' • I. I • , . THE LIFE of JONA THAN BROWNING Jonathan Browning was born Oct.22, 1805 Brushy Fork at Bledsoe Creek, in Sumner Co. Tennessee. His Father Edmund Browning was born Nov. 14, 1761 in Culpepper Co. Virginia, a descendent that went back a long line to Capt. John Browning who came to American in 1622 aboard the ABIGAIL. And establishes one of the first families of Virginia, and following the war Edmund married and moved to Tennessee with his new bride cutting out a farm near Brushy Fork. The seven children of Edmund and Sarah Browning were born here. An old Sumner County history notes: "From the beginning the men of the country were in constant peril. They seldom ventured from their homes without arms ... " The farms were not successful. There was much game and Jonathan probably learned to shoot almost as soon as he was old enough to shoulder a gun. There was no school, no church, and no community as such only a number of widely scattered farms. Jonathan's only education was self directed. At the age of 13 or 14, he was given an old flintlock rifle for a weeks work on a neighbor's farm. He tinkered with the gun and by watching a blacksmith Jonathan's tinkering with the gun surprised the old farmer who gave it to him and be bought it back for four dollars. Out of this transaction developed something that was to charge the entire course of Jonathan's life, it developed that he worked for the Smith during the days and did his Father's chores nights and mornings. For the enumeration, he received the use and freedom of the shop, a dollar now and then or a sack of com. Jonathan expanded the business and his own knowledge. In the shop he learned the fundamentals of hand forging, welding, brazing, tempering and soldering. Soon he became a good blacksmith. This proved very useful later. By the time he was nineteen, he considered himself a pretty competent gunsmith. He had repaired a lot of guns using the Smith's tools and his own design. He saved money and his skill increased with experience. He began to think of making guns as well as repairing them. He lacked the knowledge of making the barrels. His vague plan took form when he saw a gun bearing the stamp of Samuel Porter. So with a dream a goal and determination, Jonathan went to see Mr. Porter. He was thrilled at the tools and equipment in the shop and Mr. Porter was very impressed wipi Jonathan. A deal was worked that Jonathan could learn and use the tools and shop and be free to develop his own ideas. The two men became ' ' 18 • • very good friends. Jonathan had used his savings and what Mr. Porter had given him and converted them into tools. The time had come for him to return home and he was very satisfied with his efforts as he returned home. He was now a qualified gunsmith a fine marksman, he was to return to a girl he intended to marry and a business he intended to create. These were real pleasures to be sure. As proof, the rifle he carried was one of which he had fitted a barrel made entirely with his own hands. On it Sam Porter slyly stamped Jonathan Browning 1824. Jonathan settled down to making guns. He acquired a small house to live in as well as a shed, which he used for a shop. On Nov. 1826, a month after he became 21 , he married Elizabeth Stalcup. Their first child was born in August the following year. Due to the poor land, people were moving away. In September 1833, Jonathan received word of the death of his Father in Wayne Co. Ill., at the age of 73. Jonathan closed his shop then loaded two wagons with his family and the contents of his shop and home. Accompanied by a young cousin, they set out for Quincy. It was 400 miles. This was only the beginning of the wanderings and travels he was to experience. He was then only 28 years old, had a wife and five children, but before his death, he would have three wives and 22 children, eleven boys and eleven girls the last child born when Jonathan himself was 71 years old. He was to go through the hardships of pioneering, the persecutions of Nauvoo and the trek westward to Utah. In Quincy, Jonathan had the advice of relatives and friends but beyond that he needed little help. His saving was ample to provide him with a new home and his new shop. During this period, he invented a repeating rifle, one of the first. At this time he did not know that his son would inherit his ability and talents for inventions and mechanics and become one of the world's greatest gun inventors. Jonathan was ambitious and his business thrived. He now entered into a period of comfortable prosperity. He invested in land and ran for and was elected Justice of the Peace which title gave him the title of Judge and a certain respected standing in the community. Through his cousin, Orville Browning, an attorney, he became acquainted with Abraham Lincoln, who was a guest twice in his home for the night. Following is a story that Jonathan often related and is worth our interest here. On this nightJonathan and Abe {Abraham Lincoln} had the evening to themselves. With chairs tilted comfortably against opposite walls of the kitchen, 33 2.. • • • they chatted of one thing and then another. The two had more in common than their height. Their birthplaces were not far apart Tennessee and Kentucky; neither had spent a full year in school, and although