JOHN BREWITT MILNER
27 Jan 1830 – 17 Oct 1912

John is my third great grandfather on my mother’s mother’s side. He was born in Gringley, Nottingham, England. His father died three months before he was born. He was subsequently raised and tutored by his widowed mother, Ann Johnson Milner. John was a good reader and had read the Bible three times by the age of ten. In 1843, when he was just thirteen, he met Mormon missionaries in England and was later baptized.

In 1853, John and his mother left Liverpool, arrived in New Orleans and then took a steamboat up the Mississippi to what is now Iowa; then a staging ground for Mormon emigrants preparing to make the journey to Utah Valley. John and his mother departed with the Cyrus H. Wheelock Company on 1 June 1853 and, along with 400 individuals and 50 wagons, arrived in Utah in early October of that same year.

While on the trail, John met his future wife, Esther Yardley Thurman, also a native of England, and her son. The two were married in March of 1854 in the Salt Lake Endowement House and settled in Provo, Utah.

John first worked as a court reporter for a judge in the first U.S. Court in Utah and later, he became a secretary to Brigham Young. John taught in the first school in Provo and worked as an assessor, tax collector, surveyor, Justice of the Peace, farmer, businessman, state legislator and lawyer.

In 1876, John served as was the personal secretary to George Q. Cannon during congressional hearings on co-habitation. He also practiced law in Arizona, where he was called upon to defend Mormon polygamists. John had four wives.

In later years, John received numerous political appointments, including head of the Utah State Sanitarium in Provo, Utah. When the people of Utah divided on party lines, he joined the Democratic Party and became a leading figure in that organization. He was as firm a believer in democracy as he was in his religion.

He was said to be the oldest member of the Bar Association in Utah. He was teacher of the first public school in Provo, in the Third Ward, and all his life he was interested in educational affairs.

His funeral services were held in the Salt Lake Mormon Tabernacle.