Chapter 1
Ancestors, Origin, and Characteristics

I am proud to say, my people were always peace officers and on the side of the law.

My mother Phebe's family were the Abbotts from Stanton County, State of New York, colonizers before revolution days. They were farmers come from England. When the time came to fight for freedom, they fought and were in the foremost ranks of the American Revolution.

My [great, great] grandfather on my father's side was William Brown Sr., came over from Edinburgh, Scotland (in early 1700's). They first settled in the state of Vermont. He, too, was a revolutionist, and a defender of the Constitution, and his grandson [James Brown Sr.] fought in the War of 1812 [actually the Revolutionary War 1775-1783] along the eastern seaboard. This grandson, [James Brown Sr.] married the widow of his comrade-in-arms, [John Emmerson or Emberson,] who fell in action by his side.

Later he went to North Carolina, near Raleigh, took up land and farmed. Here my father, James Brown Jr., was born in the year of 1801, September 30, and reared in a farming community.

One of the outstanding characteristics of my parent's people was a love of individual freedom, and it had not died out in the clan, as yet.

When father was in his late teens, he was made Sheriff of the county and served for one term. Later he became a Baptist preacher. Sheriff-preacher, this combination has existed over and over again in our family.

I guess I am the first cattleman-miner-farmer in the family.

In 1834 the Mormon Elders were going through North Carolina preaching the Mormon faith. My father heard them and they showed him the Mormon book which is an abridgement of all the good books and at their words. Such a fire burned within him that he knew without doubt this was the truth, and he became a convert to the Mormon faith.

He could not stay in North Carolina after he embraced the Mormon Faith because the spirit of gathering at a central point for spiritual guidance and inspiration and protection was upon all the Mormon people, and he moved with them to Nauvoo, Illinois where the colonists of the Mormon faith were settling, and he helped build the city.

It was not long before my father was to be made to suffer for having embraced the Mormon faith, but he was a very determined man, high-principaled and courageous.

He came to Nauvoo when there was just a small settlement of about 5000 souls.

It was a strange coincidence, my father's family came from North Carolina and Grandfather [Stephen Joseph] Abbott came from New York. They did not meet till they came to Illinois yet almost immediately they became fast friends.

They were members of the same quorum of priesthood and they were sent on a dangerous mission together. On this trip they learned to know and, of course, love each other, and they drew up a covenant to take care of each other's family in case anything happened to either.

When they returned from their mission they built a home together and one family lived on one side, and the other occupied the other side. They became closer and closer, when my father was away my grandfather Abbott [to-be] would see that the Brown family did not suffer from lack of food or fuel, and when my grandfather [to-be] was away, my father took on the same obligation toward the Abbott family.

When the Mormons had achieved prosperity by their unfailing industry and good habits, and built Nauvoo into a thriving community, the drivings and mobbings began, headed by envious, established ministers of [other churches.]

The principal disagreement between the Mormons and Protestant ministers seems to have been that the ministers did not believe in revelation, they only believed in the Bible.

Too, the Mormon faith was very naturally against slavery, and the Mormons fought it politically, and any other way they could. There was also the jealousy of the established religions for where the Mormons settled they made converts through their good example and the way of life that they offered to simple folk.

Joseph Smith, the prophet of God, was murdered by a mob and his people were driven out into the desert in the middle of the night on a bitter-cold winter evening when the Missouri River was frozen solid.

In the meanwhile [1843] grandfather [Stephen Joseph] Abbott was killed while floating logs down the Missouri River, for the building of the Nauvoo temple and my father prepared to take up the burden of Stephen's family [wife Abigail Smith Abbott and their eight children].

With the rest of the Mormons, father emigrated with the Abbott family west.

In 1846 father found himself west of the Missouri River at Winter Quarters in Indian territory, near Omaha, Nebraska, when [the U.S. government in] Washington declared war on Mexico.

Captain Allen of the United States Army asked for 500 volunteers and father volunteered and was made Captain of [the Mormon Battalion] Company C.

There were in all five Mormon Battalions.

In 1846 and 1847, these Mormon Battalions crossed the Missouri River and started west for California, a distance of 2,000 miles and traversed the desert, an unparalleled feat for infantry, over desert country.

.........

Brigham Young oversees the 500 volunteer Mormon Battalion registration.

In 1852 CJB was called on a mission to British Guinea but due to extreme prejudice were not allowed to go, spent first part of mission in Panama. He may have been sent to England during the second part of his mission. Later he went to New Orleans, then on to New York where he served as Emigration Agent for saints moving west to join Zion.  While in New Orleans he may have met two of his wives, Cecelia Cornue and Mary Wollerton.

The Millennial Star, Volume XV, pp 169, 358, 361, 443, 443:

SIXTY-FIFTH COMPANY, -- DEPARTURES. The International, 425 Saints. The ship International, Captain Brown, with a company of four hundred and twenty-five Latter-day Saints, under the presidency of Elder Christopher Arthur, sailed from Liverpool, February 28th, 1853. Elder John Lyon, author of the "Harp of Zion," and formerly president of the Glasgow Conference, and R.G. Frazer, who had presided over the missionary work in Londonderry, were included in the company. They arrived in New Orleans on the twenty-third of April. During the voyage seven death, seven births, and five marriages took place...

...From New Orleans the Saints continued the journey up the Mississippi River to Keokuk, Iowa.

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