California Biographies San Bernardino County and Riverside County History of San Bernardino and Riverside Counties By: John Brown, Jr., Editor for San Bernardino County And James Boyd, Editor for Riverside County With selected biography of actors and witnesses of the period of growth and achievement. Volume III, the Western Historical Association, 1922, The Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, ILL This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for non-commercial purposes, MUST obtain the written consent of the contributor, OR the legal representative of the submitter. JOHN BROWN JR. John Brown Jr., eldest son of John Brown Sr., the famous Rocky Mountain explorer, hunter, and trapper, was born in a log cabin situated on the bank of Green- horn Creek, a tributary of the Arkansas River in Huerfano County, territory of New Mexico, now Colorado, on October 3, 1847. When about a year old he experienced an almost miraculous escape from the Apache Indians, and owes his life to the sub- lime courage of his devoted mother. This section of the centennial state was at that time a vast wilderness, inhabited mainly by various savage tribes. His father and fellow mountaineers, having accumulated a large quantity of buffalo robes and beaver pelts, conceded to send a pack train to Taos, New Mexico, their trading post at that time, from whence, after selling their peltries, they would return with provisions. Mrs. Brown, with her baby boy, accompanied this expedition, and on the way through the mountains they were attacked by a band of Apache Indians, who captured the whole pack train and killed some of the hunters. While fleeing on horseback from these pursuing and desperate warriors, some of the men shouted to Mrs. Brown, "Throw that child away or the Indians will get you," but the faithful mother indignantly exclaimed while endeavoring to escape as fast as the fleet horse could run with her, "Never; when that baby boy is thrown away, I will go with him." Fortunately, the pursued cavalcade soon reached a deep ravine, where the hunters were safe from the arrows and bullets of the Indians, who feared to approach further, and withdrew, having captured the pack train with the buffalo robes and beaver pelts, one of the principal objects they were after. These hunters, with Mrs. Brown and her baby, were glad to reach Taos, the trading post, alive. To show the dangers the frontiersman underwent in this wild and unexplored region, Mr. Brown, when endeavoring to farm on the banks of the stream, often dug a rifle pit in the middle of his corn or wheat field in which he always carried with him, ready for an attack at any time. Early in 1849 the news of the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill reached the mountaineers, so Mr. Brown, James W. Waters, V. J. Herring, Alexander Godey, and others formed a traveling party, for protection on the way, and soon were crossing the plains, reaching Salt Lake City July 4, 1849, and Sutter's Fort, California, September 15, 1849. Mr. Brown bringing his family with him, among them his son John, who was then going on two years of age. In 1852, Mr. Brown moved south to San Bernardino, and became a resident of Fort San Bernardino, next door neighbor to Uncle Sheldon Stoddard, Captain Jefferson Hunt, and Edward Daley. Although John was but five years of age, he remembers the first teachers, Ellen Pratt and William Stout, who taught before the two old adobe school rooms were built on Fourth Street, and among the incidents he remembers the balloon ascension in the Fort. In 1854, the family removed to the Yucipa Valley, about twelve miles southeast from San Bernardino, where John's father farmed and raised stock for three years. Returning to San Bernardino in 1857, they moved into the home on the corner of D and Sixth Streets, which has been the Brown Homestead since that time, a period of sixty-five years, and where our subject grew to vigorous manhood. Attended the public and private schools in San Bernardino and finally graduating from St. Vincent's College, Los Angeles; and Santa Clara College, Santa Clara County. He followed the vocation of teaching for a number of years, served one term as county school superintendent, and presided over the Board of Education, was city attorney one term, in all of which honorable positions he acquitted himself to the general satisfaction. He studied law under Judge Horace C. Rolfe, and was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the State and Federal Courts. It can be truly said of him that he espoused the cause of the poor and oppressed, and advised settlement of all cases before going to law, if possible. He is pre-eminently the friend of the aged, and is beloved by the children, who regard him as a true Santa Claus. Even the poor Indian finds in him a faithful champion of their rights. Not only the local Coahuilla and Serrani Indian tribes, but those at Warren's Ranch, in May, 1903, sent for him to come to their rescue when they were deprived of their old home where they and their ancestors had lived for centuries, and removed to the Pala Reservation. On July 4, 1876, he married, in San Bernardino, Miss Mattie Ellen Hinman, of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Nellie Hinman Brown, their only child, was born in San Bernardino, June 1, 1877, and on March 2, 1904, was married to Charles H. Wiggert. They have two children, Martha Eliza Wiggett, born in San Bernardino, July 13, 1905; and Charles Brown Wiggett born in Bellemont, Arizona, September 23, 1906. The friends of John Brown Jr., have always known him as an ardent patriot; the American Flag floats over his home on all national, state, or municipal holidays, and waves from pine to pine at all his mountain camps. With that veteran school teacher of precious memory, Henry C. Brooke, he raised the Star Spangled Banner over many of the school houses in the county, in the early 70's, thus begin- ning a custom that was afterwards adopted by the state, and calculated to inspire patriotism in the hearts of the rising generation. He is indebted to his father for starting him in his patriotic career. It was his father who rode on horseback to Fort Tejon and obtained an old flag from his friend, S. A. Bishop, and brought it to dis- play at the first celebration of the 4th of July, in San Bernardino, in 1853. He was chairman of the Republican County Central Committee in 1860, and with his boys, John, Joseph, and James, hauled wood to kindle fires to arouse the Americans to support Abraham Lincoln for President and to support the Union, and in 1864 dis- played the same activity in supporting President Lincoln for the second term. In 1868 John cast his maiden vote for the candidate of the republican party, General U. S. Grant, and has remained loyal to that party believing that by so doing he was contributing to the highest welfare of the American people under one Flag, one constitution, with liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable. He in- herited from his father, the lure of the wild, the out of door, close contact with nature. The hunting and fishing grounds of the San Bernardino Range of Mountains are familiar to him. Eastward from Old Baldy, Job's Peak, Saw Pit Canyon, Strawberry Peak, Little Bear Valley, Little Green Valley, Big Bear Valley, Sugar Loaf Mountain, San Bernardino, and towering Grayback, 11,600 feet into the sky, was the enchanted and inspiring region of many a joyful hour with his genial companions, Bill Holcomb, George Miller, Syd Waite, Taney Woodward, Major Harris, E. A. Nisbet, Joe Brown, Richard Weir, William Stephen, Jap Corbett, and Dave Wixom. In the summer of 1882, he visited the Atlantic and Middle States with his wife and their little daughter Nellie - Bunker Hill, where his father's grandfather fell in the War of the Revolution, Plymouth Rock, Mt. Vernon, and Washington Tomb, Independence Hall, Niagara Falls, Ford's Theatre, where Lincoln was assassinated, and Fanueil Hall, the cradle of American Liberty. On January 21, 1888, he was present at the old court house on Court Street, San Bernardino, with his father, and those veteran pioneers, James W. Waters, George Lord, Sydney P. Waite, William F. Holcomb, G. W. Suttenfield, Henry M. Willis, N. G. Gill, Tom Roberts, and De La M. Woodward, and aided in the organization of the San Bernardino Society of California Pioneers, which venerable body elected him as secretary, which responsible position he has filled to the present time (1922), a period of thirty-four years, with but one exception, when the members elected him as president, W. F. Holcomb acting as secretary that year. Solicitous of the comfort and entertainment of the children who attend the meetings with childish interest and curiosity, he does not forget greetings to the great-grandmothers and great-grandfathers who dignify the weekly assemblages of the Argonaut, where the declining years are made happier. Pages 1130 to 1132. Transcribed and submitted by Sally Kaleta, August 2010.