Robert Roper and Esther Jones Roper c. 1836
Photo is courtesy of the Windsor Family

Children of Captain James Brown and Esther Jones Roper Brown:

1 August Brown Born: 18 August 1843 at Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois Twin - Child Died: 19 August 1843 at South Augusta, Lee, Iowa

2 Augusta Brown Born: 18 August 1843 at Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois Twin - Child Died: 19 August 1843 at South Augusta, Lee, Iowa

Amasa Brown Born: 1844 at South Augusta, Lee County, Iowa Child Died: 26 August 1845 at Westville, Prebble, Iowa

Mary Alice Brown Born: 1846 at Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois Young girl Died: 1865 in Utah

Esther Ellen Brown Born: 18 Marcg 1849 at Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah Married: James Leeach Dee on February 2, 1866 Died: 26 Oct 1893 at Ogden, Weber, Utah

In the Spring of 1846, James Brown with his family, who were living at Augusta, Lee County, Iowa, a village on the Skunk River, a few miles down the river from Nauvoo, from which, through the counsel of Joseph Smith, they moved to Nauvoo. James Brown had purchased a grist flour mill and was profitably operating it when word reached him that BrighamYoung was leading the Latter-day Saint across the plains to the Rocky Mountains. When James Brown got the message he sold his holdings in Augusta, outfitted his family, which at the time consisted of his third wife, Esther, and eight sons and one daughter belonging to the deceased Martha Stephens Brown, the youngest child being only six years old, all of whom Esther Jones Roper Brown was step-mothering, beside raising her own one little girl, Annie Roper, Esther gave birth to Mary Alice Brown in Nauvoo, Illinois on August 4, 1846. James Brown had married two other women in January of 1845 and February of 1846, respectively, who joined the family group. These women were Sarah Sally Steadwell (Tidwell) Wood Brown,and Abigail Smith Abbott Brown with eight children by her recently deceased first husband, Stephen Joseph Abbott.

John Wesley Browning and wife, Annie Elizabeth Roper Browning

Small chair painted green with gilt trimmings. One of the first made in Ogden, Utah. Made by McGary brothers in 1865. Owned by Esther Roper Brown. Presented to D.U.P. by Phoebe Brown Snyder on August 21, 1912.--Heart Throbs of the West, Vol. 12, Page 358

Esther Jones Roper Brown
Ogden City Cemetery Grave Marker and Mormon Battalion Wife Medallion placed June 10, 2000
Third Avenue, Lot 6 Plat A

Belva Rawson Moyle shares the following Obituary from the Semi-Weekly Standard, 7 October 1898, Page 1:
Note that "Roper" is found as "Raper" in some instances. See explanation below.

"Grandma" Raper Dead. Mrs. Esther Jones Raper, known all over Salt Lake and Ogden as "Grandma Raper" , died at her home, 2823 Washington Ave., the residence of W.F. Critchlow, at 2:30 this morning. Her death was caused by old age, she having reached the age of 84 years January last. She had several children, all of whom are dead, but she leaves several grandchildren and even great grandchildren to mourn her death with a host of friends. She was one of the first pioneers who came to Ogden and lived for a time in Fort Brigham. The place of holding the funeral is at the special request of Mrs. Raper Brown before her death. The funeral services for Esther were held at the Ogden Tabernacle and attended by a large number of family and friends.

Obituaries submitted courtesy of Belva Rawson Moyle

Copyright 2001 www.OrsonPrattBrown.org

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Esther Jones Brown

From "Five Hundred Wagons Stood Still — Mormon Battalion Wives" 1999

By Shirley N. Maynes 

Esther Jones was born on January 7, 1814 in Lyman, Sportanburg County, North Carolina. Esther was the widow of Robert Roper. After her husband’s death she married James Brown on November 20, 1842 in Nauvoo, Illinois. Perhaps they were acquainted with each other in North Carolina, the birthplace of James and Esther. 

The Browns became parents of five children: August and Augusta; twins, born in 1843 and had died soon after their birth; Amasa born in 1844 and died in 1844 and Alice Brown born in 1846. All were born in Nauvoo, Illinois. The fifth child was born in Salt Lake City in 1849. Before the Browns left Nauvoo, they received their endowments in the temple on December 22, 1845. 

James brought all of his families to Council Bluffs, Iowa in 1846. He had three wives at the time: Esther, Sarah and Abigail and their children. He also brought the children from his first wife, Martha Stephens Brown, who had died from complications of childbirth when her ninth child was born. 

