The Other Joseph Brown, Civil War Veteran from Delaware Township

Buried at Riverside Cemetery

An earlier Joseph Brown post discussed a man from the Defiance G.A.R.  But, another man of the same name lived in rural Defiance County and also served in the Civil War - Joseph M. Brown.

Joseph M. Brown grew up in Noble Township, Defiance County, with his parents, Barnhart and Rosena and siblings Lana, George and John.  His parents were born in Germany, but the three oldest children were born in New York.  John, the youngest, at 11 on the 1860 census, was born in Ohio.  The family probably came to Ohio between 1845 and 1849.

At the age of 25, Joseph M., the oldest son, enlisted on March 10, 1865, into Company I of the 125th Ohio Volunteer Infantry.  He gave six months service, mustering out at Camp Irwin, Texas, on September 25, 1865.

After the war, he and his wife, Emma (Anna on some records), settled in Delaware Township. Joseph M. took up farming to support his young family of John, who was 2, in 1870, and Cornelius who was 3 months old.

The family remained in Delaware Township, adding children Rosena, Caroline, William and Charles to the clan by 1880.  Joseph owned his farm, which was worth $1500 in 1870.

He was reported on the 1890 Veterans Census in Delaware Township with a post office of Brunersburg.  He claimed a disability of rheumatism, crippled in the left hip.  He would have been about 50 years old at the time of that enumeration.

The last census for Joseph M. was in 1910 when he and Emma had been married 44 years, with eight children.  One child, May (probably Caroline), was single and still living at home with her parents.  Joseph M. Brown died on February 10, 1916.

The Defiance Crescent-News ran his brief obituary on February 11, 1916:

His wife moved into Defiance after his death and died there in 1932.  Her obituary ran in the same paper on June 22, 1932: