Question:Is John Brown one of the nine men portrayed on “This is the Place Monument’?
Answer: John Brown, Jr. was born October 23, 1820, in Sumner County, Tennessee, the thirteenth of fifteen children, born to John and Martha Chipman Brown.
John was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by George P. Dykes in July 1841 in Perry Co., Illinois. He moved to Nauvoo the following October. He served a mission in Alabama, Tennessee and Mississippi, and baptized a large number of converts.
John married Elizabeth Crosby in Monroe Co. Mississippi on May 21, 1844, and they had ten children together. John returned to Nauvoo in 1845 with others responding to a call for volunteers to help defend the city and to complete the Temple. A few months later he brought his wife to Nauvoo. Their first child, Samuel, was born and died in August 1845 in Nauvoo.
John stayed in Nauvoo until January 1846. With the exodus from Nauvoo imminent, he left for Mississippi again. William Crosby and John Brown led the Mississippi Saints from Mississippi, as far as Fort Pueblo, where they spent the winter. John continued on to Winter Quarters. Most of this group continued on in the spring of 1847, under the direction of Amasa Lyman, who was sent from Brigham Young’s Vanguard Company to collect them, arriving in Utah in July of 1847. The Howard Egan account indicates that at the time the company met up with Brigham Young’s 1847 Company, after wintering at Fort Pueblo, that there were 161 people in the Company.
At Winter Quarters, John joined Brigham Young’s Vanguard Company. He was Captain of the 13th Ten. John was one of the nine men sent into the Valley to search out the best site to plant potatoes and grain. He is listed as one of the nine horsemen on the “This is the Place Monument.’ After arriving in the valley, John immediately returned to Winter Quarters, where he and his wife, joined with the Willard Richards Company in the summer of 1848. John served as Captain of the 4th Ten in that Company.
John Brown, Jr. Rifle
John Brown, Jr. Older
In 1851 John headed his own Company with 50 wagons when it began its journey from the outfitting post at Kanesville, Iowa (present day Council Bluffs). This company was a Perpetual Emigrating Fund Company. In 1853, John again captained his own emigrant Company. About 303 individuals were in the company when it began its journey from the outfitting post at Keokuk, Iowa.
John settled his family in the Cottonwood area of the Salt Lake Valley. He married Amy Snyder in February 1854, and they had five children together. On March 3, 1857, John married Margaret Zimmerman, and they had eleven children together. John then served as a missionary to England returning in 1862.
About 1867, John was asked to help explore southern Utah, and moved his family to Pleasant Grove, Utah. John became mayor of Pleasant Grove and served for 20 years. He was Bishop of the Pleasant Grove Ward for 29 years. He died November 4, 1896, at age 76 in Pleasant Grove. He was buried in the Pleasant Grove Cemetery.
Source: Excerpts from “Life Sketch of John Brown, Jr.,’ FamilySearch.org; Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel; FindAGrave.com
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