Born in North Carolina

He was born in Roan [Rowan] County, North Carolina, September 30, 1801, his parents being James and Mary Williams Brown. The father was a veteran of the Revolutionary war having fought under General Francis Marion. In early boyhood James helped on the farm. He received a common English education and as he grew to manhood inclined to literary pursuits, teaching school and serving for a time as a Baptist preacher; he served two or three terms as sheriff of Roan county. In 1823 he married Martha Stephens, who bore him eight sons and one daughter, the youngest, Moroni, being only three days old when she died on September 28, 1840. In 1834 he had moved from North Carolina to Brown county, Illinois and later to Adams county, where in 1837, he became affiliated with the Latter Day Saints. About January 1, 1841, he married again and moved to Nauvoo, Illinois.

In June, 1844, the Prophet Joseph Smith was killed by a mob at Carthage, Illinois; later followed the expulsion of the Mormons from Nauvoo, and the burning of their temple. The driven people crossed the Mississippi, the first of them leaving in February, 1846, and began their westward journey across the black plains of Iowa towards the Missouri river, James among them. They drifted across the state in small companies as circumstances permitted them to make the necessary traveling arrangements. The tribulations and sufferings of the people on that journey is a history of itself that has no particular place here. During the early part of this year war had begun between the United States and Mexico. The commander of the army of the west, who was about to start for Santa, Fe, New Mexico, commissioned Captain James Allen to visit the migrating (line left out) assist in entering and taking possession of California, then belonging to Mexico. Captain Allen reached Mt. Pisgash, Iowa, one of the camps of the Saints, on June 26, 1846, made his errand known, received letters of introduction from the church leaders at Council Bluffs on the Missouri river, and hurried on. At Council Bluffs, President Brigham Young declared to Captain Allen, "You shall have your battalion," and on July 16, 1846, the Mormon battalion, numbering 549 souls, was mustered in for one year, and shortly thereafter set out for California by way of Fort Leavenworth and Nebraska, Kansas Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona to lower California by way of Santa Fe, is yet to be written. It cannot be gone into here.

Officers of Battalion

The battalion was divided into five companies and among the officers was James Brown, the subject of this sketch, Captain of Company "C," numbering 14 officers and 90 enlisted men. Several families of women and children accompanied their husbands and fathers.

Short rations, lack of water, excessive toil and road making, well digging and over marching, caused much suffering, sickness and some deaths among the battalion. Even before reaching Santa Fe, their sufferings were severe, and many were disabled and prevented from proceeding further. These disabled detachments, with most of the women of the battalion, were placed in charge of Captain Brown and ordered to Pueblo, Colorado, while there comrades, including four women who accompanied their husbands, rushed on to the Pacific coast, arriving near San Diego late in January, 1847." – Whitney.

These disabled detachments wintered at Pueblo, but in the spring Captain Brown prepared for the journey to California to rejoin the battalion. Joined by a company of Mississippi Saints, the expedition set out by way of Fort Laramie and the South Pass, thus practically falling in with the Pioneers, who, in April, 1847, had left winter quarters, (Florence, Nebraska) on the Missouri river, on their journey to the Rocky Mountains. The pioneers entered Salt Lake valley on July 24, 1847, ever afterwards known as Pioneer Day, and Captain Brown’s company came in on July 29, the advance columns having been met by President Brigham Young and others some three miles east of the camp where now stands Salt Lake City. There were in the company over 100 soldiers, and about on equal number of Saints. They brought with them sixty wagons, one carriage, one hundred horses and mules and three hundred head of cattle, adding materially to the strength of the pioneer colony on City Creek.

Camps at City Creek

"It had been the design of Captain Brown, on leaving Pueblo, to push on without delay to the Bay of San Francisco, but the battalion’s term of enlistment having expired, (July 16), he decided to tarry in Salt Lake valley and await further orders from his military superiors. The soldiers formed a separate camp on City creek, about midway between the two camps of pioneers.

At a general meeting held next evening (July 30), the president, (Brigham Young), in behalf of the whole people, publicly thanked the battalion for the important service they had rendered their country and their co-religionists.

Captain Brown’s men, at the request of the president, constructed, two days after their arrival, a bowery in which to hold public meetings on the Temple block the first building of any kind erected by the Mormons in the Rocky Mountains." – Whitney.

On August 9, 1847, Captain Brown and others started for San Francisco by way of Fort Hall, Idaho, then with him the muster roll of his detachment, with power of attorneys from each man to sign for and receive his pay, the object of the Journey being to draw the pay due his soldiers from the government. Samuel Brannan who had sailed to California by way of Cape Horn and had established a colony on San Joaquin river in anticipation that the main body of the Saints would continue on to the coast, and who had returned from California to persuade President Young that that ought to be the ultimate resting place of his people, acting as guide and seven others made up the party.

Meets Trapper, Miles Goodyear.

Passing up the eastern slope of the Great Salt Lake the party called upon Miles M. Goodyear, a trapper living on the Weber river and whom the pioneers had met near Bear river in early July. At this meeting, it is thought, began the negotiations which later resulted in the acquirement of Goodyear’s possessions by Captain Brown. On their way to California west of the Sierras, Captain Brown and his party encountered the greater portion of the discharged soldiers of the Mormon battalion on their way to Salt Lake valley. When they learned from Captain Brown that it was President Young’s advice that all of them who were without means would better remain in California [to] secure work for the winter and come to the valley with their earnings in the spring, about half of them turned back, while the others continued on to Salt Lake.

