Young, Brigham
NAME: Young, Brigham.
ACHIEVEMENTS: Leading Mormon and founder of Salt Lake City.
NICKNAME/ALIAS: None.
DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: 1st June 1801, Whittingham, VT.
DATE/PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: 29th August 1877, Salt Lake City, UT. Aged 76
DISCIPLINE: Mormon leader.
FIELD: Religion.
LANGUAGE: English.
PARENTS: Father, John Young, mother, Abigail Howe.
SIBLINGS: 10.
SPOUSE: 27.
CHILDREN: 56.
EDUCATION: No formal education.
MAJOR WORK: None.
LIFE AND TIMES: In 1830, Young read a newly published work called the ‘Book of Mormon,’ a gospel that <influenced by> Joseph Smith*, a self-declared prophet, had supposedly been given by an angel. Young described it as a supplement to the Bible, and claimed it was a record of a group of people of Middle-Eastern origin who had set up Christian society in the Western Hemisphere before the fifth century.
Two years later, Young and some of his family joined the church which Smith
had founded, or, as he claimed, re-established, called The New Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Believers became known as <founding member of> Mormons*.
Young became a Mormon missionary, walking around upper New York State and north into the Canadian town of Loughborough. He met Smith and together they went to Kirtland, OH, in 1831, where they set up church headquarters. At the same time they established a community in Zion, Missouri. Then, in 1832, Young was appointed as one of twelve apostles of the church.
The locals were very hostile to the church and, in 1838, rose against the Mormons, who moved to Illinois in 1840. In the same year, Young, now head of the apostolic Quorum, led a group of missionaries to England, where they were successful in converting large numbers in the industrial north, around the cotton towns of Preston and Manchester.
The following year, Young went to Nauvoo, Illinois, where he became president of the Apostles, responsible for the day-to-day running of the church and all missionary activities. At the same time, he became a Freemason and was elected to the city council.
In March 1844, Smith called a meeting of senior members of the church, which by now numbered more than 20,000 followers, and they set up the Council of Fifty to serve as the legislative executive of their society. Young, by now in a prominent position in the church, became a member of the council.
Smith, frustrated in his attempts to gain protection for the Mormons, decided that he would run for President of the United States. Young was in Boston drumming up political support for his leader, when Smith was assassinated by a mob that broke into the jail in Carthage, Illinois, where he was under arrest on charges of conspiracy.
Young returned to Nauvoo as soon as he heard of Smith's murder and took over as the new leader, after some opposition. Life for the Mormons in Illinois was becoming increasingly difficult. The locals feared their influence, and their practices, which now included polygamy, were widely condemned.
It was clear that they were not welcome in Nauvoo and needed to find another location free of established settlers. Young and the other leaders considered the Rocky Mountain region, in particular the valley of the Great Salt Lake and the Utah Valley.
Increasing violence and the burning of homes began to get out of hand and, in January 1846, Young led the community out of Illinois. In the winter of 1846-47, 16,000 Mormons settled temporarily in Winter Quarters, Nebraska and, when the weather improved, Young lead a group of 150 to the valley of the Great Salt Lake, arriving there in July 1847 and it was there he decided the Mormons would finally settle.
The location, which they named Salt Lake City, was chosen because of the vast, isolated areas of arable land all around and its proximity to the Rockies and Sierra Nevada, where they would be able to set up irrigation systems.
At the end of the year, Young went back to Winter Quarters and set about reorganising the church. He became President with supreme responsibility, and the twelve Apostles stepped up their missionary work. Young returned to Utah, together with 2,000 more church members, in May 1848 and settled in Salt Lake City for the remaining twenty-nine years of his life.
The following year, the State of Deseret was provisionally established and, in 1850, President <appointed by> Fillmore* made Young Governor of Utah Territory. The University of Deseret, now the University of Utah, was founded in 1851.
In 1854 he was elected President of the church for a second term. As the Mormons became more prosperous, so they became more anxious to have their settlement fully recognised and legally acknowledged by the government. Their practice of plural marriage went against them, however, when the Republicans coupled it with the practice of slavery and denounced the popular sovereignty of Utah, as they had previously done regarding Kansas.
The Democrats under President James <removed from office by> Buchanan* were forced to agree with the opposition party, on the assumption that, if they didn’t, they would appear to be condoning the practice of polygamy. In addition, they would signal that popular sovereignty was acceptable, and this would undermine the authority of the government of the United States.
Buchanan was persuaded that the federal authorities in Utah were ineffective, so he appointed an anti-Mormon governor to replace Young, and sent government troops, under General Albert Johnston to confirm federal authority over the Mormons. The situation was eventually defused and Young never formally held office again.
The government thought the railroads would eventually end the independent attitude of the Mormons and that they would become so diluted with non-Mormons their community would quietly disappear. Young, however, had anticipated the coming of the railroad, even buying stock in Union Pacific in 1862.
In 1865, he became a director of the company and turned the arrival of the railroad in 1869 to his advantage, organizing Mormon labour and funds to build branch lines within
the territory and training Mormons in railroad construction.
ASSESSMENT: Brigham Young provided the inspiration and organisation that resulted in the founding of the Mormon community in Salt Lake City.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: He expelled <expelled> Strang* from the church
ONELINER: Brigham Young, founder of Mormon Salt Lake City
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Arrington, Leonard J., Brigham Young: American Moses, Alfred A Knopf, New York, 1985.