Church president, territorial governor
Brigham Young
1801–1877
5 topics · 28 dated events · 6 sources
Their part in each topic
The Succession Crisis of 1844
President of the Twelve
He was in Massachusetts when Joseph died and reached Nauvoo on 6 August 1844. Within two days he had reframed the question from 'who is the guardian' to 'does the church want the Twelve,' and won an overwhelming show of hands. He then presided over an apostolic interregnum of three and a half years before reorganizing a First Presidency around himself in December 1847.
Utah Polygamy and the Manifesto
Second church president
Young directed the 1852 announcement, controlled who could enter plural marriage, and preached it repeatedly in the Tabernacle. His 1866 sermon linking polygamy to godhood is the single most quoted and most disputed statement on the subject. He also agreed to the test case that became Reynolds v. United States.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre
Church president, territorial governor
Young was simultaneously president of the Church, governor of Utah Territory and superintendent of Indian affairs when the massacre occurred. His Reformation sermons and his war-footing instructions of summer 1857 shaped the atmosphere in southern Utah; his 10 September 1857 reply to Isaac Haight told the settlers to let the emigrants 'go in peace,' but it arrived two days after the killings. He blamed Indians publicly for years afterward, and in his 1875 deposition denied any role in planning or in the disposal of the emigrants' property.
Race and the Priesthood
Church president, territorial governor
Young announced the priesthood restriction publicly in two addresses to the Utah territorial legislature in January and February 1852, in the same session that legalized Black servitude in the territory. He grounded it in the curse of Cain and taught that it would remain until all the rest of Adam's children had received the priesthood. He also refused Elijah Abel the endowment.
Church Finances, Tithing, and the Transparency Question
Trustee-in-trust, second president
Young defined tithing as a tenth of everything a convert owned on joining, a tenth again on arrival in Utah, then a tenth of annual income. He told an 1861 congregation that on Church money 'our books are open,' while keeping his private business accounts separate under his own clerks. He told the October 1875 general conference that neither he nor anyone else had ever paid tithing as the revelation actually required. He died a millionaire.
In the timeline
28 events across 4 topics, chronological. Only events this person was actually part of — present at, responsible for, or the subject of — not every event where the name comes up.
The confrontation in the Seventies Hall
With nine apostles now in Nauvoo, Brigham Young convened the Twelve, the Nauvoo High Council and the high priests and asked Rigdon to state his case. Rigdon described a Pittsburgh manifestation shown to his mind rather than an open vision: no man could be Joseph's successor, and he would continue to speak for the dead prophet until Joseph descended and ordained him. Young replied that he did not care who led the church of God if God said so, but that he must know God said so, and that he had the keys and means of knowing.
Rigdon speaks in the grove
Thousands gathered in the grove near the temple. Rigdon stood in a wagon with his back to a steady wind and spoke for more than an hour, arguing that every man would stand in his own place and calling, that Joseph and Hyrum held their authority through eternity, and that authority remained in the church as Joseph had organized it. Thomas Bullock took the sermon down in Taylor shorthand; it was not deciphered until the twenty-first century. Brigham Young then called the congregation back for the afternoon.
The Saints vote for the Twelvehinge
The quorums took their places as in a solemn assembly. Brigham Young told the congregation that the Quorum of the Twelve held the keys of the kingdom of God in all the world and that no man could put another between the Twelve and the prophet Joseph. He asked whether the Saints wanted a guardian, a prophet or a spokesman; the church's own report says not a hand was raised. On the motion to sustain the Twelve, Woodruff later wrote, 'At once there was a sea of hands, a universal vote; a contrary vote was called and not a hand was raised in a congregation of about fifteen thousand Saints.'
Brigham Young's epistle: no one fills Joseph's place
In an epistle to the Saints Young wrote, 'Let no man presume for a moment that his place will be filled by another; for, remember, he stands in his own place and always will.' He did not, in this or any other 1844 document, refer to a transfiguration.
