John C. Brown
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John Calvin Brown (January 6, 1827 - August 17, 1889) was governor of Tennessee from 1871 to 1875.
Born in Giles County, Tennessee, Brown was the younger brother of Governor Neill S. Brown. He studied law with his brother and was admitted to the bar as a young man, opening a law practice in 1848. He maintained a successful career as a lawyer until the outbreak of the Civil War. Brown was personally opposed to secession, but acquiesced in the decision of his state, fighting in the war on the side of the Confederacy. He enlisted as a private in the Confederate infantry but ended up in charge of an entire brigade. He saw action in the battles of Perryville, Missionary Ridge, and Franklin.
His civil rights restored shortly after the war, he was elected to the state legislature in 1869. He was also elected a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1870 and was elected its president by his peers. This body wrote a document approved by the voters of Tennessee later that year, which stood unamended until 1953, a record for such a document, and still serves as the state's instrument of government today.
He was elected governor in 1871 over his Republican competitor, William H. Wisener, and was re-elected in 1873 over A. A. Freeman. He was forced to deal with a state government that was deeply indebted, even after all debts incurred in support of the Confederacy were abrograted by the new state constitution and amendment to the United States Constitution. He was able to reduce the state's indebtedness in his two terms, and also helped get the first truly effective public school legislation, which called for the establishment of state, county, and city superintended, and the taxes to pay for them, passed by the legislature.
He maintained a lesser public profile after leaving office, serving as president of the Texas and Pacific Railway Company and, shortly before his death, the Tennessee Coal, Iron, and Railway Company. Brown died on August 17, 1889, at Red Boiling Springs, Tennessee, only three years after his brother. He is interred in Pulaski, Tennessee.