Dean W. Brown
Boyhood Adventures of General JEB Stuart, A Civil War Hero describes some of the unwritten tales told by the descendants of neighbors and friends of the Stuart Family. JEB Stuart’s family farm, Laurel Hill, is in Patrick County, Virginia, at the foot of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. At this beautiful location a young boy can play in the woods and valleys or fish and swim in the mountain streams.
This writing also gives a true picture as to how families lived and worked in the southern mountains before the Civil War. One story describes a family Christmas during the 1830’s. All the stories contain many adventures that a future General discovered while growing into manhood. The parents of James Ewell Brown taught him morals and values that shaped and followed him his entire life and created a foundation for a man that became an American hero for both the North and the South.
Dean Brown grew up a few miles from the original birthplace of James Ewell Brown Stuart and played in the same woods and streams that James did. Brown is a member of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans served on the Board of Directors of the JEB Stuart Trust and was President for over four years. He was instrumental in getting Laurel Hill, Stuart’s birthplace, placed on the National Register of Historical places and listed as one of Virginia’s Historical Landmarks. Brown has spent many years involved in historical projects in and around Mount Airy, North Carolina. He is a watercolor artist and has used some of his interpretations as illustrations in Boyhood Adventures of Gen. JEB Stuart, A Civil War Hero. He is also known as a writer of humorous poems and historical articles in magazines and newspapers.
Brown is a retired teacher of 41 years; most of his time spent as a teacher in prisons and alternative schools through out the South. He is a graduate of Appalachian State University of North Carolina.
Forward
My love for the Civil War and its history, which has enriched our heritage, was planted as a seed in the tenth grade history class at Mount Airy High School, Mount Airy, North Carolina. The teacher was Mr. Arnold Ramey, who has long since passed away. For the first time in my life Mr. Ramey made history real and close at hand. I learned in my young life that important history was here in my own community. For General JEB Stuart had grown up hunted and played in the same creeks, rivers and woods, no more than 5 miles away from the places that I had grown up doing the same things. My admiration for history continued to develop At Appalachian State Teacher’s College, a most wonderful Professor, Dr. Ina W. VanNoppen, published and taught The History of the South, and I was privileged to attend the class and be privy to some of the inside talk abut publishing a history book. I am thankful that I had these two teachers in my early years.
Many of the stories in this book are part of a collection of Oral Histories, taken from the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I collected these tales during another history project directed by Mrs. Marian Vernerable of the Surry Community College. There is no documentation that any of these stories have authenticity. However, true or not true, the stories do reflect the courage, morals, and other character qualities which are reflected in James Ewell Brown Stuart’s childhood and later adulthood.
It has been my pleasure to have had a part in helping develop the restoration of the “Laurel Hill Property”, archaeological digs, listing the property on the Virginia Register of Historical Places and the National Register of Historical Places. I was the chairman of the Board of Directors during the time that an annual encampment was developed to the point that it was one of the largest in Southern Virginia and North Carolina.
These stories are filled with true and interesting facts about James E.B.Stuart, his family and the first twelve years of his life at “Laurel Hill”. The illustrations are hand painted using watercolor and acrylic paint
