ADDED BELOW - "OBEY VIDEO CLIP"
There are more twists and turns in All the BROWN tree than in my spanx on a good day. I have over 600 pages of the twisted tree. Here is the simplest form of history of BROWN genealogy.
It is complicated, so we will start slow. Yes, there are, many more wives and tree branches but let's get started with some facts. Grody announced on the show that there was no guidebook to polygamist marriages. (Insert confused face here) These are just the simple facts, albeit, very important to KODY'S history. Not decided what all I will disclose otherwise. They act so dang stupid it amazes me. Sometimes I wonder if just by studying, we all know more than they do. Remember when he acted so.... DUMB like, oh, we didn't know a thing about polygamy until my dad and mom decided to go into it? Never-mind his grandmother was an ALLRED, let alone even ALL their histories lead to polygamy. Now,let's just leave the good ole ALLRED tree for the season break.... don't give out any spoilers there folks! It's a bit dryer than most posts, but fascinating. since they took the trip, you'd think they'd be bursting with this info.
KODY WINN BROWN
*Dad: WILLIAM WINN BROWN and GENIELLE TEW (Whose mother was an Allred)
Has been revealed on the show they are Fundamental Mormons, with other wives.
*Grandfather" ALMA TAYLOR BROWN and EDITH WINN
*Gr Grandfather: EBENEZER BROWN and CLARA ANN LITTLE
*Gr Gr Grandfather:
JOSEPH GURNSEY BROWN and HARRIET MARIA YOUNG.
Here's an interesting tidbit: they were polygamists, and HARRIET MARIA YOUNG was the Dtr. of BRIGHAM YOUNG'S youngest brother, LORENZO. that would make BRIGHAM YOUNG - KODY BROWN's gr gr gr Uncle, and BRIGHAM'S Parents KODY'S gr gr gr gr (another story)
JOSEPH GURNSEY BROWN, eldest son of EBENEZER and ANN WEAVER,
was born November 8, 1824, at Dryden, Tompkins Co, New York.
His father's family became members of The Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints soon after it was organized....They were forced
to endure the persecutions of the early saints and were driven
from Nauvoo. EBENEZER joined the Mormon Battalion on June 26,
1846....On December 31. 1851, GURNSEY married 16 year old HARRIET MARIA YOUNG, the only daughter of LORENZO DOW YOUNG. (BRIGHAM'S BROTHER)
About five years later, in 1856, GURNSEY along with others was
asked to take provisions and meet the belated handcart companies
of English saints who were struggling to reach the Valley before
winter. These rescuers themselves had nothing easy. A forced drive
of 300 to 400 miles across wintry mountains. They crowded their
teams day after day looking ahead for the vanguard of walkers
but the mountain valleys reached on, snowy and empty, past Echo
Canyon on until they saw the shinning Uintah Mountains, and then
the Wyoming plains. At Fort Bridger a new storm stopped them.
That night of October 20th, Capt Willie and one companion, frostbitten,
exhausted and riding two worn out animals, appeared out of the
blizzard at fort Bridger. They told the men from Utah, storm or
not, if they did not come at once there was no use to come at
all.
They broke camp at once and started again. They did not stop
again until they reached the Willie Company. The night before
the rescuers reached them, nine more had died. The rest had not
eaten for 48 hours.
Among those GURNSEY brought back to the Valley were two young
ladies, ESTHER BROWN and ELIZABETH WHITE. BRIGHAM YOUNG
had asked
the settlers to open their homes and care for these Saints. So
to his home he brought ESTHER. His wife, HARRIET took her in with
her warm friendly way, caring for her until she again blossomed
out in all her loveliness. On January 18, 1857, GURNSEY married
ESTHER BROWN. On March 22, 1857, JOSEPH GURNSEY took his third
wife, LOVINA MANHARD.
GURNSEY was called on a mission to England in 1864 where he served
for nearly three years without purse or script, leaving three
wives with children. Soon after his return, President BRIGHAM YOUNG called GURNSEY and his family to assist with the colonization
of Moapa Valley, Nevada, known as the "Muddy Mission".
In the fall of 1867 GURNSEY and HARRIET and their eight children
ranging in age from 14 years to 8 months, made the journey to
help settle the town of St. Joseph. Here they lost their baby
daughter, Julliet, May 20, 1868.
