William F. Brown

We don’t have definitive proof, but some evidence suggests that William F. Brown, born ca. 1845, was the son of Elizabeth Brown and brother of Josephine (Brown) Johnson. His family plot abuts Josephine’s; her Freedman’s Bank record indicates that she had a brother named William; and in the 1850 census a five-year-old William Brown is living with both Elizabeth Brown and Harriet Leonard, whose name also appears on Josephine’s Freedman’s Bank record — the two were sisters. All were free. We do know that William married Mary E. Staples, who was also born free, sometime around 1867. The couple had seven children, according to the 1900 census; four of them lived to adulthood and are buried at East End with their parents.