Mr. Lincoln was a more fluent speaker, he used the same easy words. Judge, he said " Someone told me that a youngster in the neighborhood broke his arm yesterday and you set it. Do you fix anything that brakes, plow, gun, bone." He smiled broadly. Jonathan grinned back. "Well, a doctor would have charged a dollar for the job, but I couldn't charge a neighbor for setting a bone any more that I could for helping him pull his wagon out of a mud hole. Fact is I nearly turned Doctor one time. When I was learning to read, and poking around the countryside to find a book or two to practice on, I picked up a doctor book. Traded a gun for it that I'd fixed up. Fact is, that's the way I got my first Bible-traded a gun for it. Mr. Lincoln slapped his leg and his chair snapped upright. "Now hold on Judge! It's tangled up in my mind. Give me a minute to figure that one out. I want to laugh but I don' t see the point. There's the sayings about turning swords into plowshares or is it pruning hooks?" "Plowshares" Jonathan answered, "Isaiah." "Well that's the way you did it in a way, turning a gun into a bible but the other fellow, he canceled out by turning a bible into a gun. Looks like the trade left the world just about where it was." The two men enjoyed a chuckle . "Well, Jonathan said after a moment, there was something else funny about that trade. To tell the truth, the mainspring in that old gun was pretty weak, and the stock---" Lincoln interrupted with an upraised hand "Judge Browning" he rebuked in an exaggerated courtroom manner. "You mean you cheated in a trade for a Bible? --A Bible!" "Not exactly," Jonathan replied, his face as sober as Abe's. "When I got to looking at it through that Bible at home, I found about half the New Testament was missing." The mirth of the Two Frontiersmen, as Jonathan later described it. "Near to shook the logs." Jonathan arose. "Mr. Lincoln, he said, I hate to end a pleasant evening like this but you'll be wanting some sleep, I recon. I'll light a candle for you. There's a water bucket and a dipper for you and your bed is right through this door. I hope you will find it comfortable." Mr. Lincoln stepped to the comer and took the dipper from its nail. "I hope your little patient is comfortable tonight." "He'll be strutting around in a day or two with his arm in a sling, nice clean brake." "It's a fine life your leading here Judge," Lincoln said thoughtfully. "Mending anything tha(s broken. Looks funny at first glimpse seeing a man welding a part for a farmer one day, and the next day, setting a bone for the farmer's son. 3 • • • But the two go somewhat alike." "No difference," Jonathan smiled. "Except bone settings a lot easier. Nature does most of the welding. But if it's two pieces of iron, you've got to blow up the forgo and pound. Nature won't help with that." Lincoln nodded soberly. "Hammer and hammer," he repeated, swinging the dipper to and fro. "I can' t weld but I've seen it done. Heat and hammer. Heat and hammer. Whatever man makes, man breaks. And then someone must mend. "Judge Browning, there's a lot of mending to be done in these United States- a lot of mending." He hung the dipper like a hammer; striking the palm of his hand with such force that Jonathon expected the handle to snap. A quick smile of apology crossed his face, then the voice continued, quieter now. "I've knocked around a great deal-even made a couple of trips down the river on a flatboat, clear to New Orleans. And wherever I go. I hear sounds of little things breaking, and I see big things bending dangerously near to it. You see signs all around you, hear the sounds. Fact is I'm so worried that I have nightmares, and not all of them when I'm asleep. I got plain scared to death when I look a few years ahead." For along time he seemed to be doing just that, trying to look into the future. Jonathon nodded politely, but he was puzzled and worried too. He wondered if his guest was going into one of those moody spells he had heard of. But with another swing of the dipper the shaggy giant continued. "Judge Browning, the United States ought to become the greatest country on earth. But what if the hot heads break it into, right down the middle? That would be a weldingjob! It would take the fires of the inferno for the forge. And where is the anvil? Where is the hammer and where is the blacksmith?" The swinging dipper struck the ceiling and again an apologetic smile touched the rugged face. "It was the talk of your bone setting and welding that started me off, Judge; maybe I'm just seeing stumps and gnarled limbs in the dark, and imagining bears. How so? He took a drink of water, accepted the candle, and stepped toward his room. "Good night, Judge Browning, and many thanks for your hospitality." "Good night Mr. Lincoln." That's the way it happened, "Jonathon would say, some thirty years later in Utah. Two frontiersmen yarning. Only I'm just beginning to realize I was listening to prophecy. Jonathan became interested in religion in his mid thirties. Jonathan had grew up near the Mormon Church though he didn't know it. He and the Prophet Joseph Smitq had been born the same year in 1805. Jonathan in Tennessee and Joseph Smith in Vermont. Sometime in the year 1840 while the city ofNauvoo • • • was still under construction a