At Council Bluffs, James enlisted in the Mormon Battalion as Captain of Company "C". Before he left, on July 16, 1846, he married Mary McCree Black, a widow. Mary became one of the laundresses for the Battalion and took her small son, George David Black, with her. Esther was left behind with her daughter, Alice. She had become despondent over the deaths of her children and over the fact that James had left her on the prairie. In a letter written on August 6, 1847 to one of his wives, Abigail Smith Abbott Brown, James asks her to visit and care for Esther. He admonishes her to lift Esther’s spirit, for he relates: "She has surely been afflicted since I have left." 

On June 17, 1847, Esther joined the Isaac Haight Company who left for the Salt Lake Valley. The journey across the plains took about three months before she arrived in the Valley on September 19, 1847. She remained in Salt Lake living in the "Old Fort" until James came back from California in November of 1847. Mary Black Brown left the Battalion and wintered in Pueblo. She came to the valley on July 29, 1847 and was also living in the "Old Fort" when she gave birth to a daughter in the same year. 

Upon his arrival in Salt Lake, James Brown purchased, from Miles Goodyear, a large tract of land for the sum of $3,000.00. Of this amount, $1,950.00 was money from the pay of the men from the Mormon Battalion. One of the reasons James Brown had gone to California was that he was authorized by the men to collect their pay that they had earned while they were at Pueblo, Colorado. The purchase of the Goodyear Ranch was made upon the advice from the authorities of the Church. President Young had a definite plan for the colonization of Utah. 

President Young sent scouts out to explore the surrounding area. John Brown was one of these scouts as he had accompanied Captain Brown west on his journey to California. John carried a report of Goodyear’s Fort on the Weber River, back to the Church authorities. Brigham Young gave instructions for Goodyear to be bought out. Not until Captain Brown returned with the battalion’s pay was there enough money in the colony to pay for the purchase of this land. 

Before James Brown could purchase the Goodyear Fort, a treaty with Mexico had to be resolved. Edward Tullidge, an early Utah historian writes: "Miles Goodyear claimed a tract of land, which was a Mexican grant to him in 1841; commencing at the mouth of Weber Canyon and following the base of the mountain north to the Utah Hot Springs, thence west to the Salt Lake and thence east to the place of beginning. Goodyear had built a fort and few log cabins on the spot now occupied by the Union Pacific Freight Depot. This land was then Mexican Territory and was ceded to the United States by the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in February 1848. This treaty having been executed, was of supreme importance to the Mormon Colonists as it was the only remaining Spanish title in this territory." 

Eventually, Esther and her daughter, Alice, accompanied James to Weber Valley. This area was first called "Buenaventura" but was changed to "Brown’s Fort" and then later to "Brownsville." In 1861 it became "Ogden" named for Peter Skene Ogden. There were three other families who helped to colonize the area besides James Brown: Henry C. Shelton, Louis B. Myers, and George W. Thurnkill. Two of James’ sons from his first marriage, Alexander and Jesse, came with James to help settle the area. They had joined the Mormon Battalion and were with him on the long march to California. 

Esther became involved in caring for a large household. The first year in the Brown’s Fort, the men planted acres of wheat, corn, turnips, cabbage, potatoes and a few watermelons from seeds that James had brought with him from California. Included in the land purchase were seventy-five cattle, seventy-five goats, twelve sheep and six horses.

During 1848, there was very little food left in the Salt Lake Valley due mainly to the cricket infestation. Until crops could be harvested, James Brown sent his son, Alexander, and others to Fort Hall to purchase flour for his family. The party brought back six hundred pounds. James kept two hundred-pounds for his family and sent four hundred pounds to Salt Lake for the starving Saints. The family milked twenty-five cows each day and from this supply  of milk the women made cheese and butter. Much of the dairy products were sent to Salt Lake. In fact, the Brown family supplied the Saints with breadstuff, beef and dairy products that had come from the Brown’s Fort as the cricket infestation wasn’t nearly as bad in Oregon as it was further south. On March 18, 1849, Esther gave birth to a daughter she named Esther Ellen. Her daughter, Alice who had been born in Nauvoo, died in 1865 at age nineteen. 

Before leaving for his mission, James was in the process of building a new twelve-room house. The house was a two story adobe with a long veranda running across the front of the house. When the house was completed his wives and family lived in it. It was located across from the Ogden Tabernacle. 

James Dunn gives this description of life in a large extended family household: "James Brown was not only a polygamist, but everything around him was built on a polygamist plan. His barn was divided into separate apartments where each family could take care of their own cows. His yard were so arranged that each wife could have her own pigs and chickens to themselves., if they wished; or they could let them run together and divide up according to their own needs and wants, which was indeed the case in his family. His house was formed and designed to have each family in a separate part where they could live and be as independent of each other, if they wished to, as any single family could be. And all the improvements that he made, either indoors or out, were made after this plan. All shared alike in the supply of provisions according to the number in the family. A sack of sugar was divided into three parts and each got their quota. A beef was killed with the same object in view. If a dress was bought for one wife, the others got the same. Besides, he gave each family a weekly allowance to buy the hundred and one nic-nacks that are needed in every house; all were treated alike as far as measures and weights could divide—and that was abundant as far as his limited means could go." 

