CHILES MERIWETHER BRAND
Chiles Brand was born April 5, 1790 and died November 12, 1861. He was the son of Joseph Brand and Frances Whitlock Brand. One online sourse has his father, Joseph, dying in Albemarle in 1814 and reports 12 children of that marriage. Chiles married Elizabeth Bryant, probably the "Mrs. C. M. Brand" city cemetery records place at Grv 1 in this family section. Chiles and Elizabeth are the parents of Mary Jane Brand Pinkard, buried at Grv 8. Online genealogies list additional children: Anna Eliza Brand who married Thomas R. Bailey, and James Walker Brand born 1834.
IN MEMORIAM.
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On The Morning of the 12TH of November, 1861.
CHILES M. BRAND
[illegible]
ful life. Whatever he undertook he did with all his might. He ever
commanded the highest respect of all for his honesty, his perseverance
and his industry. Most unfortunately, in his early life, he incurred
habits of intemperance and many years of his young manhood, and
very large sums of his patrimony and of his own hard earnings were
wasted in these ruinous habits. Many a time has he moved large au-
diences to tears as he has described the terrible bondage of the vice,
and his own sufferings from it. Refusing to have any participation in
the efforts for reformation until the glorious pledge of Total Absti-
nence was adopted, he was among the first to declare for that princip-
ple; and henceforward, with all the energy of his character, he gave
himself to the good work of reclaiming the drunkard, fixing the sober
man more firmly in his principles, and binding the youth with the
strongest possible ties to the pledge of "Taste not, touch not,
handle not." His influence for good in this noble work is felt all over
the land, for wherever he went he told his own story most effectively;
and his brothers could find no better and more successful illustration
than he of the blessed fruit of the work in which they were engaged.
MR. BRAND was a very benevolent man. The poor around lost one
of their best friends when he was called to his reward. His was a be-
nevolence to be satisfied only by personal contributions to the neces-
sity of the suffering. No far off agency of a society was sufficient.
He must "visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction," and
with his own hand wipe away the tear of grief. It was to him at the
close of his life a cause of poignant regret that, although he had been
often impressed with his duty in reference to the Christian religion, he
had failed to give the earnest heed to it he then felt the infinitely im-
portant matter so justly demanded. The minister who preached his
funeral sermon told us of an occasion when, in an address to the Sun-
day school children, the big tears rolling down his time-furrowed
cheeks the while, he told them sensibly he realied the great loss of
good and of happiness he had occasioned himself by such neglect, and
of his determination to consecrate the remnant of his life to the ser-
vice of God.
MR. BRAND was a great sufferer during the last several months of
his life; and while we mourned over his deep affliction, yet as we wit-
nessed continually, and more and more, the fruits of God's Holy Spirit
in him, and we remembered that the people of Go9d are often tried
"even as silver is tried," we learned "to rejoice and praise Him who
never needlessly afflicts."
One who loved him most dearly, and who watched constantly beside
his couch of suffering, writes: "He was a true penitent. The morn-
ing he died he was much composed--said he was not afraid to die;
prayed fervently and committed his all to God. His last hours were
peaceful. He went off without a struggle, as if in a sweet sleep."
"Asleep in Jesus; blessed sleep,
From which none ever wake to weep."
"Oh! death, where is thy sting! Oh! grave, where is thy victory!"
MR. BRAND had attained the age of 71 years, and left a numerous
and respectable family and relationship, and a host of friends who
loved him much, to mourn his loss.
DECEMBER, 1861.
ALPHA.
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