Lovina Wilson Brown was born on July 15 [18], 1831 at Perry, Richland County, Ohio. She was the oldest daughter of Lewis "Luke" Dunbar Wilson and Nancy Ann Waggoner, in a family of eleven. Her father was a cooper by trade [A cooper is a person who makes or repairs barrels and casks.] [Joseph Smith's horse was named Lewis Dunbar, coincidence?] Lovina was a tall, slim woman with a very kind disposition.

Her father's parents lived in Willsborough, New York, but moved from there to Perry, Ohio, in the yeare 1825, in order to find farms for his sons. It was there that Lovina's father met Nancy Ann Waggoner and in the year 1830 they were married.

On May 23, 1836 her parents were baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Elders Oliver Granger and George Albert Smith. At this time Lovina was a girl of five years of age.

In August 1837 her parents, with their family, started for Missouri, the land of Zion. In October they arrived at Tinney Grove, Caldwell County, Misouri, having traveled 300 miles. There her father built a cabin, where they lived thru the winter. The following August her father returned to Ohio to try to sell his property. In the meantime Governor Lilburn W. Boggs of Missouri had ordered all Mormons out of the state and much persecution followed. In February 1839 they left Missouri for Nauvoo, Illinois to make their home. At this time there were five children in the family. While living in Hauvoo two more children were born, Lewis Dunbar Wilson, Jr. and David Waggoner.

Lovina's parents were very faithful workers in the church and her husband helped to build the Nauvoo Temple. He was a close friend of the Prophet Joseph, being a member of the Prophet's body guard and his young children enjoyed the privilege of the Prophe holding them on his knee and telling them stories.

Lovina's father was chosen as one of the High Council as given in a revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith at Nauvoo on January 19, 1841. (See Doctrine and Covenants - Section 124, Verse 131 and 132: "And again, I say unto you, I give unto you a high council, for the corner-stone of Zion-- Namely, Samuel Bent, Henry G. Sherwood, George W. Harris, Charles C. Rich, Thomas Grover, Newel Knight, David Dort, Dunbar Wilson --Seymour Brunson I have taken unto myself; no man taketh his priesthood, but another may be appointed unto the same priesthood in his stead; and veriy I ay unto you, let my servant Aaron Johnson be ordained unto this calling in his stead -- David Fullmer, Alpheus Cutler, William Huntington."

As a young girl in Nauvoo, Lovina was among the first members of the Relief Society. Her father and his family were among the Saints when they ere driven from Nauvoo and left with the first camp on February 18, 1846, for Utah; they had lived in Nauvoo during the entire time of its rise and fall.  Her father was just able to be out of bed from a long sick spell and her mother was not in much better condition. They suffered many hardships crossing the Mississippi River on ice. After a tedious and hard journey of two or three months with seven children, five of them without shoes and not much clothing, with a borrowed team and wagon and few food supplies, consisting of five bushels of parched corn meal, 100 pounds of flour, and 25 pounds of pork, they reached Garden Grove, Iowa, with scarcely a days provisions ahead, suffering in all kinds of weather and sometimes not even a wagon to protect them from the storms.

At Garden Grove there were plenty of shade trees and grass and wild game to eat. Her father planted crops for the coming winter. He went to Bonaport and secured work to earn food for his family. He had built a cabin to live in. They remained in Garden Grove until May 1851 at which time they went to Kanesville, Iowa, a distance of 160 miles, and on their trip they endured great hardships with rain storms practically every night. It thundered with lightening and rained the hardest they had ever experienced, as they said the worst since the flood in the time of Noah. After twenty days of travel they came to Council Bluff, Iowa, where they settled, plowed the land and planted corn, potatoes and other crops. Her father started to build a house in July, 1851 and had to travel about twelve miles for more lumber. Returning the following day he found his wife very sick. While he was away she had given birth to a son, Samuel. She passed away that afternoon, leaving her new born son and eight other children. They had previously lost two of their children. Lovina being the oldest, at this time she was 20, the care of the family and new born baby was left to her.

