David Browning's parents, Jonathan Browning and Elizabeth Stalcup Browning, were converts to Mormonism in early days. The father was a blacksmith and gunsmith, also a buyer and seller of lands, from which occupations he derived a good living and placed his family beyond the reach of want. The son, mechanically inclined, followed for a number of years, the trade of his sire. Jonathan Browning bore the distinction of being justice of the peace in every county where he resided. David, who was born January 19, 1829, in Davidson County, Tennessee, passed his early days on a large farm in Adams County, Illinois. He espoused the religion of his parents December 9, 1840. In 1842 he moved to Nauvoo, where he attended night school and grammar class, and during his boyhood and budding manhood, succeeded in acquiring a fair education.

The exodus of 1846 carried the Brownings to the frontier, where, in 1847, they built a two-story log house, about one and a half miles from Trader's Point, in the vicinity of Council Bluffs. They worked at blacksmithing until July, 1852, when they started for Utah, beginning their journey on the second day of the month. They were equipped with six wagons, drawn by oxen, cows and young steers, and were under the direction of Captain Henry Miller, Orson Hyde, and Jonathan Browning. David was included in a company of hunters, organized to supply the emigrants with game. The usual experiences, cattle stampedes, and buffalo herds, were encountered. "I have seen as many as forty thousand buffalo in one herd," writes Mr. Browning. "We met a herd one day and killed three, two of which, drawn up alongside the corraled wagons, made our company a good meal. We placed a notice on the carcass of the third animal, for the third company to help themselves to beef, giving the time when it was slaughtered." He arrived at Salt Lake City, September 27, 1852, and three days later settled at Ogden, which was ever after his home.

On January 27, 1853, David E. Browning married Miss Charilla Abbott [daughter of Abigail Smith Abbott Brown and Stephen Joseph Abbott]; president Lorin Farr, of the Weber Stake of Zion, performing the ceremony. During the summer and fall of that year, the young husband was occupied with others in guarding the trail and entrances to Weber valley, against Indians. He stood guard the last night before the practice was abandoned. The Indian chief, "Little Soldier", became a fast friend of the family, after the troubles were over. David was dubbed by the red men "Browning's Papoose". He repaired their guns and pistols, and by such acts won and retained their friendship.

An adobe house, still standing on 27th Street, was built by Mr. Browning in 1853. There his eight children were born. He purchased from his father a piece of land on the South Bench, paying for it the sum of one hundred and twenty dollars. Twenty acres that he owned sold for six thousand dollars, at the time of the boom, but the same land would now now bring the sixth part of that amount. The present home of the Browning family, south of the Union Depot, was erected in 1874-5.

In 1881 Mr. Browning was involved in a legal difficulty, growing out of a land transaction. He had bought a piece of land for one thousand dollars, and the water right was included in the purchase, but a company, after he had improved the land, claimed that he had no right to the water of Birch Creek, for using which, a criminal action was institued against him. He was fined in the Justice's court, but appealed in the District court, and a jury trial resulted in his discharge. On June 18, 1888, he brought suit against the company to recover for the time during which he was restrained from the use of water, and for what they had used of it. He succeeded in obtaining judgement but later sold the water to the company for $1,750.

Mr. Browning has spent most of his life at home, but in April, 1879, he and a part of his family toured southern Utah and Nevada, returning in time to attend the funeral of his father, on June 22nd of that year. In 1893 he went East with members of his family, visiting the World's Fair and other points of interest. His official record comprises membership in the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society, which he joined in October, 1860. The same year he was appointed captain and adjutant in the Weber military district, and afterwards [1866] was sergeant-major on the staff of Colonel William Nicol Fife [his Aunt Phebe's second husband] first regiment of the territorial militia.

In 1875 he was chosen sealer of weights and measures for Ogden City, and served the public in that capacity up to within a short time of his death [December 14, 1901], which took place a few years since, at this home in that town [of Ogden, Weber, Utah].

Copyright 2001 www.OrsonPrattBrown.org

"As men, we are all equal in the presence of death."
Publilius Syrus, Moral Sayings, First Century B.C.