John Brown was born in Virginia in about 1710. A military officer, Brown first served as a captain in the Bertie County Regiment of the North Carolina Militia from 1754 to 1759. When Hertford County was formed, Brown became a justice of the peace and colonel in the county militia. Through his role as a justice of the peace, in 1765 he presided over a case involving Pompey, an enslaved man charged with attempted murder. Brown died sometime after 1784.