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Selection, without a contest, of such an avowed enemy of the Democrats attested to the esteem the citizens must have felt for Brown.
The new alderman merited the confidence of his fellow citizens. A native Tennessean who had studied law in Louisville, Kentucky, with some of the best practitioners in the state, he had moved to Arkansas after residing for a time in Memphis. Life on a plantation near Princeton, Arkansas, convinced him that he was not fitted to handle slaves. Lacking the necessary firmness, or brutality, required to make profits out of the system, he rented his land, hired out his slaves, and moved to Camden. Here in January, 1857, he was supporting his family by acting as secretary for an insurance company, dabbling in law, speculating in land, and collecting rent from the Dallas County plantation. As a result of all this financial prestidigitation, Brown had succeeded in reducing his debts by one thousand dollars during the preceding year.
Probably another reason Brown had been elected alderman was his active opposition to the liquor evil. He had striven to activate the local organization known as the Sons of Temperance, but his efforts proved rather futile since the billiard room and grocery store continued to be the most popular "places of resort." Undaunted, Brown initiated Hugh as a son of temperance before the boy left for college. "Most young men in this age and in these new states," Brown opined, "would succeed in life but for the bain of dissipation---and those capable of arriving at Honorable distinction would scarcely ever fail but for intemperance and its trail of blighting consequences."
- The alderman was also undoubtedly respected by his fellow citizens
for another characteristic not too prevalent among residents along the
Ouachita in that era. Although not a bookworm, Brown enjoyed reading and
throughout his life possessed sufficient intellectual curiosity to spend
a portion of his leisure with books. His library contained works by Scott,
Irving, a history of the United States, Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History,
Cicero's orations, a Webster's dictionary, and some of Benton's speeches.
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