Sidney Rigdon is tried and excommunicatedhinge
Before a congregation the Nauvoo Neighbor reported at six to seven thousand, Brigham Young laid out what he called Rigdon's secret plan to divide the church, and testified that Rigdon had ordained men prophets, priests and kings at private meetings. Rigdon was in St. Louis and did not attend. Bishop Newel K. Whitney and the high council voted to cut him off; W. W. Phelps moved that he be delivered over to the buffetings of Satan until he repents. About ten hands were raised for Rigdon. Two days later he left for Pittsburgh.
The October conference sustains the Twelve by name
The general conference upheld Brigham Young as president of the Quorum of the Twelve and, in the words of Phelps's motion as printed, as of the first presidency of the church, then sustained each apostle in turn by unanimous vote. The conference also organized high priests and presiding officers over districts across the union under the direction of the Twelve.
William Smith ordained Presiding Patriarch, then breaks
The Twelve ordained William Smith Presiding Patriarch. He spent the summer arguing that the office carried a right to lead, wrote to the Times and Seasons emphasizing that he was the only surviving son of Joseph Smith Sr., and in October published a pamphlet charging that Brigham Young privately conceded 'little Joseph' was the rightful heir but thought it imprudent to say so. He was cut off, and later allied with Strang and then with Lyman Wight.
The Nauvoo temple endowments
The Twelve opened the attic of the unfinished temple and administered the endowment to about five thousand Saints in a matter of weeks, alongside roughly thirteen hundred sealings. Brigham Young later said the only reason for tarrying in Nauvoo as long as they did was to give the brethren those blessings.
The exodus begins
The first wagons crossed the Mississippi into Iowa Territory and camped at Sugar Creek. Lyman Wight had already taken his pine company toward Texas. Emma Smith stayed. So did most of those who would eventually form the Reorganization.
Brigham Young calls Walker Lewis one of the best elders
Speaking at Winter Quarters to William McCary, a Black convert with a white wife who complained of mistreatment, Young said race was not the issue and cited Q. Walker Lewis: “We have one of the best Elders, an African.” Young told McCary it had nothing to do with blood, for of one blood God had made all flesh.
The Enoch Lewis marriage is reported to Brigham Young
Returning to Winter Quarters, Young heard from William Appleby, president of the eastern branches, that William Smith had ordained a Black elder in Massachusetts and that Enoch Lewis, that elder's son, had married a white woman and had a child. Young's recorded response was severe. Historians place this alongside the McCary affair as the immediate trigger for the restriction.
The First Presidency is reorganized at Winter Quartershinge
At Orson Hyde's home on the Missouri, nine of the Twelve sustained Brigham Young as President of the Church with Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards as counselors. A log tabernacle was thrown up at Kanesville so a conference could ratify it. Orson Pratt argued systematically against the change; John Taylor and Parley P. Pratt, both in the Salt Lake Valley, were also opposed, as was Lyman Wight. Had the full quorum been present, historians have argued, it might not have happened.
Lyman Wight disfellowshipped
The Twelve had blessed Wight's Texas venture on 12 August 1844 but grew uneasy about his intentions. They disfellowshipped him pending further information; he answered with a pamphlet arguing that Joseph had given him his mission personally and through the Grand Council, and that no one but God or Joseph could revoke it. His colony at Zodiac lasted until 1858.
Young addresses the legislature on slavery
In a joint session, Young tied slavery to scripture and priesthood: “I will remark with regard to slavery, inasmuch as we believe in the Bible, inasmuch as we believe in the ordinances of God, in the Priesthood and order and decrees of God, we must believe in slavery.” He added that the colored race had brought severe curses upon themselves and that he was not authorized to remove them.
Utah Territory legalizes Black servitude
The same legislative session passed an act regulating service that legalized the holding of Black servants in Utah Territory. Congress abolished slavery in the territories in 1862. Young told Horace Greeley in 1859 that the Church considered slavery of divine institution, not to be abolished until the curse pronounced on Ham was removed.
