[1] Brown was described as a man "of considerable reading and literary tastes, a fine miscellaneous writer .

[2] Concurrent with his federal judicial service, Brown served as commissioner to oversee erection of the state capitol in Nashville from 1843 to 1844.

[2] His parents were originally from Grassy Island on the Pee Dee River in Anson County, North Carolina.

[2] In 1795, they migrated to Tennessee and settled near the Cumberland River where Dr. Brown founded the town of Palmyra, a former community in Montgomery County, which was made a port of entry, the only one at the time west of the Allegheny Mountains.

as the likely biological father of John Lewis Brown, the maternal great-grandfather of Lionel and the founder of African-American fraternal organization Knights of the Wise Men.