James Brown was born in Glasgow, Scotland on October 6, 1833, the son of James and Julia Brown. He arrived in America towards the end of the Civil War, residing in the state of New York and enlisted in U.S. Navy on March 1, l865 at New York City and served as a 2nd Class Fireman aboard the Union’s USS “Buckthorn” at Potomac, Vermont; shovelling coal from the bunkers into the boilers. The “Buckthorn” was a screw steamer built in 1863 at East Haddam, Connecticut and originally went by the name “Signal”, until it was purchased by the Navy on December 22, 1863 and commissioned at New York on April 7, 1864 with Acting Volunteer Lieutenant W. Godfrey in command. Acting Master's Mates aboard the USS “Buckthorn” were B. F. Robinson, H. J. Wynde, and H. A. Mayo. Engineers aboard were Acting Third Assistants, E. R. Hubbard and William H. Allen.

The Buckthorn served with the West Gulf Blockading Squadron during the Civil War and participated in the Battle of Mobile Bay on August 5, 1864. She acted as a tender for the fleet and was also used as a dispatch vessel throughout her career. After the Civil War she served at the Pensacola Navy Yard until she was laid up in 1868 and sold at Pensacola, Florida on September 7, 1869. Brown ended up serving 22 months aboard the USS Buckthorn.

Records reveal Brown also served aboard the USS “Vanderbilt”, the “Pensacola” and the “Massachusetts”. He served 22 months aboard the “Buckthorn” but was not paid off until he was aboard the “Vermont”. The “Pensacola” of the Civil War period was also a screw steamer, launched by the Pensacola Navy Yard on August 15, 1859 and commissioned on December 5, 1859. It was used initially for towing ships to the Washington Navy Yard for the installation of machinery. She was decommissioned on January 31, 1860 and then re-commissioned on September 16, 1861 with Capt. Henry W. Morris in command. The “Pensacola” departed from Alexandria, Virginia on January 11, 1862 for the Gulf of Mexico to join Flag Officer Farragut's newly created West Gulf Blockading Squadron. She steamed with that fleet in the dash past the Confederate forts of St. Philip and Jackson, which protected New Orleans, on April 24th, and the following day engaged batteries below the city. On the 26th a landing party from the “Pensacola” raised the first Union flag over the New Orleans Mint.

The “Vanderbilt” was a 3,360-ton wooden side-wheel steamship built in 1856 at Greenpoint, Long Island, New York for commercial trans-Atlantic passenger service and the U.S. Army chartered her for use as a transport soon after the outbreak of the Civil War. In March 1862 she was turned over to the U.S. Navy and converted into a battle cruiser. Commissioned as the USS “Vanderbilt” in September 1862, she spent the last two months of 1862 and all of 1863 searching in the Atlantic Ocean and the West Indies for the Confederate cruiser Alabama. While the cruise did not produce an encounter with the elusive enemy warship, the “Vanderbilt” did capture three merchant ships suspected of blockade running or other traffic with the enemy, including the steamer “Peterhoff” in February 1863, the steamer “Gertrude” in April; and the bark “Saxon” in October 1863.

Following repairs that occupied much of 1864, the “Vanderbilt” patrolled in the North Atlantic against blockade-runners operating out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. She also served in the Federal blockade off Wilmington, North Carolina, beginning in November 1864, and took part in the December 1864 and January 1865 attacks on Wilmington's Fort Fisher that finally resulted in closing that port to Confederate commerce.

James Brown received an honorable discharged at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York on March 28, 1867 and arrived in Australia in 1867 shortly after his discharge. After arriving he married Julia Williams, an Irish widow of Emerald Hill, today’s South Melbourne, on July 26, 1869 in Sandridge, a suburb of Melbourne, and had four children between 1871 and 1889. In Australia Brown worked as a fireman and according to the U.S. Pension list in Washington, received a military pension under certificate number 24915 of $6 (U.S.) a month which began on August 17, 1901; while living at South Yara; supposedly due to his partial inability to earn a living at manual labor. The pension began on August 17, 1901 but was increased to a rate of $15 a month in 1908. Unfortunately, Brown died on September 20, 1908 at 75 years of age while living in a boarding house at 621 Lonsdale Street in Melbourne which he and his wife owned; and was subsequently buried in the Footscray Cemetery. Buried in the same site are David Brown 2years and six months old, buried June 1, 1878; Leslie Brown six months old, buried January 21, 1906; and Julia Brown buried October 15, 1923.

Julia, his wife, received a widow’s pension after his death, under certificate number 713802, of $12 a month beginning on December 20, 1910. It was due to be increased to $30 a month in 1923, but Julia died on October 13, 1923 at her daughter’s home in Sandringham, Victoria.

Birth, Marriage and Death Records, Victoria

Department of Naval Records, Washington, D.C.

Department of Pensions, Washington, D.C.

“Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships”, James L. Mooney

Footscray Cemetery Records

James Brown Pension Records, National Archives

“Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies”, Govt. Print. Off., Washington, 1921

“Sands Directory”