Brown's Fort

Front Gate to Brown's Fort on north side

View of Brown's Fort from top of Sand Hill

Rendezvous Re-enactment at Brown's Fort

Rendezvous at Brown's Fort

"Schoolhouse" cabin on northwest corner of fort

"Home" cabin on northeast corner of fort

"School" cabin interior - visit by CJB's great, great, great granddaughters

"Home" cabin interior

View north of south side of Brown's Fort

Garden on east side of Brown's Fort

BEGINNINGS ......

Members of the Mormon Battalion passing through the various western states took note of places that would make good pioneer settlements. They proved to be some of the most outstanding colonizers. Captain James Brown who led the sick Battalion and the Mississippi Saints into Utah set out on August 9th [1847] for San Francisco by way of Fort Hall [near what is Pocatello, Idaho today]. While passing through Weber Valley, he was so impressed with Buenaventura, that he approached Goodyear with a proposition of buying. Goodyear was not over anxious; later President Young definitely instructed the authorities who remained in Utah to buy the Fort, which sale was negotiated by Captain James Brown, Henry G. Sherwood, Daniel Spencer, and Ira Eldredge. The money was provided by Captain Brown who had returned from California."--Heart Throbs of the West, Vol. 12, 1951, Page 208]

After he returned from his duties at Sutter's Mill in California, Captain Brown purchased Miles Goodyear's cabin and fort in November 1847. Brown retained all the livestock and 300 acres of the immense amount of land [225 square miles] he had purchased from Goodyear. Brown gave the rest of the land to new colonists without cost as they came north to settle. The purchase price of $1,950 for the Goodyear homestead was paid from Captain Brown's officer's pay, pay for laundress Mary McRee Brown, and that of his soldier sons, Alexander and Jesse, as well as from business conducted by Captain Brown while in California.

Before Brigham Young left for Winter Quarters on August 26, 1847, he left instruction for Goodyear to be bought out. Not until Captain Brown returned with the Battalion pay was there enough money in the Utah Territory to pay the purchase price.

The balance of the $10,000 in Spanish doubloons collected in California included the balance due to the Sick Detachment (the remaining portion that had not been collected when they were in Pueblo).  The pay collected was distributed to the soldiers of the Sick Detachment of the Mormon Battalion. See Robert Steele journal, and others.

Captain James Brown sent his two sons, Alexander Brown and Jesse Brown, to take possession of the property on 12 January 1848. Two months later, on 6 March 1848, Brown moved his family, accompanied by the families of Henry C. Shelton, Louis B. Meyers, and George W. Thurkill, into the fort region on the Weber River. A few days later, the families of Robert Crow, Rueben Henry, Artemus Sprague, Daniel Burch, William Stewart, Mrs. Ruth Stewart, and Urban Van Stewart followed to the new settlement. The Brown family occupied Goodyear's fort and the other settlers built homesteads along the Weber River to the south and as distant as Mound Fort, two miles to the north beyond the Ogden River. The first home in Ogden outside of the Goodyear's fort was built by Captain James Brown and Datus Ensign

After the purchase of Goodyear's fort, Captain James Brown had been appointed bishop over the ward area designated as Brown's Settlement Ward or the Weber River Ward in 1849 by Brigham Young and the ruling council in Salt Lake, and he was also elected to be the civil leader of the Weber River Precinct. Early in 1850 the Brown family abandoned the old Fort Buenaventura of Miles Goodyear and relocated on higher ground near present 29th Street and west of Wall Avenue because of flooding of the Buenaventura settlement by the Weber River.

"The bridges erected across Weber and Ogden's Fork last winter sailed down stream the first spring freshet; and the crossings are all occupied by ferries. Brown's Fort was vacated, on account of water, at our last advices. We have never before known the water as high in the Basin, as the present season, and the past week." --Deseret News, June 8, 1850, page 15.

This new fort consisted of about a block of houses built in the fort plan. Besides the Brown family, the new fort drew several other families to this more southern location. At that same time James Brown also moved one of the original Goodyear cabins to the Tabernacle Square near present Grant Avenue and 22nd Street where some of his family lived. That same building was moved several times through the years, but presently stands near where Brown had once placed it on Tabernacle Square.

The Weber River site of Fort Buenaventura was the first of the Mormon settlements in Weber County; but during a visit to the Weber River community in September 1849 by Brigham Young and other Mormon leaders, including Heber C. Kimball, Jedediah M. Grant, and Thomas Bullock, it was decided where the city of Ogden would be located, Thomas Bullock wrote on 2 September 1849.