No photograph of Merritt Brown is known, and no letter in his hand. If your family descends from the Browns or the Mangums, from the men of the Wigfall Grays, or from the people the Browns enslaved, you may hold something the archives do not.
What we hope to find: a photograph of Merritt, Mattie or their daughters; letters or a family Bible; what became of Lena and Minnie Brown; why Mrs. B. M. Cowan applied for his headstone in 1940; and anything about Jane, Peggy, Rachel, Tom and the others named on the His Life page.
The Morton Museum of Collierville History, on North Main Street, keeps the Wigfall Grays display and the company's master roster.
The story of Corporal Merritt R. Brown, the Wigfall Grays and their town is told in An Honor Unearned: From the Streets of Collierville, Tennessee, to Edgefield, South Carolina, by Michael Louis Meece. Available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle. More about the book at anhonorunearned.org.
You can also write to the author at michael@anhonorunearned.org.