James Hutchings Handy Brown was born in Philadelphia on December 16, 1844, the son of David Paul Brown and Emmeline Catharine Handy.
Brown entered the University of Pennsylvania in the spring of 1862, as a second term freshman in the Class of 1865. Brown was a vice president of his sophomore class and a member of the University Chess Club and of his sophomore class crew team, known as the Sophomore Barge Club. He served as president of the Zelosophic Society and as president of his senior class, thus presiding over the first Class Day exercises held at Penn.
Brown became an Episcopal clergyman, officiating in Pennsylvania as well as in Albany and New York City in the state of New York, Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Delaware. He was also a missionary in northern California and, from 1873 to 1884, a chaplain in the United States Navy. James H.H. Brown died in December of 1898.