He was known to all the Canyon City boys and girls as “Old Brigham” and many never knew him by any other name. He was also one of the stranded Argonauts. F.C. Sels used to tell that Brigham liked to gamble in the early 1860s. When playing in the poker games, he had a habit of flipping a chip with his little finger into his pile of chips. This was done when the chips were scattered over the table and some gambler had won a large “pot.”

In those days, the Spanish influence was strong in Canyon City, and everybody had a dagger, including Phil Metschan, Sr. A gambler playing with Brigham noticed his dexterity with his little finger, reached out with his dagger when Brigham with his little finger tried to snitch a bean, stabbed at the finger and left it laying there on the poker table. People who knew Brigham in the 1880s believed the story as he was then minus the little finger on his right hand.

Brigham lived in a cabin on the east side of Canyon creek. About 1884, when Phil Metschan, Sr., was county judge, he appointed Brigham as janitor of the new court house. It was there on Sunday afternoons that Brigham could be seen, sitting on his front porch, sunning himself. He was a very old man then. One day the Rev. Mr. Eads, pioneer Methodist minister, when passing Brigham’s house, said, “Brother Brigham, you have reached the afternoon of life. Don’t you think it would be wise to prepare for the hereafter and mend your ways?”

In reply, Brigham said, “I would rather do what I am doing, and have a good time with the boys, and go to Hell with them, rather than go to Heaven with a lot of ________ like you.”