Joseph Emerson Brown

Governor, Georgia, 1855-1865
Chief Justice, Georgia Supreme Court, 1865-1870
U. S. Senator, Georgia, 1880-1891

Born: April 15, 1821, in the Pickens District of South Carolina.

• Moved with parents to Georgia.
  
• Attended Calhoun Academy in South Carolina.
  
• Taught school.
  
• Studied law, was admitted to the bar, 1845.
  
• Later was graduated from the Yale Law School.
  
• Returned to Georgia and commenced law practice, 1846.
  
• Member of the Georgia State Senate, 1849.
  
• Presidential elector from Georgia on the Democratic ticket of Pierce and King, 1852.
  
• Judge of the Georgia Superior Court of the Blue Ridge circuit, 1855.
  
• Elected Governor, Georgia, 1855.
  
• Re-elected Governor in 1859, 1861, and 1863, serving until June 25, 1865, when he resigned.
  
• Appointed by Georgia Governor Bullock as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Georgia.
  
• Was Chief Justice until December 1870, when he resigned and accepted the presidency of the Western & Atlantic Railroad Company.
  
• Appointed and subsequently elected from Georgia as a Democrat to the U. S. Senate, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John B. Gordon.
  
• Re-elected in 1885, serving from May 26, 1880 - March 3, 1891.

Died: November 30, 1894, Atlanta, Georgia.
Buried: Oakland Cenaetery, Atlanta, Georgia.

(Source: U.S. Congress. House. Biographical Directory Of The American Congress 1774-1949, 85th Cong., 2nd sess., H. Doc. 607 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1950), pp. 759-2057.)