Esther Jones died on October 6, 1898 in Ogden. Weber, Utah.

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Sources:

PAF - Archer files  = Captain James Brown + (3) Esther Jones.

Five Hundred Wagons Stood Still --Mormon Battalion Wives by Shirley N. Maynes, 1999. 

Information obtained from a history written on James Brown by Gladys Brown White – found at the Utah
Historical Society – 300 Rio Grande Salt Lake City, Utah.

Letter sent to Abigail Abbott Brown from James Brown – August 6, 1847 – in possession of Lois E. Jones and Myron A. Abbott, Jr. – James requesting Abigail to care for Esther Jones Brown – Historical Records Survey at Ogden, Utah.

Heart Throbs of the West – Daughters of Utah Pioneers Publication – Daughters of Utah Pioneers Headquarters – Salt Lake City – Esther crossing the Plains – Vol. 8 p. 420 

Nauvoo Marriages Proxy Sealings 1843-1846, by Lyndon W. Cook. Published by Grandin Book Co. Esther Jones Roper at Page 58-59,

A Concise History of the Mormon Battalion in the Mexican War by Sgt. Daniel Tyler – Roster of Company C pp. 121-122 – James Brown Traveling to California After His Arrival to Salt Lake on July 29, 1847 pp.311-316 

Edward Tullidge – Utah Historian – "The Purchase of the Miles Goodyear Fort by Captain James Brown" –Utah Historical Society – 300 Rio Grande – Salt Lake City, Utah. 

Weber County – Beehive History 14 – p32 – Utah Historical Society – 300 Rio Grande – Salt Lake City, Utah. 

Deseret – 1776-1976 – A Bicentennial Illustrated History of Utah by the Deseret News – "Brigham Young’s View on Colonization and the Settlement of Ogden" pp. 70-71. 

Janet Dixon – The Plural Wife by James Dunn – Tooele, Utah – "Living in a Polygamist Household" – p. 9 

Family Group Sheet – L.D.S. Family History Library – The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah.

http://www.columbiagypsy.net/enowin.htm Genealogy and biography of Enos and Nancy Jones Windsor.

Story about Captain James Brown in the Ogden Standard Examiner, 31 AUG 1970.

Nauvoo Marriages Proxy Sealing 1843-1846, gives Robert Roper as Esther Jones' first husband.

ROPER OR RAPER ? ? ? Over the years, family names have often changed and mutated. The surname 'Roper' is no exception and has been written in a variety of ways throughout the centuries. A simple explanation would be that Roper was applied to people that made ropes 'rape maker' where the rape plant was used to make rope, consequently Raper was changed to Roper. More conclusive evidence shows a line of mutation from 'Musard' (probably of Norman descent) to 'Rubra Spatha, Rospear, Rouspee, Rooper, Ropere and finally Roper'. Many of these names are still in use today. One 'John De Rubra Spatha or Rosper' performed eminent service under King Edward III in Scotland and was duly rewarded with wealth in 1356. His only daughter married 'Richard Furneaux', who declared by covenant that his children should forsake their paternal name and assume that of 'Roper'. In 1377, the English King called on his subjects for money to furnish ships in his wars against the French and Scots. John Ropere of Canterbury and Henry Ropere of Redying were both able to provide large loans. Succeeding generations of the Roper family prospered from the fourteenth century onwards and members were assigned and rewarded with considerable roles of influence within the nation. In 1603, John Roper was knighted, and then in 1616, he was advanced to the dignity of 'Baron of the Realm' by the title of 'Lord Teynham', which continues to this day. A clear-cut link between these influential and heraldic characters and our Roper line would be very nice, but this is currently difficult to establish. However, we have traced our ancestral line back to the early 1800s and a location in the rolling hills of ‘Dorset, England’. Evidence portrays a strong and supportive farming family within an idyllic rural setting. They appeared to be educated, had good business skills and held responsibility within the local Church. Sources: The Roper Family (1960, The Research Publishing Company, London - reproduced from an old book). The Ropers of Sterling and Rutland, by Ella E. Roper, 1904. Dorset Records Office, Family documents and recollections. Another explanation is that when the name Roper was written the connecting line from the "o" to the "p" would hang down low so as to cause questions whether the letter was an "o" or an "a". When being interpreted, sometimes Roper, sometimes Raper was printed. Copyright 2001 www.OrsonPrattBrown.org