Addison Brown

American judge, botanist, and amateur astronomer (1830–1913)

Addison C. Brown (February 21, 1830 – April 9, 1913) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York , a botanist , and a serious amateur astronomer .

Early life, education and career

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Addison Brown was born on February 21, 1830, in West Newbury , Massachusetts , the oldest of five children of Addison Brown Sr., a shoemaker, and Catherine Babson Griffin,

both descended from Massachusetts' earliest Pilgrim settlers. He attended West Newbury's one-room school until he had exhausted its offerings at age 12. In 1843 he began more advanced studies in such areas as Latin, physics, algebra, and philosophy.

In 1848 Brown entered Amherst College , intending from the start to transfer to Harvard University in his sophomore year. While at Harvard, Brown earned money as the college organist and unhappily spent some summer months as a village school teacher. Brown befriended and roomed with his Harvard classmate Horatio Alger and counted Ephraim Whitman Gurney (who became a professor of philosophy and history and dean of the Harvard faculty) as his closest college friend.

Brown received an Artium Baccalaureus degree in 1852 from Harvard University, ranked second in his class. Joseph Hodges Choate , who became a lawyer and diplomat, was ranked third. Joseph's brother, William Gardner Choate , who preceded Brown in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York , was valedictorian; George B. Adams , Brown's successor on the bench, was also a member of the class of 1852. To restore his health after years dedicated to study, Brown spent the summer of 1852 working aboard a fishing boat, sailing out of Gloucester, Massachusetts to Prince Edward Island .

In his Autobiographical Notes, Brown wrote that a college graduate in his circumstances had three career choices: the ministry, medicine or the law. He "knew nothing of the law, or of lawyers personally, ... and disliked the life of a physician." After consideration, he deemed himself ill-suited for the ministry: "Only law remained." Upon learning that he could save almost half of the cost of a Harvard law degree by working and studying in a law office for a year, Brown returned home to the law offices of John James Marsh. Brown entered Harvard Law School in 1853, receiving a Bachelor of Laws in late 1854.

Addison Brown by Whipple, 1852.

Law practice

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Armed with introductions from a Harvard professor, in December 1854 Brown arrived in New York City , New York (whose burgeoning business community Brown found more promising than opportunities in his native small-town northeast Massachusetts) and began work as a clerk for the firm of Brown (unrelated), Hall (then-New York's mayor), and Vanderpoel. There he met other lawyers, learned about the practice of law, and studied for the New York bar examination, which he passed in February 1855. In that year he began developing a small portfolio of clients of his own and supplemented his income with work as organist and choir director in the Episcopal Church in Newton, Long Island.

Brown struck out on his own and then joined Nelson Smith in 1856. In 1857 he partnered with Edwin E. Bogardus, who had an established and varied law practice, to form the firm of Bogardus and Brown. That firm prospered until its dissolution in May 1864, when Brown formed Stanley, Langdell & Brown with longtime friends. He remained in that partnership (later named Stanley, Brown & Clarke when Langdell left to become dean of Harvard Law School) until his judicial appointment in 1881.

Investment ventures

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Brown stated that when deciding on a path after college, he found a business career not to his taste, inasmuch as he had no interest in "mere wealth" or a "life of money-making." He did, however, participate in business ventures and accrue considerable wealth. In the late 1850s he began investing in and doing legal work for real estate transactions in which large areas of land at the edges of development in New York City were subdivided and sold at considerable profit.

His success was such that prosperous individuals in Brown's hometown of West Newbury and surrounding areas entrusted him to invest their funds, providing the investors a 7% return and Brown any amounts over that. This allowed him to engage in more real estate ventures. Brown stated, "The handling of considerable funds in that way for many years not only brought me considerable gains beyond my law business proper, but also gave me much credit as a responsible person, and attracted clients in the building business, and it thus much enlarged my own contributions to our strictly law practice."

Federal judicial service

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Brown received a recess appointment from President James A. Garfield on June 2, 1881, to a seat on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. On October 12, 1881, President Chester A. Arthur nominated him to the same position. Brown's United States Senate confirmation took place on October 14, 1881; he received his commission the same day. Brown had become a member of his local Republican club in the late 1850s and remain

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