This area was at that time a part of the territory of Deseret
as mapped out by the early church leaders and was a part of Kane
County, later Rio Virgin Co. A warehouse had been built on the
Colorado River at a point known as Call's Landing. It was intended
that the church would bring converts from Europe by steamships
through the Gulf of Mexico and up the Colorado River and unload
them at this point to continue the journey overland. The towns
on the Muddy would serve as way stations where emigrants could
rest and procure provisions for the rest of the journey.
The Muddy Mission proved to be unsuccessful, so far as colonization
of that area at that time was concerned, and due to excessive
taxes, extreme heat, shortage of water and other problems, the
saints were released from the mission and were free to return
to their former homes if they wished to. However, President YOUNG
strongly urged them to remain in the southern Utah area and help
re-settle the townsites that had been abandoned during the Indian
troubles in the 1860's. GURNSEY brought LOVINA and her children,
John, Delia and Will, to St. Joseph in the fall of 1870 while
ESTHER and her children remained in Draper.
LOVINA'S son JOHN gives an interesting account of their experiences
while in St. Joseph. He said when they arrived Aunt HARRIET and
her seven children were living in a two-room adobe house with
a dirt floor and a flag roof. The roof was made from cattails,
ten to twelve feet tall, cut down in the swamps, tied in bundles
about six inches in diameter and tied to the stringers and weighted
down, making a water-tight roof. They had a chicken coop made
of mesquite roots dug from the farm land. They used these roots
for fuel also, as there was no timber closer than seventy miles
and no willows for thirty miles. Flour was hauled from Draper;
but the "muddy" soil was rich and the climate so mild
that good gardens could be grown; sweet potatoes as large as small
pumpkins and his father said in jest that the watermelons grew
so fast they wore the vines out dragging them along.
When the settlers were released from their missions, the BROWNS
along with other Muddyites, started for Long Valley. GURNSEY left
LOVINA in the town of Washington, Washington County, and he and
HARRIET and their family moved on. Along the way they met HARRIET'S
brother, JOHN R. YOUNG. He persuaded GURNSEY to go to Kanab, and
they arrived there in 1871 and lived in a tent bought from Johnson's
Army. LOVINA and family were brought out later in the spring.
In Kanab the BROWNS secured two lots by squatting on them and
they cultivated another 30 acres of land and built a two-room
house with a room for each wife. Getting goods into the Kanab
area was very difficult because of geographical difficulties and
consequently most of the food and dry goods had to be produced
by themselves. Sugar was almost unknown to them for several years;
but good molasses was made from sugar cane that grew well here.
GURNSEY set up the first sorgum mill in the northeast part of
town. He planted orchards with all kinds of fruit trees, vines,
berries, and shrubbery, etc. The first year he lived in Kanab
he planted one acre of alfalfa and it made pig and chicken feed.
He also raised garden vegetables of all kinds and raised potatoes
in the Kanab Canyon and at what he called Cottonwood Canyon, a
nice little tract of land about twelve miles west of Kanab. He
had a few acres of meadow land in the Kanab Canyon he could mow
several tons of wild hay and the country was just a mat of all
kinds of wild grasses and herbs, so much so it was not necessary
to have but a few-tons of hay.
It was necessary to built not only dams and canals, but roads
and trails in order to get in and out of the country. The people
would arrange what they called road gangs and ditch gangs and
go out and build roads leading to Long Valley where hundreds of
people who left the Muddy Mission had settled. The only grist
mill was at Glendale, some twenty-seven miles over a set of rolling
hills and washes, with sand so deep for a distance of thirteen
miles that it would take four horses of good quality to move one
ton of anything as the wagon wheels would sink into the sand from
four to eight inches.
He managed to get along well for several years. President BRIGHAM YOUNG paid us a visit and he told the people to come out of the
Kanab Canyon and farm the Valley just south of the town. It was
a large fertile valley of very choice land. He told us to open
the canyon and turn out cattle in it and let them tramp the water
out of the meadows and swamps. He predicted that in a short time
we would have a flood that would come down the canyon and wash
it down to bedrock. We would build a canal around the town and
have water to irrigate the town and to reservoir the water. We
would be able to irrigate all the land in the valley and raise
plenty of everything we would need in the shape of vegetables
and cereals and hay.
