do to get the farm in order
in time for the planting season; and in this severe work, Joseph E.,
being the eldest son, was the chief reliance of the family. He had a
pair of small steers with which he plowed; and when he wasn't plowing
on the farm, he was hauling wood and butter and vegetables to the small
market at Dahlonega, and taking back in truck and trade some necessary
article for the family. In this way he learned the lessons of patience,
self-control, and tireless industry that all boys ought to learn,
because they are not only the basis of content and happiness, but of all
success.

When Joe Brown was twenty years old, his father allowed him to seek an
education. All he could do for the industrious and ambitious boy was
to give him his blessing and the yoke of steers with which he had been
plowing. With these young Brown returned to South Carolina and entered
an academy in Anderson district He gave the steers for eight months'
board, and went into debt for the tuition fee. In the fall of 1841 he
returned to Georgia and taught school for three months, and with the
money he received for this he paid for the schooling he had gone in debt
for. He returned to the Carolina academy in 1842, and went into deb