ohn (Waco) Brown Pioneer Citizen and Indian Fighter

John Brown was born in Madison County, Kentucky, September 9, 1796. He came from a long line of Colonial heroes of Revolutionary fame who were of English stock. One was a captain of the Continental Army and was killed at the River Raisin. His people have always been the defenders of their country.

He married Nancy Ann Howell in 1820 and this union was blessed with the following children: Jno. Duff; Isham Kerr, the first white child that lived, born on the Lavaca River; Marie Nazia, the first American child born in San Antonio, and Carmelita.

In about 1823 John Brown returned to his old Kentucky home, but returned back to Missouri in 1824. He developed bronchial trouble in December in 1824 and thought it best to go south for his health. He planned to leave his family and go to Cuba. On arriving in New Orleans, he met his older brother, Captain Henry Stevenson Brown, who induced him to go to the wilds of Texas. He arrived in Texas in December. Texas was a part of Mexico and was inhabited chiefly by many Indian tribes and was a paradise for wild animals of every kind. Captain Henry S. Brown was an Indian and Mexican trader. He furnished John Brown with goods to trade that appealed to the Indians and advised him to go toward the upper waters of the Brazos and barter his goods for horses, mules and peltries. This trading expedition was made of such men as James Musick, Thomas Jamison and Andrew Scott. They had accumulated eleven hundred horses and mules and peltries and started for the white settlement. On the third night of their homeward journey the Indians made a raid on their camp. The motive of the Indians was robbery and not murder. The eleven hundred horses and mules stampeded, which was the prime object of the Indians. John Brown was lame but he escaped alone through a thicket which was near their camp. His companions escaped together and reached home safely. He wandered three days without food, and wandered into camp of the Waco Indians. He feared his fate with them, but he made his choice between facing death by starvation and a tortured death by the Wacoes. They were cruel to him. They forced him to run the gauntlet, each brave beating him and slashing him as he ran. He was successful in running the gauntlet, as he was not felled before reaching the goal. An old Indian woman whose son had fallen in battle, traded for him from the Indian chief and adopted him as her own son. He was kindly treated but watched. He won their confidence after living with them eighteen months. In the fall of 1826 he was permitted to accompany a raiding party on the settlement. On the raiding exposition he escaped and succeeded in reaching San Felipe. This Indian band was annihilated by Captain Henry S. Brown and a band of well-trained Mexican soldiers; only one Indian escaped to tell the tale to his people. Hereafter John Brown was known as Waco Brown because he lived among the Waco Indians as an adopted son for eighteen months.

After he reached the white settlement he soon returned to Howell's Prairie, Missouri, to his family, who had mourned him as dead. He made preparations to return to Texas in 1827 with his family. After landing at Copano they went to Goliad by Mexican ox-carts which were the means of transportation by land in this period of history. Then from Goliad or La Bahia they went to Major James Kerr's home on the Lavaca. Major Kerr was the first settler on the Lavaca River by several years. John Brown was looking for a home in Texas and he moved his family to Carancahua Bayou. Here he chose a league of land, believing that in time, since the bayou was navigable from Matagorda Bay, that it would be valuable. The Mexican law required a crop to be planted on the land before the title could be perfect. He built a small cabin and planted a small crop of corn. The corn was planted in primitive way by punching holes in the earth with sharp sticks and covering the seed by pushing in the soil with the heel. He and his family lived in great fear of the Carancahua Indians. After making his crop and having the land surveyed, he then moved to San Antonio. Here they lived for three years. Small pox broke out in John Brown's family. It killed many of the citizens, and was fatal to Isham Kerr Brown and the father, John Brown. They were buried in the grounds of the Alamo. There their remains rest in peace. John Brown played his part in the settlement and developing of Jackson County. 

From the Cavalcade of Jackson County by I.T. Taylor. Information found and used with permission on Sons of DeWitt Colony website.