Dr. Brevard was a prominent local patriot and blind in one eye. He attended college in Princeton, New Jersey, trained as a doctor, and taught at Queen’s College where he was also a Trustee. He married Martha, the daughter of Thomas and Susanna Polk and had a hand in writing both the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence and the Mecklenburg Resolves.

He served as an officer and later as a surgeon during the Revolution and was captured at the fall of Charleston in 1780. As an officer he could have signed a parole and been sent home, but he chose to stay on in Charleston to minister to the American prisoners. In doing so, he contracted the same fever that killed so many of his fellow soldiers. He returned to Mecklenburg where he died aged only thirty five.