It was a fact, for the flood came and washed out the sand and
swamps and cleaned the canyon out so that the water increased
in quantity sufficient to successfully irrigate some 1600 acres
of land. Afterwards we had another large flood which tore out
sand and rocks and mud down to a lower bedrock and increased the
water still more. We have taken up all the land available and
have plenty of spring water to irrigate all the land. It will
produce good crops of hay and some hardy vegetables such as corn
and potatoes.
The BROWNS belonged to the United Order in Kanab as long as it
lasted. While in Kanab each of the two wives added three more
children to the family. Esther passed away April 21, 1881.
In the 1880's during the raid in which the government officials
were confiscating church cattle and other property, GURNSEY was
appointed to take over the church cattle and sheep at Pipe Springs
and run them as his own. So HARRIET and the children lived at
Pipe Springs for several years and LOVINA remained in Kanab. The
Indians were hostile at this time and even though they lived in
the fort, at Pipe Springs, they were in constant danger.
In 1894 GURNSEY bought a large red brick home in the northeast
part of town. It had been built by Frank Rider and owned for a
few years by Henry Bowman. The BROWN'S ran a hotel in the home
with HARRIET and the girls providing meals and taking care of
the rooms and the men folk taking care of the teams in the large
barn and corral on the lot.
During all the years from 1870, Joseph Gurnsey Brown was a strong
factor in leading out with the people and assisting in the general
development of the whole country. He held responsible positions,
being rather a religious man, not too much so as to hamper or
hinder him from leading out in any honorable thing to be done.
He was one of the very hardy, and what is called the rough-and-ready
hut not the boisterous type. He was a level-headed, good, honest
man; a man who did everything possible to assist his neighbor,
either in or out of trouble, and to pay his honest obligations.
He was an American and believed in giving his undivided support
to his country and the President of the United States, whether
or not he belonged to his party.
Joseph Gurnsey served in the Bishopric of the ward for several
years and was always found willing to serve when the call came
from the authorities. He also served well in civic positions as
well, and in matters pertaining to colonization. Joseph Gurnsey Brown died of pneumonia, January 17, 1907, at
Kanab, Kane County, Utah, at the age of 83. He even has his own wiki spot: http://wiki.hanksplace.net/index.php/Joseph_Gurnsey_Brown
HARRIET MARIA YOUNG
History - HARRIET was the fourth child LORENZO DOW YOUNG and PERSIS GOODALL, both of New York State. LORENZO was the youngest brother of
BRIGHAM YOUNG.
From her diary we learn that her parents were
among the first to join the Restored Church and gather to Kirtland,
Ohio, which was then the Headquarters of the Church. From Kirtland they
moved to Missouri (Far West) and were driven from there to Illinois. "I
saw the Prophet many times and remember sitting on his knee more than
once as a child ... he loved children. When we lived with them in one
room in Missouri, I saw him ruffle brother John's hair and give him some
glorious promises. They were all fulfilled."
On October 1, 1838,
Maria's father was arrested with 29 others and all were sentenced to
death for their part in the Battle of Crooked River. Only because their
guards softened toward them were they able to escape at night.
The family moved to Quincy, Illinois, then to a place near Carthage and finally, in the fall of 1843 to Nauvoo.
"Mother
and we younger children were in Nauvoo when the Prophet and Hyrum were
killed in Carthage Jail by the mob. I can still sense and feel the
spirit of sadness that was over the whole place at that time. I wanted
to take my brother John and go to the Mansion House, about a mile away,
to see them while they lay in state, but mother was not able to go and
would not let us out of her sight because of the threats of the mobs."
HARRIET
crossed the plains in the first emigration company on the Emigration
Fund Plan with Bishop Hunter in charge. "Mother, Aunt Fanny, Nancy
Green, a cousin, and myself came with the Richards family. We started
July 5th . . . and arrived in Salt Lake Valley the 28th of September
1850 with no trouble to speak of enroute."
"When I first saw the
Valley it looked grand to me because I saw the whole valley with
majestic mountains rising all around and the blue lake in the distance
and I knew that here was home and rest."
"When the University of
Deseret (called the Parent School) met for its second term in the
Council House, I started to School, but after a couple of months, I
stopped and went to work for Aunt Fannie Young to help her and learn
dressmaking. While there I met JOSEPH GURNSEY BROWN, and we were married
on the last day of the year, Dec. 31, 1851 by (President) BRIGHAM YOUNG
at the home of Feramorz Little."
HARRIET was just seventeen, a
small beautiful girl with her hair in ringlets. In Draper, her first
child, Homer Achilles, was born on October 25, 1853, followed December
23, 1855 by Persis Ann.
In 1856 GURNSEY was asked along with
others to meet the belated handcart and wagon companies of English
Saints struggling to get to the Valley before winter. As he neared the
company he picked up two English girls walking ahead, LIZZIE WHITE and
ESTHER BROWN. Since they had no relatives in America he took them to his
home in Draper for the winter. On January 18, 1857 he made ESTHER his
second wife. On March 22, 1857 HARRIET'S husband married a third wife,
LOVINA MANHARD.
HARRIET was among others celebrating the 24th of
July in the Big Cottonwood Canyon in 1857 when word was brought that
Johnson's Army was coming. "My what excitement this caused. President
YOUNG quieted the people down and told them to go to camp and get ready
to start back to the City early next morning. He said he intended to be
the last to leave in order to see that all were safely on their way."
JOSEPH GURNSEY served a mission (2 1/2-3 years without purse or script) in
England, leaving his wives and a dozen children in the Lord's hands.
When he came home in 1867 BRIGHAM YOUNG asked him to take HARRIET and go
to the "Muddy Mission" promising that HARRIET'S health would improve.
The "Muddy," a desolate area west of Washington County at the mouth of
the Muddy River was a test of endurance and strength. It was so hot,
HARRIET said, that the milk soured before the cream could rise.
In
May of 1870 baby Juliette died. In the fall GURNSEY brought LOVINA down
to the Muddy; ESTHERr remained in Draper. In 1871 they were released
from the "Muddy Mission" when a survey disclosed the Muddy, an area now
known as Moapa Valley, to be in Nevada, and Nevada taxes were impossible
to pay.
They were persuaded by Harriet's brother, JOHN R. YOUNG,
to settle in Kanab where they arrived in February 1871. LOVINA and her
children joined them and the two families lived in a tent until a
two-room adobe house could be built, with one room for each wife. Later
another house was built for LOVINA. HARRIET gave $300, which she had
been willed, to GURNSEY to buy windows and hardware for LOVINA'S home.
In
Kanab, HARRIET had three more children. She raised ten of her eleven
children to adults, but buried four of her five sons in early manhood.
When ESTHER died in Draper in 1881 her oldest married daughter, Lettie
(Celestia) cared for her baby sister, Harriet Luetta, until she was 14
years old when she joined the other three children, Isaac O., James
Arthur, and Rose Anna. Harriet loved and cared for them as for her own.
Sorrow
came to GURNSEY and HARRIET on March 30. 1886. Their oldest son, Homer
Achilles, still unmarried, died of pneumonia at the age of 33. The
second son, Joseph Gurnsey Jr., died of consumption July 23, 1887,
leaving his wife Clara Little, and two children, Joseph Gurnsey III and
Curtie. Clara later married his brother, Ebenezer. On February 13, 1893
another son, Lorenzo Young, died after a long illness. He left a wife,
Elizabeth Haycock, and four children. Harriet related that after her
third son, Lorenzo, died a cloud hung over her and she was constantly
apprehensive. Less than a month later her youngest son, Feramorz Little,
only 21, was fatally injured during a horse race. She said, "Well it
has happened, now I can rest."
In 1894 GURNSEY bought HARRIET a
large red brick home built by John Rider. The thing HARRIET said that,
attracted her most about the house was the large deep basement with rock
walls, white-washed interior, and dirt floors that could be wet down
each morning making a cold place to keep milk and butter and other
foods.
Persis Ann and her children came to live in the home to
care for JOSEPH GURNSEY and HARRIET in their old age. GURNSEY died
January 7, 1907 and Persis Ann, after a short siege of pnumonia was
buried June 12,1919. Then Harriet's daughter, Angeline, passed away May
24, 1924. This was another hard blow. Her two grandsons, Gurnsey Spencer
and Homer Spencer and their wives were still in the home. Harriet moved
her things into a large east bedroom where she spent her time sewing,
reading, and visiting with friends and relatives, coming out for meals
and to visit with her grandchildren and great grandchildren.
HARRIET
lived a very busy life. Even in her last years he made her own dresses
and ironed them herself. She hemmed Temple veils, made quilts, some when
she was 90 and 91 years old. She loved to read and wrote many letters
At age 83 Harriet read Redpath's History of the World, volume by volume,
and enjoyed it all.
There was in her life a perfect blending of
all the graces and virtues. Complete honesty and sincerity, coupled with
a charming manner - a good companion for a quiet chat; the life of the
party in a social gathering; a gracious manner that made people love to
do things for her and with her; pride, which kept her always well
dressed, perfectly groomed, and as she would tell you in confidence,
kept her from putting on weight. She was a small woman with a head of
beautiful wavy hair.
There was a great love between Harriet and
Joseph Gurnsey. Joseph E. Robinson, her son-in-law, wrote, "How
Grandmother loved Grandfather Brown. To her he was the Beau Brummell
among men. One day she came to the store and asked, "Joseph have you any
good men's shirts?" I thought to tease her and said, "You mean men's
good shirts, don't you, Mother?" I'll never forget how she replied. "No!
I mean GOOD MEN'S shirts, for I want one for Gurnsey and he is the best
man I know."
Harriet said in closing her record, "I have had the
honor of knowing all the Presidents of the Church from Joseph Smith to
Heber J. Grant, and many other leading men and women, and now that I
have lived to a good old age and feel that my work is about done, I look
back and think that I would not care to live it over for I might not do
so well as I have done."
*Gr Gr Gr grandfather EBENEZER BROWN and ANN WEAVER.
Poligamists. fought in the Battalion with Allreds.
*Helped build the Kirtland Temple and experienced the Far West War.
EBENEZER BROWN was born 6 December 1802 in Herkimer County, New York, the son of
WILLIAM BROWN and HANNAH SWEET. We do not know anything of his early
life, but on 23 July 1823 he married ANN WEAVER, and they had four
children. Joseph Guernsey born 8 November 1824 in New York, Harriet born
6 February 1827, Norman born 6 February 1830, and John Weaver born 17
June 1837 at Peru, LaSalle County, Illinois. We find the family living
in Illinois at the time their youngest child was born. The next August
they moved to Far West, Caldwell County, Missouri, arriving in
September. The saints who reached Missouri were so brutally treated and
suffered privation, hardships and some of them sickness and death. Ann
Weaver Brown, the mother in this family, died 24 June 1842 at Quincey,
Illinois, and Ebenezer was left a widower with four young children.
When
the dispossessed saints returned from Missouri to Illinois, most of
them crossing the river went northward to Commerce (later Nauvoo), but
the Brown and Draper families went south and settled near Pleasantville,
Illinois, in the wide Mississippi River bottom. It was a place of
beauty and great fertility. The surrounding country lush with corn and
fruit and timber and one can hardly suppress regret that they ever had
to leave there. They were fast becoming economically independent, and
they enjoyed the full measure of religious liberty. Their Non-Mormon
neighbors were impressed with their industry, character and religion.
Ebenezer
was good friends with William Draper and his sister Phoebe Draper
Palmer, a widow with six or seven (6)children.
Phoebe had received a
patriarchal blessing from Joseph Smith Sr., and had been promised if she
was faithful and wise she would be blessed with a companion who would
be a man of God and that she would be able to bring up her family right,
that she would have good happy days. She kept the faith and was wise
and the blessing and promise was fulfilled in Ebenezer Brown, a
righteous and kindly man who gave her much and to whom she returned the
full measure of her devotion. Ebenezer and Phoebe were married 1842, and
she, no doubt, felt her patriarchal blessing had been fulfilled. There
were now ten children in this combined family, her youngest child was
eight while his youngest was five.
What their lives would have been
had they been permitted to remain in Pleasantville can only be surmised,
but it is almost certain that they would not have been subjected to the
trials and hardships that beset them and their children for more than a
century.
In the very year that Ebenezer and Phoebe joined forces the
church found itself in deep difficulties in Hancock County, Illinois,
where Nauvoo was located. Mob hostility had grown so fierce that Joseph
Smith sent out a call to all saints in outlying counties to break up
their settlements and move in to Hancock County. The Draper and Brown
families were in Pike County, where hostility had not yet developed, but
they could not ignore the call to their leader. Ebenezer and Phoebe
moved directly tn Nauvoo where they lived until about 1844. There they
had two more years enjoying the good will of the Non-Mormons in the
neighborhood, but tensions built up at Nauvoo to an alarming extent.
Hostility against the leaders of the church grew until it culminated in
the assassination of the founder of the church and his brother Hyrum.
After
this, it became manifest that the Mormons would have to leave the state
of Illinois.. In 1846 Nauvoo was abandoned under bloody and miserable
circumstances know to all. The whole Church membership began to move
wet-ward. On their way through Iowa they learned through BRIGHAM YOUNG
and HEBER C. KIMBALL who were returning to Nauvoo after establishing
camps on the Missouri River that Captain JAMES ALLEN of the United
States Army had requested the saints to furnish 500 able-bodied men to
march against Mexico with an army under the command of Colonel STEPHEN L. KEARNY. This call seems to have been resented until advice was given
that the formation of a battalion for service in Mexico which at the
same time would help to get the saints to their destination on pay from
the government.
To fully understand the heroism and suffering of the
battalion, they had just been forcibly ejected from their homes in
Illinois and were plunging into the wilderness almost empty handed. They
were short both on clothing and food and were poorly prepared for
military service. After the recruiting and enlistment, a gala farewell
party was held for the departing recruits in a large bowery at Council
Point, a trading post on the river, and the next morning 16 July 1846 a
march began which made history. EBENEZER and PHOEBE were part of the
enlisted personnel. EBENEZER was given the rank of sergeant in Company
A., and PHOEBE was given the title of laundress. The first leg of their
march was between Council Bluffs in Iowa and Fort Leavenworth in Kansas.
They marched southward along the river in temperatures exceeding 100
degrees for about 200 miles. It took them 11 days to reach Fort
Leavenworth where they were uniformed, armed, and given a 12 day rest.
Already the ordeal had began to tell. Many of the men were sick with
chills and fever and even the officers did not escape. Captain ALLEN
died 23 July 1846.
On 12 August 1846 the first attachment left Fort
Leavenworth headed for the Arkansas River which flows southeasterly
through Kansas. They reached the river 11 September 1846 and by this
time it was obvious that the sick soldiers would have to be dropped. The
battalion then left the river and struck Out southwesterly toward Santa
Fe. Food supplies were almost exhausted and the soldiers were put on
two-thirds ration. Good water was almost non-existent over this stretch
and they were reduced to drinking brackish water in whatever slough or
mud hole they could find it. Hunger and dysentery began to enfeeble the
men until they could hardly respond to call for guard duty at night. The
drugs administered to them often within abuse seemed to have a worse
effect than the disease and exhaustion from which they suffered. It was,
therefore, a great relief when they reached Santa Fe 9 October 1846
where they were given a ten day rest. They were allowed to rest and
recuperate at Santa Fe until the 19 October when the battalion began the
last and worst 1,100 miles of its appalling march. The terrain was
entirely unfamiliar even to the officers. Forage was scarce for the
animals and food was just as lacking for the men. By November some of
the teams died from pure exhaustion and poor and skinny as they were
they were eaten by the men. There were 56 who were sent back to Pueblo
more than 300 miles away.
The main body of the battalion marched on.
Their objective was Tucson in southern Arizona. After crossing the Rio
Grande River, they entered barren and rough terrain. Their food supplies
were exhausted. If an oxen died, they ate it including the hide which
they diced and boiled for soup. They also took the sheep pelts from
under their saddles and roasted them for food. They often marched all
day without water, and some of them died of thirst. Sometimes they sunk
wells as much as 300 feet in search of water.
Finally they reached
the Gila River which they followed to its confluence with the San Pedro
flowing into it from the south. In this area there were extensive
mesquite thickets full of wild cattle. Here at last was food in
abundance (meat that is) if they could get it. The bulls, however,
charged the men on sight and sent them scattering. Not until they
devised some strategy could they get meat. Even then it took volleys of
musket balls to stop a ferocious bull. In due time they had meat in
quantity, but they had nothing to go with it not even salt. Even so this
fare enabled them to reach Tucson where they had a brush (mostly
conversational) with a Mexican garrison which was subdued without
difficulty. Here they rested, got fresh supplies and hobbled on into the
western desert. All the way from Tucson to the confluence of the Gila
and Colorado Rivers the going was especially rough. Water holes were as
much as 75 miles apart. It was cactus country. Their uniforms were in
tatters and their shoes were worn out, so marching was something less
than pleasant.
