Henry Billings Brown
| Henry Brown | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States | |
|
In office December 29, 1890 – May 28, 1906 |
|
| Nominated by | Benjamin Harrison |
| Preceded by | Samuel Miller |
| Succeeded by | William Moody |
| Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan | |
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In office March 19, 1875 – December 29, 1890 |
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| Nominated by | Ulysses Grant |
| Preceded by | John Longyear |
| Succeeded by | Henry Swan |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
March 2, 1836 Lee, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Died |
September 4, 1913 (aged 77) Bronxville, New York, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | Caroline Pitts (1864–1901) Josephine Tyler (1904–1913) |
| Education |
Yale University (BA) Harvard University |
Henry Billings Brown (March 2, 1836 – September 4, 1913) was an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from December 29, 1890 to May 28, 1906. An admiralty lawyer and U.S. District Judge in Detroit before ascending to the high court, Brown authored hundreds of opinions in his 31 years as a federal judge, including the majority opinion in Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld the legality of racial segregation in public transportation.
Brown was born in South Lee, Massachusetts, and grew up in Massachusetts and Connecticut. His was a New England merchant family. Brown entered Yale College at 16, where he was a member of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree there in 1856. Among his undergraduate classmates were Chauncey Depew, later a U.S. Senator from New York, and David Josiah Brewer, who became Brown's colleague on the Supreme Court. Depew roomed across the hall from Brown for three years in Old North Middle Hall, and remembered "a feminine quality [about Brown] which led to his being called Henrietta, though there never was a more robust, courageous and decided man in meeting the problems of life[.]" After a yearlong tour of Europe, Brown studied law with Judge John H. Brockway of Ellington, Connecticut. He completed his legal studies with a year at Yale Law School, and a semester at Harvard Law School.
Admitted to the Michigan Bar in 1860, Brown's early law practice was in Detroit, Michigan, where he specialized in admiralty law (that is, shipping law on the Great Lakes). In addition to his private law practice, at times between 1861 and 1868 Brown served as Deputy U.S. Marshall, assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, and judge of the Wayne County Circuit Court in Detroit.
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