The personal history and career of Joseph E. Brown should be studied by every ambitious boy in the land, especially by those who imagine they cannot succeed because they lack opportunities that money and friends would obtain for them. From 1857 to the close of the war, and after, the political history of Joe Brown is the history of the State; but that history, attractive as it is, is not so interesting as his struggle to make a name for himself in the world. Joseph E. Brown was born in Pickens County, 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.