Dr. Samuel M. Brown

A c. 1910 biography of his son, Dr. Edgar W. Brown, in Historical Review of Southeast Texas gives the doctor's career a different start than the plaque. It calls Samuel Brown a native of South Carolina who served as a surgeon in Orr's brigade of the Confederate army and came to Texas in 1867, a year after the plaque's date. It says he practiced at Orange up to the time of his death in 1887. The plaque places the family's move to Orange in 1871 and his death in a locomotive accident on March 29, 1887.

What the plaque says

Dr. Samuel M. Brown (1836-1887) South Carolina native Samuel M. Brown served with distinction as a surgeon in the Confederate army during the Civil War. He and his family settled in East Texas in 1866 and in 1871 moved to Orange. He was a respected local physician, often treating county jail prisoners and paupers. A leading citizen of the town, he was tragically killed in a locomotive accident on March 29, 1887. A local newspaper reported that he was aiding a child when he was struck by the train, and that his death was a great shock to the citizens of Orange. (1987)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stark Museum of Art — 0.6 mi
  A white-marble museum in Orange built by the Stark Foundation and opened in 1978, holding Western art, American Indian art, Audubon's Birds of America and Steuben glass, free to enter.
• Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center — 1.3 mi
  More than 250 acres on Adams Bayou, begun by H. J. Lutcher Stark in 1937, with garden rooms, a cypress-tupelo swamp, a heronry blind and free pontoon tours in season.
• Museum of the Gulf Coast — 19 mi
  Port Arthur's regional museum in a former bank building: fossils, Native Americans, the petroleum story, a 125-foot history mural and Halls of Fame for musicians, athletes and artists.
• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 21 mi
  A re-created oil boomtown on the Lamar University campus, with a derrick, period shops, a 1941 granite monument and an optional re-enactment of the January 1901 Lucas gusher.

More markers nearby

• John Thomas Stark — steps away
• Samuel Wallace Sholars, M.D. — steps away
• Evergreen Cemetery — steps away
• Captain George M. Levingston — steps away