Browning Home & Gunsmith

Jonathan Browning was an expert gunsmith living in Quincy, Illinois, in 1839 and used his blacksmithing skills to build up Nauvoo. His wife Elizabeth was no less determined to live her religion and teach her faith to her large family. Stories of faith and work come together in the Browning home and gun shop.

Since the Browning family only lived in this home for about a year, the place tells a story of how people and businesses came and went on Nauvoo’s busy main street throughout the 1840s. The two-story brick home was built by Benjamin and Margaret Bird in 1843. After living in it for just a few months, the Birds sold it to the Brownings. Jonathan added a smithy—or blacksmith’s workshop—and extra rooms to the building before he sold the property. Later, after the Brownings lived here, the Church acquired the house in 1844 for Lucy Mack Smith to use. Here she began dictating her family’s history, in particular the life and prophetic ministry of her son Joseph.