From The History F Champaign County, Ohio (1881), page 634:

Among the old residents of Urbana who have been prominently identified with the public affairs of Champaign Co., few have retained the confidence of its citizens to such an extent as the present popular Mayor of this city. His grandfather, Dr. James Brand, was a native of Scotland, who, graduating from the Edinburgh Medical University about 1756, came to the American Colonies and settled in Frederick City, Md., where he practiced his profession for many years. From there he moved to Ringgold’s Manor, and then to Augusta Co., Va., where he died at the age of 96. He left a family of several children, Thomas Brand, the father of Joseph C., being one of the number. He was born in Maryland and moved with his parents to Virginia, and in 1808, he removed to Bourbon Co., Ky., where he was married to Miss Fanny Carter, a native of Maryland, who came to Kentucky in childhood. Of this union eight children were born, Joseph C. being the eldest; his parents residing in Bourbon Co. until death. 1810, in the above-mentioned county, Joseph C. Brand “first saw the light,” and there his youthful days were passed acquiring a good education, afterward following school teaching as an occupation. In 1830, he came to Urbana, and engaged in business with his uncle, Dr. Joseph S. Carter, in a drug store. In 1832, he began merchandising, at Mechanicsburg, with Dr. Obed Horr, where he remained until 1837, when he bought a farm on Buck Creek, on which he settled and followed farming until 1850, when he again moved to Urbana, where he has since lived, with the exception of his army service and Consulship in Germany. He was married in 1832, to Miss Lavinia Talbott, of Weston, W. Va. They have had nine children, as follows: Thomas T., a Captain in the regular army, retired on account of wounds received at Chickamauga; Joseph C., now Deputy Collector and Chief Clerk in the United States Revenue office at Bellefontaine, Ohio William A., deceased, who was for many years co-editor with Joshua Saxton of the Citizen and Gazette of Urbana, and was Postmaster of Urbana at the time of his death Belle, the wife of William R. Ross; Mary,the wife of the Rev. E. D. Whitlock, the Pastor of the William Street Methodist Episcopal Church, at Delaware, Ohio; John F., of the firm of Fulwider & Brand, grocers; Ella, the wife of Charles A. Ross, of Urbana, and two daughters, Ellen and Irva, who died in young womanhood. Mr. Brand has filled several county offices, and was Clerk of the Common Pleas and District Courts at the time of the adoption of the new State Constitution, which abolished the old courts and clerkships. He has represented his county and district in both branches of the State Legislature, serving as chairman of standing committees, in which capacity he was always ready and efficient. When the tocsin of war resounded throughout the land, and treason lifted the cover from off its hidden purposes by firing on defenseless Fort Sumter, Mr. Brand was one of the first men in Urbana to declare publicly that the time had come to fight, and that he was in favor of whipping rebels into subjection. He was active in obtaining the order for raising the gallant 66th O. V. I., assisting in recruiting and organizing that regiment; served as its Quartermaster, from 1861 till 1864, when he was promoted by President Lincoln, and made “a Captain and Commissary of Subsistence of Volunteers,” which office he filled until the war closed. He was on active duty three years and ten months, and all the time in the field; in the Valley of Virginia, on the Potomac, Rapidan and Rappahannock Rivers, in Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Tennessee, Georgia, around Richmond and Petersburg, Va., and was present and witnessed Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, closing up his service in the city of Richmond, where he was discharged, and mustered out of the service. He voluntarily went into the battle of Port Republic, and he and Adjt. Gwynne took an active part in repulsing the charge of Dick Taylor with his “Louisiana Tigers” upon Col. Daum’s battery, which, after an hour’s contest, was accomplished. In this close fight the battery changed hands three times, the horses and gunners being nearly all killed in the contest, but, with the aid of the 5th and 7th Ohio Regiments, the 66th charged bayonets and drove the rebels across the field into the woods, the loss being heavy on both sides. The victory, however, was of short duration a fresh corps of rebels arriving on the field, the Union forces were compelled to retreat in confusion. In this side fight Col. Charles Candy was in command, and Lieut. Col. Powell was also on the line. When the war ended, Mr. Brand made a full settlement with the Government as Quartermaster and Commissary of Subsistence, and for “distinguished services during the war” was breveted Major. During Gen. Grant’s administration, he accepted a Consulship at Nuremberg, in the kingdom of Bavaria, Germany, and with his wife and two daughters remained abroad nearly three years. In 1857, Mr. Brand took a prominent part in a noted event which occurred in that year, and which is known as the “Green County Rescue Case,” the trouble commencing over a fugitive slave named Addison White, and culminating in the arrest, by the United States Marshal, of a number of Champaign County’s citizens, who had expressed sympathy for the runaway slave, and who were rescued from the Marshal while they were passing through Greene County, enroute for Cincinnati. Mr. Brand,with other leading citizens of Champaign County, were leaders in this rescue, and after considerable jawing, the case was finally settled by the purchase of the slave from his master. This incident demonstrates the position Mr. Brand and the average citizen of Champaign County occupied on those questions growing out of slavery, which finally ended in war, and the freedom of the negro. In his business days, Mr. Brand took an active part in securing and the construction of the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad, being a stockholder, and an active Director in the company for five years. He has been elected three times as Mayor of Urbana, which position he is now filling, and the city has never had a more capable or efficient Mayor since its organization. He is a man of varied experience, with an extensive knowledge of past events, and his official career has been pure and upright, which has made him popular with all classes of good citizens. Politically, he is a stanch Republican, and he and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and now, in their declining years, are living at the “old homestead,” on Reynolds street, which is a rallying point for their children and grandchildren, who find there the sunshine and happiness of parental love. Mr. Brand is one of the most generous and accommodating gentlemen which it has been our fortune to have met with in many years, and the purity and unimpeachable integrity of his private life is as strongly marked as that of his public career greeting, his evident desire and willingness to confer favors, and the absence of all levity or coarseness from his conversation, mark him as a man of pure, strong, manly character, who fortunately possesses the attributes of true manhood. In his old age he still retains those active business habits that have characterized him in the past, and he is one of the few who have won and retained the respect and confidence of every one with whom he has come in contact.