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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Brigham Young Biography YOUNG, Brigham (1801–77). The successor of Joseph Smith, Jr., as president of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He was born in Whitingham, Windham Co., Vt., June 1, 1801. He removed to Mendon, Monroe Co., N. Y., and was baptized into the Mormon church April 14, 1832. He was at once appointed an elder, and first met Joseph Smith at Kirtland, Ohio. After a successful mission to Canada he went to Missouri in the "Army of Zion." Elected as one of the original Quorum of Twelve in 1835, he was called to preach to the Indians and presently went on a mission to the eastern States. In 1838 he directed the exodus of the saints from Missouri into Illinois. In 1840 he was sent to Liverpool to assist Apostles John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff (qq.v.) in the English mission. In 1844 he became president of the Twelve, and he held this position until elected president of the church in 1847. After the murder of Smith in 1844, Young assumed the leadership of the main body of saints, and organized their emigration to the West. In February, 1845, he led the first party from Nauvoo, and spent the following winter in a camp on the Missouri. There he promulgated his first and only "revelation," which can be found in the Book of Doctrines and Covenants, describing in detail the extraordinary manner of organizing the "Camps of Israel" and conducting the journey. Reaching the Salt Lake valley in 1847, he selected the site of the new temple, and carefully planned a city (see Salt Lake City). A legislature was elected and the "State of Deseret" organized. Brigham Young was chosen Governor in 1849 and applied to Congress for admission into the Union. The Territory of Utah was organized instead and Young was appointed Governor by President Fillmore and served until 1858, when there occurred the so-called Mormon War. Concerning this incident Prof. Theodore Smith in his book, Parties and Slavery (New York, 1906), says: "An attempt in 1857 to displace Young as Governor of Utah brought on, therefore, something very like an insurrection, for the Territory supported Young in refusing to submit. Federal judges and land officers were promptly expelled from the region, and bands of Danites committed outrages upon non-Mormon residents. . . . In the spring of 1858 he [Buchanan] issued a proclamation calling upon the Mormons to submit, sent a new governor, Cumming, over the mountains with a considerable military force, and was able to report to Congress that Young and the Mormons had ceased to resist." Prof. Levi Young of the University of Utah in giving the Mormon version of the war says: "In 1858 a United States army was sent to Utah to put down a supposed rebellion, but there were no hostilities and the soldiers were well received and made favorable reports concerning the people." In 1868 Brigham Young established a system of coöperative stores, which still controls a large part of the business of the State. In 1851 he organized a public-school system. In 1852 he declared polygamy to be a tenet of the Mormon church. He died Aug. 29, 1877, and was reputed to have left $1,000,000 and 19 wives. He was the father of 57 children. See Mormons. The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. XXIII (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 813. |