John Martin Brown II was the son of John Martin Brown I and Lovina Wilson Brown. He was also the grandson of Captain James Brown of Company "C" Mormon Battalion, and founder of Ogden, Utah, and his wife Martha Stephens.

John was born in Ogden on September 21, 1860 in an adobe house. He was the first child of the family of ten.  When he was thirteen the family moved to West Weber, Utah. Times were hard. He could have only one pair of shoes a year so he went barefoot in the summertime. One day he saw a pair of shoes on the edge of a slough in West Weber. The water had receded and left them high, stiff, dry, and covered with alkali.  He took them home, carefully cleaned and greased them with tallow. Those shoes he wore on Sundays for two years.

He often went duck hunting. He plucked and saved the feathers from the ducks to make a feather mattress.

John Martin Brown II married Sariah Holmes from Nottingham, England, on the 3rd of December 1880. His father gave him a few acres of ground in Wilson, Utah. As years went by and his children were born he had an intense desire to own more land and felt a little indignant as he thought of his grandfather who had at one time owned all of Weber county, Utah.

When John was thirty-six years old, his uncle Moroni Brown sold him a forty acre farm in Roy for $1,400. Part of the farm was planted in alfalfa, fruit trees and some berries.

During the next few years John continued working his farm in Wilson and also working on the railroad in Ogden while the family took care of the Roy farm, driving back and forth, six miles daily, hauling water in a barrel from a spring in Kanesville.

One season the boys and girls planted sugar beets hoping for rains as there was no irrigation water. There were so many milk weeds and stink bugs and so few beets that it was truly discouraging. This crop was a failure.

They dug a large well twenty-five feet deep but the water was not fit to drink. They continued hauling water, doing their cooking and sometimes living in a tent a week at a time during the summers for a few years.

Another forty acres of land bordering his property was offered to John. This was a hard decision for him to make as he had just finished paying off the $1.400 and was not a man who wanted more debt. Yet he needed the land, the wells and the three room frame house for his family so he bought the property. They planted the new farm in alfalfa and later in tomatoes, and harvested bumper crops. In 1909 John took first prize for corn and oats in the Four State Fair, for which he received a gold medal.

In 1904 they began building a new red brick house with ten rooms and a bath! The bathroom was the great thrill as it was their first house with a bath tub.  They did not mind carrying water to put in the tub, it had an outlet to run the water out.

John and his brother, James were now partners drilling wells for Ogden residents. They drilled one at John's new home. This was a success. The water was cool and clear.

The Brown family lived a mile from the one room schoolhouse where all meetings and entertainments were held. They owned only a one seat buggy which was most inadequate for a family of eleven. Some of them rode, others had to walk a dusty lane in summer and a muddy one in spring and fall.

On May 18, 1913 John M. Brown was set apart as senior president of the Seventies residing in the Roy and Clinton Wards, Weber County, Utah. They were organized by Seymour B. Young as the 170th quorum of Seventy.

When Mr. Brown was fifty-five years of age he was called on a mission to England. He paid his own expenses. He left for England on June 16, 1915. Because of conditions during World War I he went as far as Baltimore, Maryland and labored for three months before it was deemed safe to cross the ocean.

In January and February 1916 the Germans began their raids in England. When a zeppelin carrying bombs was sighted whistles were blown and all the people ran to designated areas or to the streets.

During the night of September 28, 1916, as John sat alone in his room reading the scriptures, he heard the deafening blasts of exploding bombs, of people screaming, and siren screeching. As soon as the all clear signal was given he rushed to the scene of the disaster which was only one block away. There he saw the demolished buildings, the mangled bodies of the wounded, dead and dying. His eyes turned to one remaining wall of a church on which was inscribed, "A NEW COMMANDMENT I HAVE GIVEN UNTO
YOU THAT YHOU SHALL LOVE ONE ANOTHER AS I HAVE LOVED YOU."

John returned from his mission in August 1917 safely after crossing the Atlantic at such a hazardous time. His family met him in Ogden. The following year, Mr. Brown sold his farm to his sons and bought a home in Ogden.

Three sons, John Martin Brown III, William Brown, and Junius Brown, spent most of their lives in Roy.

John Martin Brown III was born on November 2, 1881 at West Weber, Weber, Utah. He married Mary Jane Christensen of Salt Lake City on June 23, 1909. He first bought an old home in Wilson Lane where they lived four years. He was a barber and owned his own shop in Ogden. About 1918 he built a house on his Roy property. He was active in church work. He was the father of nine children. John Martin Brown III died 17 Feb 1969 in Salt Lake City, Utah.

William Brown was born June 21, 1883 at Wilson Lane, Weber. Utah. He married Florence Adell Butterworth on November 28, 1908 in the Salt Lake City Temple She was a young English girl whom he converted in the prejudiced town of Rachdale, England, while he was on his mission. He built a home near his father in Roy. Although Florence had never been on a farm she adjusted to farm life.

William was not only a farmer but a painter and paper hanger. He sometimes worked on the railroad. They had eleven children. He had a sunny disposition and often made the remark that he never worried, somehow he knew things would turn out all right. William died 11 Feb 1970.

Junius Holmes Brown was born on April 10, 1891 at Wilson Lane, Weber, Utah. Junius was the main help on the farm after the older boys married. He married Lillie Unora Kendall on October 10, 1917 in the Salt Lake City Temple. He bought a farm, and built a house in Roy. They had two sons and two daughters. Junius died on June 2, 1976 in Roy, Weber, Utah.

Herbert Alexander Brown was born on April 2, 1885 at Wilson Lane. He married Margaretha Witteveen on June 29, 1913 in the Salt Lake Temple. Herbert died on October 31, 1974 in Ogden and is buried in the Ogden Cemteery.

Jesse Norman Brown was born April 17, 1899 at Wilson Lane, he died at thirty-five on January 31, 1934. He did marry.

Benjamin Gideon Brown was born June 16, 1897 at Wilson Lane. He married Hilda Mary Noble on June 10, 1920 in Salt Lake City. Benjamin died on 19 June 1975 in San Diego, San Diego County, CA and was buried on June 23 in Salt Lake City.

The five daughters of John and Sariah were stalwarts of Roy. They had ability, talent, and were always dependable. They worked in various organizations. Sariah Illandzia "Ila" Brown Lewis Lamm was a nurse, Delphia Ann Brown Culley,  Sariah Lovina Brown Spencer, and Verna Gladys Brown White were musicians, and Bessie Lora Brown Stoker worked in the YWMIA for twenty-five years.

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Parents

John Martin Brown 1824-1888

Lovina Wilson Brown 1831-1901

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