Joseph Stanley-Brown

Joseph Stanley-Brown

Quick Facts

Significance:

Private Secretary and son-in-law of President Garfield

Place of Birth:

Washington, D.C.

Date of Birth:

August 19, 1858

Place of Death:

Pasadena, California

Date of Death:

November 4, 1941

Place of Burial:

Cleveland, Ohio

Cemetery Name:

Lake View Cemetery

Joseph Stanley Brown was born in the slums of Washington, D.C. on August 19, 1858. His grandfather, Nathaniel Stanley, was a fugitive from a British debtors’ prison who changed his name to James Brown when he arrived in Baltimore, Maryland - although his sons and grandsons kept Stanley as a middle name. Joe Brown’s education was in the public schools of Washington, but he taught himself shorthand and the new skill of typewriting, and at the age of 17 got a job as a stenographer for John Wesley Powell, the founder of the U.S. Geological Survey. Powell occasionally “loaned” his young, remarkably capable secretary to his good friend, Congressman James A. Garfield. Joe Brown made his first appearance at the congressman’s home in December 1878. Mollie Garfield was eleven years old.

Joe Brown’s work for Congressman Garfield was only occasional until the 1880 presidential campaign, when he was asked to come to Mentor to help with the campaign correspondence. The volume of mail was staggering—the New York Times estimated that 100,000 letters were sent from Mentor between June 1880 and February 1881. During the campaign, Joe Brown became a member of the Garfield family. He shared a room with the older two Garfield sons, Hal and Jim, in the not-yet-finished third floor room Lucretia described as “the boys dormitory.” He celebrated with the family on election night, and returned to Washington with them in February to serve as the president’s private secretary in the White House. Brown was then 22 years old.

The position of private secretary to the president then was apparently similar to the current post of chief of staff. Yes, Brown handled the president’s correspondence, but he understood that his main responsibility was “the protection of the president from the public—and I might add, his friends.” Brown was Garfield’s gatekeeper and press liaison. After the president was shot, Brown was apparently the only government officer willing to take responsibility for administrative decisions. His organization and calmness during the assassination crisis won him the respect of political Washington. He stayed at the White House for three months after President Garfield’s death, helping with the transition, but he refused a permanent post in the Chester Arthur administration.

At the request of Mrs. Garfield, Joe spent the next two years sorting and arranging the late president’s papers. This was no small task. Altogether, Brown catalogued 29 huge storage crates of papers, which he kept in a secure, fire-proof vault at the Treasury Department. At the same time, Brown corresponded regularly with Lucretia Garfield about the progress he was making on the papers and the possibility of creating a secure storage place for them in Mentor, Ohio. Indeed, during the three years of planning and construction that resulted in the Memorial Library addition to Lawnfield, Brown’s suggestions became more and more detailed and included all areas of design and engineering. He encouraged the installation of gas light and heat, moving the kitchen and laundry, and getting rid of the old well and wood shed at the back of the house. He also included little “items” for Mollie: notes, drawings, and original poems. Hal, Jim, and Joe Brown spent the summer of 1885 working with the contractors on the construction of the addition, and the Memorial Library was completed in May 1886.

In the fall of 1885, Joseph Brown went to the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale University, with the financial support of Lucretia Garfield. He studied geology, a field that had fascinated him since his time working for John Wesley Powell.

It was just before Mollie Garfield’s June, 1888 wedding that Joe legally changed his name. The family story is that Lucretia Garfield suggested that Mr. Brown retrieve his grandfather’s long lost name. So the wedding invitation read: “Mrs. James A. Garfield requests the honor of your presence at the marriage of her daughter Mary to Joseph Stanley-Brown.”

Joe prospered, as a geologist, railroad executive, and banker, becoming “conspicuously wealthy.” He and Mollie raised a son and two daughters, splitting time between South Pasadena, California and Long Island, New York. Joe died in Pasadena on November 2, 1941, at the age of 83. His remains were cremated and interred in the Garfield Monument at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland.