Capt James Brown, 1801-1863

James with two of his sons, Jesse and Alexander, volunteered to serve as part of the Mormon Battalion. One of his wives, Mary McRee, and her son George David, also traveled with the Mormon Battalion. His other three wives and children stayed at Council Bluffs until they could be brought to the Salt Lake Valley. Mary’s job was to do the laundry for 16 men. James was the Captain of Company C, and his two sons served in his company as privates. At Santa Fe, James was one of a few placed in charge of a sick detachment which was sent to Pueblo, Colorado to spend the winter. Mary accompanied him and cared for the sick men. The next spring, the company traveled by way of Fort Laramie and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley five days after the Brigham Young Pioneer Company.

In 1852 he was sent to British Guinea on a mission. He sailed from San Diego to Panama. Being unable to ship for British Guiana, he and Elijah Thomas embarked for Jamaica. They proceeded to New York where they landed in 1853. While in Panama, James contracted Yellow Fever, he eventually recovered, but he finished out his mission in the Eastern States. He was then called as an emigration agent for the Church. He returned to the Salt Lake Valley in the fall of 1854. He traveled home as Captain of the James Brown Company.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Establishing a Refuge in Deseret

Church History In The Fulness Of Times Student Manual, (2003), 337–35

When Captain James Brown arrived from California with approximately $5,000 in Mormon Battalion pay, the council appointed a group to take some of the money to southern California to buy cows, mules, wheat, and a variety of seeds. The council also approved the use of $1,950 to purchase the Miles Goodyear ranch and trading post on the Weber River thirty-five miles north of Salt Lake, eliminating a possible obstacle in settling that large and promising area⁴.

During the fall of 1847, two routes to California were traversed by Mormon companies. Captain James Brown accompanied Samuel Brannan along the northern trail back to his colony at San Francisco. Jefferson Hunt, senior Latter-day Saint captain of the Mormon Battalion, led a group of eighteen men to southern California to secure cattle and other needed supplies. Hunt was successful in reaching the Chino Rancho by way of the Old Spanish Trail, although members of his party were forced to eat some of their horses to survive.

Within a year of the pioneers’ arrival, small towns were settled in the southern part of the Salt Lake Valley and also in what became Davis and Weber counties to the north. One of these, Brownsville, named in honor of James Brown, grew into Utah’s second largest city (later called Ogden in honor of Peter Skeen Ogden, a fur trapper). Other colonists joined the Brown family to establish Brownsville, and they successfully raised wheat, corn, cabbage, turnips, potatoes, and watermelons with seed brought from California. They also milked about twenty-five cows and were the first Mormons to produce cheese in the area. This produce helped fellow Saints in the Salt Lake Valley survive the starvation period in 1848–49.

James Brown Company, 1854

10 December 1849

2 October 1910

Adams, James William

8 April 1812

1 June 1891

Adams, Julia Ann