Mormon came into Jonathan's shop with a repair job. Encouraged by Jonathan's response to his conversation, he returned the next day with some tracts and a copy of the Book of Mormon. Asking if he might call at his home some evening to clarify and points of doctrine that might be needed. Jonathan read, at first idly, soon with concentration; and through his scant and foggy knowledge of doctrine and precept, he began to see a light. As he continued reading he had long discussions with his Mormon friends, caused that light to grow brighter and he seemed to grasp the meaning and knew through the power of the Holy Ghost the doctrine was the truth, and accepted it. In 1842, Jonathan again sold his property, loaded his family and belongings into several wagons and moved to Nauvoo. Again he sat up shop-- building on Main Street a two-story brick house, with the floor serving as his shop, and began the manufacturer and repair of guns. While in Nauvoo he made a gun for Joseph Smith. But there was little time for inventing new weapons. The Temple on which Jonathan frequently worked was well under construction and the city itself the fastest growing in the country. Each day new converts arrived; bring in additional repairs and jobs, new trials and hardships. There was the repeated attempt on the Prophets li.fe; as well as the ever-present threat of mob violence. When Jonathon arrived in Nauvoo it was not long until the prophet was murdered. Then all sat to work to get ready to leave Nauvoo. The blacksmiths, wheelwrights, carpenters and other workmen were kept busy day and night to get them prepared. Brigham Young planned to make the move in 1840 but attacks from illinois and Missouri mobs forced them to begin their move in February. Jonathan too moved. The Mormons settled temporarily in the vicinity of Omaha on the east banks of Missouri. Jonathan and his family choosing a spot eight miles south of Gainesville { Council Bluffs} on Mosquito Creek. When volunteers for the Mormon Battalion were called, Jonathan volunteered, but Brigham Young said, "Brother Jonathan, we need you here." Jonathan was told many times his mission was to remain where he was to lend his knowledge and special skill to the labors of preparation. So he again established his business, manufacturing "Improved fireann Viz. revolving rifles and pistols, also slide guns, from five to twenty-five shooters, all on an approved plap. ... . as he worded it in the advertisement section of the Kanesville FRONTIER GUARDIAN . • • • It was not until 1852 that Jonathan was permitted to load his wagons and follow the westward trail, now deeply rutted, for by this time it had been traveled by thousands of Mormons, the Gold Rush to California and others for four years. When Jonathan arrived in Ogden, Utah in 1852, there were from 1,000 to 1200 people in the town. Ogden might have been the Capital of the state but for the impassible last few miles of the Weber Canyon, which compelled a detour that led to the valley thirty miles to the south, where Salt Lake City was founded. Jonathan had enjoyed one of his intermittent periods of prosperity while presiding at Kanesville and waiting to come west. He was elected Captain of his company; in the lone wagon train that creaked it's way from Iowa to Utah. He was an excellent marksman and supplied the train with meat from the large herds of buffalo. He arrived with six loaded wagons and with nearly six hundred dollars carefully hidden in a false bottom of a flour barrel. He was, therefore considered well supplied and was thus able to provide food and shelter for his large family before winter whitened the valley. Jonathan never applied himself to inventing new guns again. His energies were spent in to many directions, as the pioneer's needs were endless and his mechanical abilities were set to use to assist in every need. He saw his shop turned into a community first-aid station for all manner of machinery. He was the good neighbor and his hand was ever open to the needy. He entered polygamy by taking two more wives. He entered into politics. He was elected a member of the city council soon after his arrival in Ogden. He later became the Justice of the Peace, was an appointed probate Judge for Weber County, and served for a time in the Legislature. In his church he was, in turn a Bishop's councilor, a member of the High Council, and President of the High Priest Quorum. He started the tannery and sawmill. He ventured into real estate, an erection of an iron roller molasses mill and the manufacture of plows, mill irons and nails. Jonathan died on June 21, 1879 in his 74 year. Died of weariness they said, he went to sleep and didn't wake up. He gave his shop to John Moses Browning and his brothers. John had already begun to make and invent guns. Jonathan was his teacher. Written by John Browning and Curt Gentry. Son. Read by Len<_:>re Miller Nelson great-grand-daughter, In Golden Spike Camp, March 22, 1973. D.U.P. No. Company of Weber Co. • • UGUST 15, 1984 , Browning home restored He had been given"an old flintlock rifle by a farmer for a week's work when he was 13, but he found it did not work. Jonathan began tinkering with it, however, in the blacksmith's shop and soon bad it working. He sold it back to the farmer for $4 and the mon-ey and