On June 6, 1853, they started on their journey to the Salt Lake Valley, in the Daniel A. Miller and Cooley Campany. They arrived in Salt Lake on 27 Aughts 1853, where they remained only for a short time before settling on a farm about one and half miles west of Ogden, afterwards known as Wilson Lane in Weber County.

On October 23, 1854 Lovina married John Martin Brown [the Ist of III] in the Salt Lake Endowment House. [John was divorced from his first wife , Ann Foutz whom he had married in 1841, they had two sons: Daniel Franklin Brown who died in Salt Lake City at the age of 14 years in 1856, and Henry Jacob Brown born in Iowa in 1847 and died in Ogden in 1910.]

John Martin Brown was the first child of Captain James Brown and Martha Stephens Brown. Captain James Brown was captain of Company C of the Mormon Battalion who arrived in Utah five days after the arrival of Brigham Young. Captain Brown was the founder of Brownsville, later named Ogden [after Peter Skene Ogden]. Captain Brown had purchased, under the direction of the Mormon Church leadership, an area of land twenty miles square from Miles Goodyear in 1847.

John Martin Brown I, left Illinois a few years prior to this for the gold rush in California and in 1854 had arrived in Ogden with a pair of mules and about $1,700. 00 in gold dust. John Martin and Lovina lived in Ogden for a few years, then moved to Wilson Lane and later, in 1873, to West Weber, Weber County, Utah, where they engaged in farming.

Ten children, four sons and six daughters, of Lovina Wilson Brown and John Martin Brown:

Lovina was a fine needlewoman and good housekeeper. In those early days it was necessary to weave omost of their material for clothing and Lovina gathered the wool, washed and corded it and spun it into thread. As they had both black and white sheep she mixed the two colors and wove what was called gray linsay (sp) cloth. [linsey-woolsey was a coarse cloth made of linen and wool or cotton and wool.]

Soon after her marriage to John Martin he took another wife [probably the same day October 22 or 23, 1854], her cousin, Louisa Wilson. From this union six children were born. In 1864 John Martin Brown I took another wife, Lovina's sister, Almeda Wilson Daley, the widow of Moses Daley, who had two sons, George and James Daley. This marriage caused a lot of grief in Lovina's life, but due to her mild disposition and being a peace maker, she managed to get along.

Lovina's father passed away on March 11, 1856, less than three years after arriving in the Salt Lake Valley.

Lovina's husband passed sway on October 13, 1888 at West Weber. At this time all her children with the exception of the three youngest, Lewis, Charles, and Margaret, were married. Her son, Alexander, who remained a batchlor, owned a large ranch in Gray's Lake, Idaho, so she decided to move up there. She left West Weber in a covered wagon with the three children and settled down in that forsaken country.  It was from here that her three children were married, and she remained with Alexander and kept house for him. Some time later her son [Lewis "Luke" Dunbar Brown] lost his wife, leaving a young baby boy [born October 22, 1895 named Harry Sparks Brown], so Lovina took the baby and cared for him until her death on August 8, 1901, at which time the boy was [nearly six] years of age. He remained with Alexander until he grew to manhood and married.

Her son John [Martin Brown II] had tried to persuade her to return to Utah where she would have had a more comfortable life but she felt she must stay with Alexander. Therefore, she lived and died in that area never knowing or enjoying the finer things of life.

Sources:

PAF - Archer files = Captain James Brown + Martha Stephens > John Martin Brown I + Lovina Wilson < Lewis Dunbar Wilson + Nancy Ann Wagner (Waggoner).

Written by Lovina's granddaughter Delpha Brown Culley for the Daughters of Utah Pioneers Camp 40 in Weber, West Company, Utah. Submitted to this webpage by Erold C. Wiscombe.

Photocopy of Lovina's gravestone contributed by Erold Clark Wiscombe.

[Bracketed], bold, addiction, corrections and photos added by Lucy Brown Archer