When the battalion reached the neighborhood of present
day Yuma, they encountered large numbers of Pima Indians whom the
Mexicans had sought to incite to attack the battalion without avail. On
the contrary they had in their possession a store of goods and several
mules. They gladly turned the goods and animals over and also sold the
soldiers some of their own supplies. Refreshed again they began their
last adventure through the desert of the Imperial Valley. Lack of shoes
was their greatest handicap which they tried to overcome by making them
from rawhide, but they were not skillful as shoemakers and the hides
drying wrinkled in hard convolutions that were harder on the feet than
cactus so they hobbled on as best they could until 29 January 1847 when
they reached San Diego on the Pacific Ocean.
The next day their
commander addressed them and congratulated the battalion on its safe
arrival on the shores of the Pacific Ocean and the conclusion of its
march of over 2,000 miles. History may be searched in vain for an equal
march of infantry; nine-tenths of it through a wilderness where nothing
but savages and wild beasts were found, or deserts where for want of
water there is no living creature. There with almost hopeless labor we
have dug deep walls which the future travelers will enjoy. With crowbar
and pickax we have worked our way over mountains and hewed a passage
through a chasm of living rock. Thus marching half naked and half fed
and living upon wild animals (without salt to season your substance of
fresh meat) we have discovered and made a road of value to our country.
He
ended his speech by saying that there was work yet to be done and as
EBENEZER and PHOEBE had yet more than 1,000 miles of mountain and desert
terrain to travel before they could rejoin their families in Utah and
as they had no money with which to buy outfits or supplies to travel,
they re-enlisted and served in the Army until 14 March 1848 when they
were mustered out with renewed courage and a little money to start them
on their way to Utah. They traveled northward over an inland route until
they reached Sutter's Fort held by a German-Swiss citizen eager to make
improvements on his Spanish land grant so that he could qualify to hold
it under his new sovereign the United States of America. To develop it,
he needed laborers and they were grateful for the opportunity to earn
some money so they went to work. Early in 1848 Sutter sent a group of
whites and Indians to construct a sawmill on the American River 24
January 1848. EBENEZER and PHOEBE were among the first to enjoy its
fruits. They might have become wealthy Californians had they not been
bound to the cause of establishing a homeland for the Church to which
they were so strongly attached. BRIGHAM YOUNG feared the disintegration
of his people if they followed the lure of gold so in 1849 he called the
battalion members home. They obeyed. PHOEBE and EBENEZER reached Salt
Lake in the fall of the year, and though they crossed the rugged Sierra
Nevada Mountains, the forbidding Carson Sinks, and the Great American
Desert over which but few white men had ever passed and where the bones
of some who had tried to pass lay bleached in the sun,..they left no
record of their ordeal. They had made it to Zion and that was enough.
They had a happy reunion with their children in the fall of 1849.
Salt
Lake City was then about two and a half years old, but it was filled
with immigrants seeking places to build their homes. EBENEZER and
PHOEBE, no doubt, had an advantage; they were fresh from the gold fields
and, no doubt, had gold in their pockets. Their children whom they had
left on the Missouri River with Ebenezer's oldest daughter: Harriet, and
her husband had now reached the valley and together they began to plan a
new life. Ebenezer with his three sons, Joseph, Norman, and John set
out to find a new and unclaimed land because the land around the city
had already been distributed among the first pioneers. Together they
discovered unoccupied land and water in a large cove in the south-east
corner of the Salt Lake valley through which the water from four springs
ran which they forthwith appropriated and began immediately to build a
cabin and to prepare for crops to be planted in the spring. The waters
of the springs were joined and thereafter were known as South Willow
Creek.
Later they set to work building log cabins preparatory to
bringing other members of the family in. By the spring of 1850, Ebenezer
was ready to bring Phoebe down from Salt Lake to help build a permanent
home. He felt too that there was ample room for more people at South
Willow Creek than his and Phoebe's immediate families, so it appears
they asked all the Drapers they knew to join them. Other people were
soon attracted to this settlement. By 1852, the community on South
Willow Creek had grown to the extent that the church provided it with
ecclesiastical government and the name of the community was changed to
Draper. Phoebe was the first mistress and also conducted a day nursery
for young children.
In the meantime Ebenezer and his sons had been
profitably employed. Be-ginning in 1849 they began establishing a cattle
business. They cannily foresaw a good market for meat among the saints
and particularly a cash market in the hordes of immigrants beginning to
pass through Utah on the way to California.
By 1853 Ebenezer was a
man of substance and as such was able to care for some of the many
unmarried women in the church. At any rate in that year he married
Samantha Pulsipher, and in 1854 he married Mary Elizabeth Wright, and
had a sizeable family by each.
