Benjamin Brown
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Benjamin Brown was living near the town of Portlande, in Chautauqua County in the western part of the state of New York, along in the 1830s. He records that his father was named Asa Brown and Asa Brown's father was also named Asa. Benjamin Brown married Sarah Mumford. Along in the late 20s he records that one night after he had got his clothing damp, he was sitting with his back to the fireplace drying his clothes and thinking about religious matters when an angel appeared to him and told him to join none of the churches because the true church was not on the earth but would be in the near future. Some time later he heard Mormonism preached and recognized it as the true gospel. It was through him that the Browns, the Crosbys, and the Mumfords joined the church.
After they joined the Church, they waited for some time hoping that the father of the Crosbys, Joshua by name, and the wife of Benjamin Brown would also join the church, but they didn't. Joshua Crosby stayed on his farm near Portland, now a town of about five hundred people, and his wife Hannah Cann Crosby, [and the six Crosby children] , the Mumfords, and the Browns in the late summer of 1838 went west to join the Mormon people in Far West they got word that the Latter-day Saint people had been driven out of Missouri and so the company turned and went northwesterly and joined the Latter-day Saint people at Quincy. In the spring of 1839 all three families located at Nauvoo and helped to settle that place. In Nauvoo Benjamin Brown was made Bishop of the Fourth Ward and remained such as long as Nauvoo was in existance. When the Saints had been driven out of Nauvoo and located at Winter Quarters, he was Bishop of the Fifteenth-Sixteenth Ward, and when Salt Lake City was settled he was the first Bishop of the Fourth Ward and remained as such for something like sixteen years, as I remember it. Benjamin Brown and his wife, Sarahb Mumford Brown, had some other children but the only ones that grew to maturity were Lorenzo Brown and Homer Brown. Homer located at Taylorsville and many of his descendants are there yet. The Seventh Ward was really home ward of the Crosbys in Salt Lake and Benjamin Brown lived right in the edge of the Seventh Ward all the time he was Bishop of the Fourh Ward. He and his wife, Sarah Mumford Brown, died about 1880, both of them dying closely together. Benjamin Brown was one of the greatest hustlers that eastern Arizona ever had and in 1887 was made Bishop of the Nutrioso Ward. He resigned expecting to go to Mexico on account of ill health, but a short stya in southern Arizona and Mexico cured him and he went back, lived, and died in Apache County. What I Remember of the Benjamin Brown Family
By George H. Crosby, Jr., Evanston , Wyoming, 1933 http://www.familylinks.us/BB-m.html Benjamin Brown was born September 30, 1794, in Queensbury, New York. His father, Asa Brown, was a farmer and land speculator. Benjamin wasn't raised with in any formal religion, regularly read the bible. He described himself as having an pure an innocent knowledge of the bible without interference from different interpretations. He said that the idea that revelations from God or gifts from the spirit were not possible was a foreign idea to him. He didn't seek out a sect to join until he was about 15. He said after that he started losing his simple ideas about God after he started listening to the sermons and teaching of various priests and pastors, then (as he put it) his beliefs became complicated. He spent the next ten years bouncing from church to church, seeking what he felt would be the truth.
In 1819, at the age of 25, he married Sarah Mumford and settled a farm of his own. During this time he recounts a vision that he experienced one night while relaxing next to the fireplace. He saw a vision of his brother, who had died in 1804, praying. He could hear his brother say that a great work was to be done on the earth during the last days, and quoted a few bible passages. The vision of his brother vanished and he felt a rush of wind hit him and a voice say,"This is understanding." He heard is wife's voice behind him and the vision ended. Benjamin said that the vision left him with a sense of hunger that he would use as a measuring point for any religious experience he later had. I personally think he was more open to visions and spiritual experiences because he had the faith that he could have them. He never let himself be convinced that they could never happen. In 1833, while continuing his search for a church that included the gifts of the Spirit, he visited a Latter-day Saint meeting. He said he enjoyed his experience because he saw the gifts manifested and he felt his hunger satisfied, but he still wasn't convinced he wanted to join that particular sect. The next few paragraphs are his account of what happened next. It's quite a fascinating account, so I'm going to include it in it's entirety. "However, I procured a Book of Mormon, and took it home to read, determined to investigate until I was fully satisfied. But I had scarcely begun to read, before I felt greatly to dislike the book. Ere I had perused ten pages, I rejected it altogether. Acting in this bigoted manner, I had resigned myself to the evil influence that was gaining power over me, so that, directly after, I felt a similar dislike seize me towards the Bible. Its statements of miracles, etc., appeared to me to be compounds of the grossest absurdity possible. I could see no light or good in it at all! and actually resolved never to read it again! But, oh! the darkness that seized me as soon as I had made this resolution! The light that was in me became darkness, and how great it was, no language can describe. All knowledge of religious truth seemed to forsake me, and if I attempted to quote scripture, my recollection failed, after the first word or so! So remarkable was this, that it excited reflection, and caused me to marvel, and finally I determined to repent of my resolve respecting the Bible, and I commenced to read again. "The book was hardly in my hand, when, as in a moment, my light and recollection returned as usual. This made me rejoice, and immediately the idea flashed across my mind, "What have you done with the Book of Mormon? Behave as fairly to that." I soon re-procured it. But, even this time, I felt prejudiced against the book. I resolved, however, to read it through, and I persevered in its perusal, till I came to that part where Jesus, on visiting the continent of America, after his resurrection, grants the request of three of the twelve whom he had chosen, to permit them to live until his second coming on the earth (like unto John spoken of in the Bible). Here my mind half yielded to the belief which arose within me, that perhaps it might be true, whereupon I took the book and laid it before the Lord, and pleaded with him in prayer for a testimony whether it was true or false, and, as I found it stated that the three Nephites had power to show themselves to any persons they might wish, Jews or Gentiles, I asked the Lord to allow me to see them for a witness and testimony of the truth of the Book of Mormon, and I covenanted with him, if he complied with my request, that I would preach it even at the expense of my life, should it be necessary. "The Lord heard my prayer, and, about five days after, two of the three visited me in my bedroom. I did not see them come, but I found them there. One spoke to me for some time, and reproved me sharply on account of my behavior at the time when I first attended the meeting of the Saints, and treated so lightly the gift of tongues. He told me never, as long as I lived, to do so again, for I had grieved the Spirit of the Lord, by whose power that gift had been given. This personage spoke in the Nephite language, but I understood, by the Spirit which accompanied him, every word as plainly as if he had spoken in English. I recognized the language to be the same as that in which I had heard Father Fisher speak at the meeting. Such a rebuke, with such power, I never had in my life before or since, and never wish to have again. I was dumb before my rebuker, for I knew that what he said was right, and I felt deserving of it. "How these men went, I do not know, but directly they were gone, the Spirit of the Lord said to me, "Now, you know for yourself! You have seen and heard! If you now fall away, there is no forgiveness for you." Did I not know then, that the Book of Mormon was true, and that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of the Lord? Surely I did, and I do now, as surely as I know that I live." Benjamin Brown, Testimonies for the Truth, A Record of Manifestations of the Power of God, Miraculous and Providential, Witnessed in the Travels and Experience of Benjamin Brown … , 1853
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