John Deloss Brown Obituaries AND a Bonus

©  Kathy Duncan, 2020

A couple of years ago, I found four death notices for John Deloss Brown that briefly reported his death in Missouri and his burial in Weldon, Dewitt County, Illinois in 1914. They were nice to have but lacked the richness of detail that an obituary might include. In fact, those little notices made me think that maybe there weren't any obituaries for him. 

Then last weekend I found this obituary for him. It confirms that his wife was Nancy Johnson, which I already knew. However, there is one tantalizing detail - he was the justice of the peace in Nixon township for several years, and he was "prominent." That means I can hope to find more newspaper articles about him. 

For starters, though, I found yet another obituary with even more information:

This version adds the information that he was born in Pike County, Illinois. Of interest is that he lived for a brief time in Champaign County, Illinois and was a teacher. This version tells me that in addition to being a justice of the peace, he was also a police magistrate. I should also be searching for him as "Squire Brown." The biggest piece of information, though, is that he was captured and imprisoned at Libby Prison until the close of the Civil War. These bits of information give me lots of new material to research.

This new information prompted me to run a basic google search for John D. Brown of Weldon, Illinois. A little book entitled Honor to Our Heritage, Weldon, Illinois, 1872-1972 by the Illinois Survey turned up with this picture. John Deloss Brown is the fifth from the left.

Although these are wonderful discoveries, I am left wondering why no one erected a tombstone for John D. Brown when his wife has one in the Nixon Township Cemetery. And I am wondering why there was not an obituary for his wife when she died unless I just have not found it yet. And I have the problem of three different birth years for John D. Brown that have to be sorted out.