From John W. Brown's Diary we read: In
May 1856 Ebenezer and family was called on a mission to Carson Valley.
We traveled 16 miles and stopped at Mill Creek for the night. Tuesday we
spent most of the day in Salt Lake ate dinner with our aged brother
Kimball and left the city that night. We started each morning about 8 or
9 o'clock and traveled between 15 and 20 miles a day. The weather was
fairly good and feed and water were good most of the way. We made stops
at the Hot Springs, Kaysville, Weber, Ogden Hole, North Willow Creek and
Box Elder City, where we found a small company waiting for us. On May
11th the camp was organized with Ebenezer Brown as Captain. We mustered
23 able-bodied men and 13 wagons. May 12th the camp took up the line of
march. We have passed all the settlements, our mountain homes have
passed from our view, and we are wending our way towards a lovelier
country, a milder climate, but to a colder-hearted people.
We started
each day between 8 or 9 o'clock and made about 15 miles a day; some
days we made better time, other days travel was slower as the roads were
in poor conditions, being sandy, rough and hilly. We were blessed in
many ways; our teams were strengthened, and we met with few accidents
worthy of notice. We met a few Indians at the Pilot Springs and after
friendly greetings and exchanges made we continued on our way making
stops at Blue Springs, Stoney Canyon, Decesher Creek, Goose Creek,
Canyon Creek and Humboldt River. The weather was fair except for a few
days of wind and bluster. We found feed and water supplies to be fair
most of the way. On June 24th we arrived at Carson and pitched our tents
in Washeow Valley where a town is located and a number of saints have
taken up farms and commenced improvements. It is not known how long
Ebenezer remained here, but he probably was back in Utah in 1858 as he
wrote his son, John, to go to Carson Valley and collect the money owing
him for his improvements. He did not collect it, and had to work to earn
money to come home with. John had been on a mission to the Hawaiian
Islands.
When Ebenezer took his other two wives Samantha Pulsipher
and Mary Elizabeth Wright. Phoebe seems not to have minded this. But
Samantha died in 1870 leaving a family of minor children, whereupon
Phoebe at the age of seventy-three took the responsibility of raising a
third family in addition to discharging her duties as an officer in the
Relief Society. She brought them all to maturity, and in the process
earned the love and devotion not only of these children, but all of
Ebenezer's children.
Ebenezer was the husband of four women and the
father of 22 children, 13 sons and 9 daughters. He died 26 January 1878,
and was buried 29 January 1878 at Draper, Salt Lake County, Utah. He
had fought a good fight, and with thousands of other people like him had
lived that calumny and bitter prejudice once so manifest against them
died away and in its place came admiration and praised not only for
themselves, but for the Church which guided them through.
No road map for being a polygamist family? While I'm a bit feisty, might I add that even Janelle's "no clue" doesn't hold water, considering LDS is based on Joseph Smith. When watching "Big Love"... when Alby started getting messages from the hat...well, let's say it put this mess into perspective for me, and mad me spit my Pepsi out louder than Robyn can slurp.So, just as a quickie to add to yesterday's show, we know that Kody was kin to the Browns, Youngs, and Allreds, some of the most historical families in the roots of the religion.
Since my Family Tree Maker is on my other computer and I threw this together in a few short minutes. Thinking to myself, wouldn't of been wise to have more of a story to tell the kids along the way? How they relate? Makes more sense to fly east then drive west to experience the trails, but, then again, we are talking about the Browns. Seems if Kody had all this information, he serendipitously would be expediting its disclosure to us and of his importance and potential. They actually could of made it interesting.
Talk of Browns for now, we will save the others for later!
OTHER Brown Posts:
http://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Brown-Descendants-10879
http://www.orsonprattbrown.com/murphy-draper/ebenezer-brown1802-1878.html.
http://www.ourlittlecircle.com/journals/pdf/Joseph-Gurnsey-Brown-and-Harriet-Maria-Young.pdf http://historypreserved.com/draper_photos%201.htm
>
(Source: Find a Grave, From the Mormon Pioneers by Delbert M. Draper, genealogy work done privately Top Picture: ,Little crooked Christmas tree by Michael Cutting. http://wiki.hanksplace.net/index.php/Harriet_Maria_Young )
the cutting room floor. He does
realize this is the Brown's show and can respect that.
