John Robert Brown (Virginia politician)
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John Robert Brown (January 14, 1842 - August 4, 1927) was a United States Representative from Virginia. Born near Snow Creek, he attended private schools in Franklin and Henry Counties and entered the Confederate Army in 1861 as a private in Company D, Twenty-fourth Regiment of Virginia Volunteers. In 1870 he formed a partnership with his father in the tobacco business at Shady Grove; he moved to Martinsville in 1882 and continued in the tobacco business. He also engaged in banking and was mayor of Martinsville from 1884 to 1888.
Brown was elected as a Republican to the Fiftieth Congress, serving from March 4, 1887 to March 3, 1889; he unsuccessfully contested the election of Claude A. Swanson to the Fifty-fifth Congress. He reengaged in the tobacco business and retired from active business pursuits; Brown died in Martinsville, with interment in Oakwood Cemetery.