Life of a Pioneer: Being the Autobiography of James S. Brown

by James S. Brown

I was born on Independence Day, July 4, 1828, in Davidson County, North Carolina, U.S.A. My father was Daniel Brown; he was the youngest son of his father's family, and was born in Rowan County, North Carolina, June 30, 1804. My father's father was James Brown, a native of Rowan County, North Carolina, 1757 being the year of his birth. His wife was the widow of a Revolutionary War soldier named Emerson, who was killed in the war for American independence, leaving his wife and two children, Margaret and John Emerson. My grandfather James Brown married the widow Emerson, who bore him nine children—three sons and six daughters—Jane, Polly, Nancy, Susan, Patsy, William, Obedience, James (captain of Company C, Mormon Battalion), and Daniel (my father); her maiden name was Mary Williams. All the family had an excellent reputation, being upright, thrifty, and good and industrious citizens.

With these introductory remarks, I will proceed to an account of my boyhood's days. I was reared at the farming and stock business, also at getting out saw timber and wood for cooperware. My parents had moved from North Carolina to Brown County, Illinois, in the autumn of 1831, and had purchased an extensive tract of land. We were a large family; the country was then wild and with very few inhabitants, and the climate was unhealthy; so it was with great effort that father and mother succeeded in making a home and gathering about them the comforts of life.

We were frontier settlers, and while father had his pick of land, he also had the hardships and privations of a new country to endure. There were no churches or schoolhouses nearer than ten miles from our home, and grist mills and blacksmith shops were equally distant. Thus the family was reared without the advantage of schools, or of church-going religious training. But we were thoroughly acquainted with border life, with hunting, fishing, and all the sports indulged in by hardy pioneers, and even learned to shake terribly from the ague, and burn with fever spells, while we were well dosed with quinine and calomel, and had enormous doctor's bills to pay.

In our operations we trained horses and cattle to work, stocked our own plows, made our own harrows, rakes and forks, braided our own whips from the pelts of wild beasts which we ourselves dressed, raised our own honey, and made our own sugar, with some to sell. We had a good sugar orchard, and plenty of wild fruits and nuts for the gathering. As the first settlers of new countries are more or less subject to dangers from outlaws, wild beasts, and savage men, we found it important to be well armed, and on the alert day and night to defend life and liberty.

Thus we learned the use of firearms and the tomahawk. My father was an expert with the old Kentucky rifle, and some of his boys were not far behind him; he trained them always to shoot with a rising sight, to keep cool, and always to have their powder dry and plenty of it. He also taught us to tell the truth, and used to say: "Be honest, stand up for your rights, and fight for your country and friends."

In the year 1835, people began to settle in around us, and then the circuit riders, as they were called—the ministers—commenced to call around and hold meetings in private houses. There were Baptists, Freewill Baptists, Methodists, Campbellites, and others. From 1836 to 1838 some small churches and schoolhouses were built, so that we began to get spiritual food, such as it was; and also some schooling, with the benefit of the hickory rod that always was kept "in soak," so to speak, and woe to the unruly student when it was called into service!

So far as the author is concerned, he managed to get along without the rod the short time he was permitted to attend school. He was kept close at work on the farm in summer, and in the winter months was engaged getting out timber and hauling to market the farm products. Once his feet were frozen so that he lost every nail from his toes. As to the religious teachings of the time, there was a great deal of thundering and thundering, but it failed to indicate any lightening of the author's path, for he fished and hunted on the Sabbath day, just the same.

Some time in the '30s we began to hear a little about false prophets, a new religion, miracles, money-diggers, thieves, liars, miracle-workers, deceivers, witches, speaking in tongues and interpretation of the same, walking on the water, and visits from angels. As time went on, all these things were combined to form a grand excuse for raising mobs to expel the new Church from the borders of civilization. Then came news of murder, rapine, house-burning, and destruction of towns and cities in Missouri. There were great "showers" of stars in the firmament about this time. On popular rumor, and from hearing only one side of the story, almost everybody decided that such a previously unheard-of people as the Mormons ought to be shot or burned at the stake. This was the sentiment to be found on every hand.

As a culmination of these things came the tidings that the Missourians had driven the Mormons from the state of Missouri into Illinois. A little later, and a Latter-day Saint Elder named Jacob Pfoutz entered the neighborhood of my Uncle James Brown's home, converted him, his wife, and several of the neighbors. This Elder was brought down by my uncle to see his two sisters, Aunts Polly and Nancy Brown.

Elder Pfoutz was given permission to preach in the schoolhouse about three miles from my father's house. The news spread like a prairie fire that the Mormons had come and would preach on Friday. I think this was in the autumn of 1840. I was at my aunt's at the time, and decided to go and hear the strange preacher. Like most of the people, I went out of curiosity, more than anything else. I had just turned my twelfth year, and had begun to take some interest in religion, going to every meeting for which I could obtain permission from my parents, yet not thinking for a moment but that all religions were right.