Brown, Mary (Olney)

BROWN, OLNEY

Posted By: Jane Adams (email)
Date: 1/9/2006 at 16:35:00

“The Name Was Olney,” by Roscoe Sheller, Pub. 1965 by Franklin Press, Inc., Yakima, Washington. Page 39.

“Nathan Olney’s brothers and sisters, new victims of that incurable ‘Western-Frontier-Urge’ began to arrive. Mary was the first. She was three years Nathan’s senior (born ca 1821), had married Ben Brown in Iowa and, with their three small children, the Browns had left Iowa for the West aboard their oxen-powered covered wagon in 1846. The wagon train to which they were attached had been out for a trifle more than a month when a scourge of cholera and scurvy seized the travelers and thinned their ranks ruthlessly.....Among the victims who would never reach the West, were two of Mary’s children.....tucked away in unmarked graves beside the muddy Platte.....The Brown family did some prominent pioneering from the donation claim near Olympia, Wash.....The Browns produced eleven children, while living in terror threatened Indian attack.....Mary attained considerable acclaim with her writings.”

This data has been transcribed for genealogical purposes; I am not related to the subject.