Samuel Allen Brown (27 February 1876–25 December 1960), Baptist minister, was born at Ruthville in Charles City County, one of a pair of twin boys and a son of Samuel Brown and Martha Bowman Brown. His grandfather Abram Brown was the patriarch of a free family and a founder of the Elam Baptist Church. Brown's father served as pastor of that church after 1860, six years later became the first Black clergyman the Charles City County Court authorized to perform marriages, and was county overseer of the poor from 1871 until his death in 1881. Samuel Allen Brown grew up in a respected but hardly wealthy family. He attended local schools before entering the Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute (later Virginia State University) in 1895 for his secondary education. He earned the funds for his schooling himself. Brown completed the collegiate course in 1902 and also read theology with a private tutor.

Immediately after his graduation Brown went to Fredericksburg as principal of that city's lone public school for African Americans. On 2 September 1903 he married Clementine Poole, of Hampton, also a graduate of Virginia Normal and Collegiate Institute and a teacher from 1901 until their marriage. They had three sons and three daughters. Not long after his arrival in Fredericksburg, a nearby Baptist church called Brown to become its pastor. Although he had ambitions for a career in medicine, he consulted his heart and agreed to be ordained. Brown served two churches, Second New Hope Baptist Church in Brooke, Stafford County, and Mount Garland Baptist Church in Louisa County, and later Shiloh Baptist Church in Chesterfield. Meanwhile, in 1905 an unsuccessful proposal to create a regional high school for African Americans sparked action by local leaders. At a meeting that September fifteen men pledged funds for a school and elected Brown its president. The Fredericksburg Normal and Industrial Institute opened in a church basement the following month. In 1906 the trustees purchased a tract of land south of the city, including a large farmhouse, for use as the high school's permanent home. Known as Mayfield and subdivided into 300 lots, the tract eventually became the city's largest Black residential area.

Brown and his family lived first at the school and then in their own house nearby. On 22 January 1912 a local man, angered by Brown's corporal punishment of the man's niece at the school, assaulted Brown outside his home. The experience contributed to Brown's resignation from the high school at the end of the term. He continued to serve as principal of the public school and as pastor of his churches.

Early in November 1912 Brown received a call to the Gillfield Baptist Church in Petersburg. The responsibilities of officiating at a 1,500-member church established more than a century before made him hesitate. Then one night he dreamed that the late Henry Williams, pastor there from 1865 to 1900, endorsed him to the congregation. The next day, 18 November 1912, Brown accepted the call. He was installed as pastor on 1 January 1913 but waited until August, after a parsonage was purchased, to move his family to Petersburg.

Gillfield Baptist Church was financially weak when Brown arrived. Its treasury lacked the money to pay for the coal just delivered for the winter's heating. With support from his deacons, Brown modernized the church's methods of collecting contributions from its members, and soon the church significantly increased its support for missions and other church activities. In 1917 he led the church in an ambitious remodeling of the sanctuary that included installation of a pipe organ, steam heat, electric lights, stained-glass windows, a steel ceiling, and a metal roof. Dedicatory services in December 1918 celebrated both the improvements and the congregation's ability to raise the $30,000 that they cost.

Brown participated in various civic activities in Petersburg, but his ministerial responsibilities always came first. In 1926 he organized a Boy Scout troop at the church, soon followed by a Girl Scout troop. To strengthen the church's large Sabbath school, Brown instituted a teacher training class, and he organized and taught both the men's and women's Bible classes. During his thirty-eight years at Gillfield Baptist Church, he calculated that he conducted 1,597 funerals and baptized about 950 people. Brown strongly supported the Virginia Theological Seminary and College in Lynchburg and its philosophy of self-help, and the school awarded him a D.D. For several years he served as president of the Mattaponi Baptist Association. Brown retired on 7 May 1951, and his appreciative church named him pastor emeritus and gave him a pension.

On 17 January 1942 Clementine Poole Brown died after a brief illness. On 27 January 1943 Brown married Bessie Lee Garland Lockett, a widow from Summit, New Jersey. After his retirement he remained in Petersburg. Samuel Allen Brown died of pneumonia at his home on 25 December 1960. He was buried in the family plot at People's Memorial Cemetery in Petersburg.

Sources Consulted:
Joseph B. Earnest Jr., The Religious Development of the Negro in Virginia (1914), 207; Clement Richardson, ed., National Cyclopedia of the Colored Race (1919), 1:340 (portrait); Arthur B. Caldwell, ed., History of the American Negro, vol. 5: Virginia Edition (1921), 35–38 (portrait); Daryl Cumber Dance, The Lineage of Abraham: The Biography of a Free Black Family in Charles City, VA (1998), 7, 52, 58 (portrait), 120 (gives variant death date of 12 Dec. 1961); James P. Whittenburg and John M. Coski, eds., Charles City County, Virginia: An Official History (1989), 79; William Henry Johnson, A Glimpse of the Happenings of the Gillfield Baptist Sabbath School, Petersburg, Va. (1928), 27–28; Luther P. Jackson, A Short History of the Gillfield Baptist Church of Petersburg, Virginia (1937), 29–43; Fredericksburg Daily Star, 23, 30 Jan. 1912; H. C. P. Burke, "A Tribute to the Reverend Samuel A. Brown and A Brief History of Gillfield Baptist Church" and "Dr. Brown's Self-Help Rest: The Editor's Personal Message," Expected 21 (Dec. 1951): 2, 4–5; access to materials in the Heritage Room of the Gillfield Baptist Church provided by Thomasine M. Burke; Warwick Co. Marriage Register, 1903; Richmond City Marriage License, 1943; obituary in Petersburg Progress-Index, 27 Dec. 1960.

Photograph in Arthur B. Caldwell, ed., History of the American Negro, vol. 5.

Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by John T. Kneebone.

How to cite this page:
John T. Kneebone, "Samuel Allen Brown (1876–1960)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2001 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Brown_Samuel_Allen, accessed [today's date]).

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