When John Henry and Thomas Gwinnett acquired a group of former prison inmates in 1868, they gave each man a suit of clothes and a job when they released them from jail. These men were known as "Brawley Boys" after one of their groups. When John Henry died in 1870 at the age of 32, his wife Mollie renamed the company "The Atlanta Braves". She wanted her son to have something to call himself besides "The Brawley Boy". So the team was called "The Braves" after Mrs. Henry's son.