Brigham Young

Brigham Young (1801-1877), American religious leader and colonizer of Utah. Young served as second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whose members are known as Mormons.

Brigham Young was born in Whitingham, Vermont, on June 1, 1801. He spent his boyhood in the farm country of Vermont and western New York and received only two months of formal schooling. He worked as a carpenter, glazier, and journeyman painter. In 1829 Young settled in the town of Mendon, New York, where he met a brother and disciple of Joseph Smith, founding prophet of the Mormons. Smith's brother converted Young, previously a Methodist, to Mormon doctrine, and on April 14, 1832, he was baptized and confirmed in the church. Young quickly distinguished himself as a preacher and evangelist in the area around Mendon; within the year he was ordained an elder.

Between 1833 and 1836 Young's fame and stature within the Mormon movement rapidly increased. About 1833 he organized a group of Mormons in the Eastern states and led them to Kirtland, Ohio, where Joseph Smith had established headquarters. At Kirtland, Young met Smith for the first time. Impressed by Young's zeal and persuasive powers, Smith sent him into the surrounding states and Canada on missionary assignments. When, in 1835, the Mormons created a Quorum, or Council, of Twelve Apostles with powers second only to those of Smith, Young was named one of the apostles. In 1836 he was elected president of the Quorum. He was a strong figure in the movement during the period of persecution, climaxed in 1838 by the migration to Hancock County, Illinois, and the establishment there of Nauvoo as the new center of the Mormons.

From 1839 to 1841 Young worked with the Mormon mission in Liverpool, England, preaching and distributing religious literature; he arranged for the emigration of about 70,000 converts from Europe to America. He returned to the United States in 1841 and for several years served as a missionary in the Eastern states. After Joseph Smith was shot and killed by a lynch mob in 1844, Young became acting president of the Mormon church and henceforth was its leader.

Because of sentiment against their group in Illinois, Young and his colleagues decided to leave Nauvoo. In 1846 to 1847 he organized and supervised the migration of close to 5,000 Mormons across the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains into the arid Great Basin. There, in Great Salt Lake Valley, he founded Great Salt Lake City in July 1847. On December 5, 1847, he was formally confirmed head of the Mormon church.

Under Young's autocratic leadership Salt Lake City and the surrounding region soon became the Zion, or promised land, that the Mormons had long sought. His followers built extensive irrigation projects; developed farms, small businesses, and cooperative stores; and set up a legislature, public school, and two institutions of higher learning. In 1850 the U.S. Congress enacted legislation establishing the region, previously known as the state of Deseret, as the territory of Utah. Young was made territorial governor.

In August 1852 Young publicly endorsed the doctrine of polygamy (a person having more than one spouse). He based his pronouncement on a revelation said to have been experienced by Joseph Smith in 1843. His open advocacy of the doctrine disturbed the federal government and the non-Mormon residents of Utah. Finally, in 1857, President James Buchanan appointed a new territorial governor. Young refused to relinquish his post, and when rumors of an armed Mormon rebellion reached Washington, the president sent federal troops to Utah. Hostilities were averted, largely as a result of Young's statesmanship, and the new governor was installed without incident. Nonetheless, as president of the church, Young continued to play a dominant role in Utah. In 1871 he was indicted on a polygamy charge but was not convicted. Young is believed to have married 27 times and was survived by 17 wives and 57 children. He died on August 29, 1877.