Background
John Mifflin Brown was a mulatto born on September 8, 1817 at what is now called Odessa, Delaware. There he spent the first ten years of his life.
John Mifflin Brown was a mulatto born on September 8, 1817 at what is now called Odessa, Delaware. There he spent the first ten years of his life.
When John moved to Wilmington, Delaware, he lived there with a Quaker family. These Friends gave him religious instruction at home and sent him to a private school. He had the opportunity for further instruction under a Catholic priest, but declined it for the reason that he desired to adhere to the principles of the Methodist Church.
He next found friends in Philadelphia, where he lived in the home of Dr. Emerson and Henry Chester, who continued his education. For a number of years he attended the St. Thomas Protestant Episcopal Church, but in 1836 united with the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church.
There he attended an evening school and began his preparation for the ministry. He made several efforts to obtain advanced training, but had his first such opportunity when he entered the Wesleyan Academy at Wilbraham, Massachussets. He studied there from 1838 to 1840, when he had to leave on account of poor health.
After recovery, he studied further at Oberlin, but did not complete a course. Much better educated than most of his fellows, however, he began a private school in Detroit in 1844.
While studying at the private school in Detroit, at the same time John Brown was engaged in religious work, for he had charge of a church in that city the following three years. He next served as a pastor in Columbus from 1844 to 1847. From this position he was called to the most significant work with which he had ever been connected.
He was chosen the principal of Union Seminary, organized as a result of a vote of the African Methodist Episcopal Conference in 1844. This is often referred to as the original Wilberforce University. It was started in the African Methodist Episcopal Chapel in Columbus; but, being unsuccessful, it was soon moved twelve miles from the city and established on a farm of 120 acres. This was the first national educational effort of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.
Being in need of educated ministers, the conference established this institution on the manual labor plan by which poor students could work at some useful occupation to earn what they learned. Brown started the school with three students and left it with 100.
Eventually Union Seminary was merged with the actual Wilberforce University founded by the Methodists in 1856 at Tawawa Springs, near Xenia. Prior to this time, however, Brown had resumed his work in the church.
John Brown became a pastor in New Orleans and served at various other places in the South. In 1864 he was chosen editor of the Christian Recorder, the organ of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, which still exists as the oldest African-American newspaper in the United States. Brown did not remain in this position long.
During the same year he was made director of the rapidly expanding missionary work of the church, which required systematization and stimulus. He continued in this capacity for four years. In 1868, the unusual growth of the church after the emancipation of the freedmen necessitated his advancement to the highest post in the denomination, and he was ordained bishop.
He died at his home in Washington, D. C.
In his religious affiliation John Mifflin Brwon was a Methodist Episcopalian.
John Brown was a member of the Foreign Missionary Society of the AME Church.
In 1853 John Mifflin Brown had married Mary Louise Lewis of Louisville. They had nine children, including John M. Brown and Mary L Brown, medical doctors; William L Brown and Martha L Brown, educators; Daniel L Brown and George A Brown, ministers.