Cumberland County NJ Archives Biographies.....Brewer, Charles  1832 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 August 12, 2015, 10:34 pm

Source: See Below
Author: Biographical Review

            CHARLES BREWER, M. D.

      From Cumberland County Biographical Review.

     Dr. Brewer was born in Annapolis, Md., June 21, 1832, son of Nicholas and
Catherine (Medairy) Brewer.

     The Brewers of Maryland are descended from one John Brewer who came from
England about the middle of the seventeenth century He was a large landholder in
Anne Arundel County, Md., as early as 1658. His numerous descendants have now
for six generations been among the prominent and wealthy people of Maryland.

     Nicholas Brewer, the father of Charles the subject of our present sketch,
was a lawyer by profession; a member of the legislature in early life,
afterwards Circuit Court Judge for many years, until his death in 1864, at the
age of 68 years. He was a man of high culture and fine taste, and a progressive
and public-spirited citizen. He was an outspoken supporter of the war for the
Union.

     Dr. Brewer was graduated in Arts at St. John's College, with first honors,
in 1852. He studied medicine in his native city; afterwards with the
distinguished Dr. Nathan R. Smith of Baltimore, finally graduating in Medicine
at the University of Maryland, in 1855. He was commissioned Ass't. Surgeon in
the U. S. Army, Aug. 29, 1856.

     His first service in the army was on the frontier, which in those days was
always in a chronic state of warfare. He had, of course, some rough experiences,
and was a participant in some very successful encounters with hostile Indians.
In 1S5S he was assigned to duty with a large force sent to Utah. The arduous
march from Fort Leavenworth to Salt Lake City was accomplished in about three
months of the summer of that year.

     Among the most interesting experiences of his two years in Utah was that of
an expedition to the remote southwestern part of the territory to recover
several children supposed to be there, the survivors of the Mountain Meadows
massacre in which a large body of immigrants to the number of 140, on their way
to California, were waylaid and ruthlessly slaughtered by a force of Mormons and
Indians. Sixteen children, ranging in age from three to nine years, were
recovered and returned to relatives or friends, or otherwise cared for. The
remains of the murdered parents, unburied and exposed to the elements and to the
fangs of wolves, were gathered together and buried in one common grave, upon
which was raised a cairn of rough rocks to mark the spot. Just twenty years
after the massacre, its instigator and leader, the Mormon Bishop John D. Bee,
after trial and conviction, was executed on the same spot.

      Leaving Utah in the fall of 1860 for a furlough, Dr. Brewer found his
future wife at Ft. Riley. In January, 1861, he was married to Miss Maria
Pendleton Cooke, second daughter of Gen. Philip St. George Cooke, U. S. A. While
on a visit to the home of his wife's relatives in Virginia, he sent in his
resignation of his commission in the U. S. Army. After its acceptance he entered
the medical Corps of the Confederate Army, and was attached to the headquarters
of the general staff of the army. He was one of the inspectors who, appreciating
the intense, but, under the circumstances, unavoidable sufferings of the
prisoners of war, and the inability of the Confederate authorities to feed and
care for the immense number of men thrown on their hands by the abandonment of
the cartel, recommended their unconditional return to the Federal government.
This was accordingly done.

      Dr. Brewer was present at the death from wound of his brother-in-law, the
distinguished cavalry leader, Gen. J. E. B. Stuart. At the surrender he was
charged with the duty of transferring to the Federal authorities, the eight
thousand sick and wounded left in the hospitals at Richmond.

      After the close of the war Dr. Brewer engaged in the practice of his
profession in Maryland with much success. In a few years the toil and hardships
of a large business proved too much for his strength, and his health failed.
Seeking, like some of his predecessors in this field, a change of occupation as
well as of location, he came to Vineland in 1870, and betook himself to farm
life. Antaeus-like, he gathered strength from contact with mother Earth, and
soon found himself able to resume the tools with which he was more familiar. He
left the farm for the borough in 1876.

      In his new field Dr. Brewer found, besides the work of his profession,
many opportunities for the exercise of his intellectual powers, and his
benevolent disposition, in the kind of work for which he was especially fitted.
He was called early and often, in one way or another, to duties and positions of
responsibility in Vineland, and in Cumberland County, and sometimes to such as
reach a much wider range. After the resignation of the first rector of Trinity
P. E. Church, he was by Bishop Scarborough appointed lay reader, in which
capacity he officiated several years, to the general acceptance and advantage of
the church, eventually handing it over to a new rector with a largely increased
membership, followed by the erection of a fine new church edifice He was
continued senior warden and Sunday school superintendent many years. He was
president, for two successive seasons, of the Cumberland County Sunday-School
Association, also for many years a useful member of the County Bible Society.

     He was for several years president of the Young Men's Christian Association
of Vineland, which, during the period of his incumbency supported a good
reading-room, and conducted a public midday prayer meeting every day of the
week, except Sundays, when meetings were held in the afternoon.

     He was for some years an active member of the Board of Health of Vineland.
In 1882 he was elected coroner of Cumberland County. In 1887 he was appointed
postmaster of Vineland, holding the office during the last half of the first
Cleveland administration, much to the satisfaction of the community. He was
appointed to his present position as resident physician to the prison, April, 1892.

     He was previously a member of the State Charities Association, and an
authorized inspector of penal and charitable institutions He has been twice
appointed by the Governor of the State as its official representative to the
National Prison Congress, (at Baltimore an Chicago) and is at present a member
of the National Prison Association, interested in all that pertains to
criminology and prison reformation. These various associations and appointments
clearly indicate the benevolence of his disposition and his devotion to whatever
promises good to his fellow beings, and especially to the erring and the suffering.

     Dr. Brewer is a man of fine classical education, of excellent literary
attainments, a lucid writer and a fluent public speaker. He is an earnest
student of the Bible, and rather prides himself on being an uncompromizing
antagonist of the "higher criticism.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

THE EARLY PHYSICIANS OF VINELAND, N. J.
Published by the VINELAND HISTORICAL AND ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY 
1903


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