the'tarmer's appreciation gave him the idea to start up his own busi-ness repairing tools and equipment and especially guns. He learned the fundamentals of metalworking in the blacksmith shop and expanded the smith's business by riding through the Tennesse hills look-ing for items that he could fix. · Job..D Browning and Curt Gentry, in their book "John M. Browning Ameri-can Gun Maker," write that by the time Jonathan was 19 be was a com-petent gunsmith and was repairing a variety of guns using tools of his own design. "As his increasing skill with tools stimulated his imagination, he began to think of making guns as ~ell as repairing them," the authors wnte. What he needed to accomplish ~ was an education in barrel making. He accomplished this by visiting a gun maker, Samuel Porter, in Nashville, about 30 miles from his home. Jonathan's size - he was over su: feet tall - and his evident knowledge and skill with tools won Porter over and Jonathan soon set to work at $2·a week. At the end of three months, Jon-athan bad learned to make barrels and returned home to Brushy Fork where he married his sweetheart, Elizabeth Stalcup, on Nov. 9, 1826, and settled down to making guns and rais-ing a family. In September 1833, Jonathan heard of opportunities to open up a gunsmith business in Quincy, Ill, so he and his wife and their children went Wesl. The Brownings prospered in their new home, 400 miles away from Brushy Fork, and Jonathan was even elected justice of the peace. In Quincy, be developed several re-- . peating rifles using different designs, including a cylinder similar to those· used in cap and ball revolvers and a rectangular bar magazine. In 1840, a Mormon from the city of Nauvoo, north of Quincy, met Jona-than at a tax sale in Carthage, near Nauvoo, and the two began talking · about religion, Jonathan became in-terested in. the Mormon faith and ob-tained a Book of Mormon. On Aug. 10, 1840, Jonathan and Elizabeth were baptized and confirmed members of the LDS Church and three years later, in 1843, Jonathan sold his property, loaded his family, their furnishings and his gunsmithing tools in several wagons and left for Nauv~. From then until 1846, Jonathan car-ried on a busy ~thing business in Nauvoo. Archeological investigations indicate that both a log house .and a tw<rstory brick house were built by Jonathan on a half lot on the east side of Maio Street in the city. Jonathan Br~wning Other foundation walls were uncov-ered that indicated a one-story exten-sion on the north s{de of the two-story brick house, providing a sitting and dining room or a gunsmith shop, and the actual blacksmith and metal working shop on the north. Browning apparently also made tools for the metal trades, stamping "J. Browning, Warranted, UU3,'' on a large pair of sheetmetal shears that are now displayed in the restored Browning home in Nauvoo. · • Family records and. surviving guns ·show that Browning was gifted with · an inventive and creative mind He lived when flintlock guns bad been outmoded by the invention of the per-cussion cap. These, with the new pre-loaded paper cartridges, revolution-ized the firearms industry and made multishot guns possible. ment in Kanesville and be and his "family - DOW grown to 12 children - set out for Utah. In Nauvoo, he continued making re- .peating arms using the steel block magazines, some containing five to 25 loaded shots that passed horizontally through the rifle at a right angle to the barrel. When it was properly aligned, a trigger underneath the barrel stru.ck the percussion caps and moved the slide into position for the next shot. He arrived in Ogden, his new horn~ in October 1852 and soon set up busi-ness in the city. His famous son, John Moses Browning. was born Jan. 23; 1855 and be and several of his brothers learned the gumm.ithing trade at their father's workbench. He used the revolving type multi· shot cylinders for both handguns and rifles. Friction between the Mormons at Nauvoo and the people of the sur-rounding area reached a crisis June · 'l:l, 1844, when the Mormon leader Jo-seph Smith was murdered by a mob in Carthage Jail. During the next year, the friction continued to grow and early in 1846 the Brownings were among many families who decided to abandon Nauvoo and follow the new Mormon leader Brigham Yonng west to Utah. Browning sold his property and be and his wife and their 11 children left the city, traveling across"lowa in sev-eral wagons during the spring and summer of 1846. He settled for a time in Kanesville, Iowa, now Council Bluffs, and until 1852 he continued his gunsmithing business there, making guns to supply the Mormon wagon trains heading west to Salt L:ue City. _ In 1852, Browning was finally re-leased from his gunsmithing assign- Jonathan died in Ogden in 1879, liv-ing long enough to see ~ sons ~ lish. a great firearms bUS1De$, ~g patents to · the leading gunmaking companies of the world. . Many of Jonathan Browning's guns and his tools and some of the machln-ery he used to make guns and ~ls are exhibited in the Nauvoo Browrung home, which has not only been re-stored, but furnished as nearly as pos-sible to ~ 1840s ~le. _-... : ____ _ · This copy, ma~e a~ilabl_e througl . . ·c ourtesy of the International S6c DAUGHTERS OF UTAH PIO. may not be reproduced for mone.ar