Having completed his work in California, Captain Brown returned in December, 1847, bringing with him from San Francisco, $10,000.00 in Spanish doubloons, as the pay due enlisted men he had brought to Salt Lake. Immediately on his return, either in December, 1847, or in January, 1848 the negotiations for the purchase of the Goodyear tract were resumed and consummated, Captain Brown paying $3,000.00 for the lands, improvements and live stock.

Property He Purchased From Goodyear

Miles M. Goodyear was a trapper who claimed the Weber lands by virtue of a grant from the Mexican government made to him in 1841. His claim was particularly described as follows: Beginning at the mouth of Weber canyon, and following the base of the mountains north to Hot Springs thence westward to the Great Salt Lake, southward along the shore of the lake to a point opposite Weber canyon and thence to the point of beginning. It’s extent is said to have been twenty square miles. On these lands Goodyear had built a picket fort on the right bank of the Weber river, just south of what is now the foot of 28th street in Ogden. The fort consisted of a stockade of cottonwood logs, fifteen feet high, enclosing about six rods square, with entrances on the east and west, and contained three or four log cabins. A lovely and fertile tract of land in the big bend of the river surrounded the fort. It was at this point that Goodyear had established himself as a trapper and trader living there with his Indian family and a few mountaineers and half breeds when the pioneers reached Salt Lake valley. It was this fort, with the lands describe and the cattle he possessed, that was purchased by Captain Brown for the sum named.

Shortly after the Goodyear purchase, settlers began to arrive in Weber county. Among the first settlers were the following: Captain James Brown and wife, Mary Black, his stepson, David Balck, his sons Alexander and Jesse S. and his infant daughter, Eliza, who afterwards became the wife of William F. Critchlow; Lewis B. Myers and his Indian wife, Geo. W. Therlkiel and wife; Robert Crow and family; Henry C. Shelton, a member of the Mormon battalion and family; Reuben Henry and wife, and a Mexican boy, Artemus Sprague; Daniel Purch and family, including William, James, Robert W., Belinda and Emma; Mrs. Ruth Steward and family of eight children; William Steward and family of six children; Irwin Stewart, who nearly precipitated an Indian war in 1850; Dr. McIntire, of Mormon battalion fame; Messrs. Briggs and Burrows, mountaineers, with Indian wives and families. Later in 1848 another branch of Captain Brown’s family located with the others. Only the Browns settled in the fort, the others settling along the Weber and on both banks of Ogden river.

First Crops in Weber County in1848

The first crops were planted in the spring of 1848. Captain Brown was favored in having brought seed with him from California and in having a site which had been cultivated. Unsuccessful efforts to raise corn and wheat had been made by Mr. Goodyear, the harsh climate having reaped the crops for four successive years preceding the advent of the settlers and the prediction was freely made that the early frosts would also take their crops. However, Captain Brown and his sons sowed four and one-half bushels of wheat on five acres, and planted half a bushel of corn, some potatoes, cabbage, turnips and a few watermelons. The first furrow was ploughed by his sons, Jesse S. and Alexander. The crops grew and matured, the Browns harvesting 100 bushels of wheat, 75 bushels of corn and fine specimens of the other products.

Captain Brown retained a comparatively small portion of his purchase, the balance was divided among the settlers that began to pour in on the Weber during 1848. When the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed February 2, 1848, it was expected that Captain Brown’s title to the Goodyear lands would be confirmed, but for some reason, it was not recognized and many years later the government assumed ownership of the lands, gave to the Union Pacific on subsidy each alternate section of the tract and required the old settlers, including Captain Brown’s immediate descendants to repurchase the homes and farms they had occupied for 20 years. It is evident the government did not consider the Goodyear grant from Mexico as valid.

In 1850, the high water of the Weber submerged the land around the fort, compelled the abandonment of the old Goodyear stockade and a new site was chosen just south of 30th street, east of the Union Pacific, which became known as Brown’s fort. This enclosed a 10-acre block, log houses built quite closely together on the four sides of the enclosure. The progress of improvement has removed all trace of this early fort.

Built First Bridges

Captain Brown built the first bridges over the Weber and Ogden rivers and was proprietor thereof under charter from the legislature from 1849 to 1853. He was assessor and collector of taxes in 1850 and 1851, and a member of the Ogden City council from 1855 until his death in 1863. He acted as justice of the peace and served several terms in the territorial legislature. In 1852 he went on a mission to the British Guiana, going to San Diego, thence by sailing vessel to the Isthmus of Panama and thence to his destination. He came back by way of St. Louis and there assisted in church emigration during 1853-4, taking charge of a company across the plains in October of the latter year. When the Weber stake was organized he became first counselor to President Lorin Farr.

The Captain died at his home in this city Wednesday September 30, 1863, the sixty-second anniversary of his birth. While working at a molasses mill, five days before, crushing the cane grown by neighbors, his arm was caught in the cogs of a roller and so badly lacerated that mortification set in, from which he died.

Captain Brown’s main characteristics were honesty, truthfulness and integrity. His generosity in sharing with his brethren the lands, though his [came] by purchase, though his rights were repudiated by the government years after his death, and his many acts of benevolence and charity in the early days of famine and poverty endeared him to the early settlers of Weber county.

Sources:

PAF - Archer files - Captain James Brown + Phebe Abbott > Orson Pratt Brown > Descendants.

Deseret News, October 7, 1863, "A Sad Accident", Obituary.

Ogden Examiner - Sunday Morning, March 16, 1914. Much of the contents of this article has been used in other articles.