Young announces the priesthood restrictionhinge
The day after the servitude bill passed, Young returned to the legislature. Wilford Woodruff recorded him saying: “the Lord told Cain that he should not receive the blessings of the preisthood nor his see[d], until the last of the posterity of Able had received the priesthood, until the redemtion of the earth. If there never was a prophet, or apostle of Jesus Christ spoke it before, I tell you, this people that are commonly called negroes are the children of Cain.” In another 1852 statement he said a man with African blood in him could not hold one jot nor tittle of priesthood.
Plural marriage publicly announced at a special conferencehinge
At a special missionary conference in Salt Lake City, Orson Pratt delivered a prepared discourse defending plural marriage and the 1843 revelation was read publicly for the first time. Pratt argued from modern revelation, the constitution, the promises to Abraham and the claim that monogamy invited immorality.
The Mormon Reformationhinge
A territory-wide revival of confession, catechism and rebaptism swept Utah. Jedediah M. Grant of the First Presidency was its chief spokesman. Sermons of the period urged members to renew covenants and warned covenant-breakers in extreme terms, and the whole population, in most settlements, was rebaptized.
Brigham Young preaches on sins beyond forgiveness
In a Reformation sermon Young said there are sins for which men 'cannot receive forgiveness in this world, or that which is to come,' and that such a person, seeing his condition, 'would be perfectly willing to have their blood spilt upon the ground, that the smoke thereof might ascend to heaven as an offering for their sins.' In February 1857 he pressed the point again, asking whether a listener would love a sinning brother 'well enough to shed their blood.' Jedediah M. Grant, at the October 1856 conference and after, argued that the people of God had a right 'to kill a sinner to save him.'
The first public 'transfiguration' claim
Albert Carrington told a large gathering that he could not tell Brigham Young from Joseph Smith when Young spoke at the stand in Nauvoo. Brigham Young then said that somebody had passed a finger over Carrington's eyes and that he could see no one but Joseph speaking. Wilford Woodruff bore a similar public testimony in April 1872, and dozens of written accounts followed from the 1880s to the 1900s.
The territory goes on a war footing
With a federal army on the march to Utah, Daniel H. Wells, commander of the Nauvoo Legion, ordered every community readied for war: stockpile provisions, waste nothing, and sell no grain or goods to wagon trains bound for California. Brigham Young recalled missionaries and outlying colonists. The instruction not to sell to outsiders was general and was obeyed in most settlements.
George A. Smith carries the instructions south
Apostle George A. Smith began a tour of the southern settlements carrying Young's orders. Reporting on the trip from the Salt Lake Bowery on 13 September, he said that at one settlement 'in spite of all I could do, I found myself preaching a military discourse,' and that at Harmony his discourse 'partook of the military more than the religious.' He also camped near the Arkansas company on his return.
Brigham Young writes back: 'let them go in peace'hinge
Haslam reached Salt Lake City and interrupted Young in a meeting with Jacob Hamblin. Young replied the same day to Haight: 'In regard to emigration trains passing through our settlements, we must not interfere with them until they are first notified to keep away. You must not meddle with them. The Indians we expect will do as they please but you should try and preserve good feelings with them. There are no other trains going south that I know of. If those that are there will leave, let them go in peace.' Haslam started back within the hour.
Martial law declared in Utah Territory
Governor Brigham Young issued a proclamation declaring martial law and forbidding armed forces to enter the territory, after Captain Stewart Van Vliet's visit to Salt Lake City. The Nauvoo Legion went on to burn federal supply trains and Forts Bridger and Supply. The Utah War produced no pitched battle between the armies.
The Indian-blame story is put in place
Lee reported the massacre to Brigham Young as the work of Indians. Anson and Mary Call swore that Lee stayed at their house in early October 1857 and told them the massacre was perpetrated by Indians exclusively, and that he had told Young the same. George A. Smith's later account to T. B. H. Stenhouse describes Indians attacking, interpreters failing to intervene, and a relief party arriving 'too late to afford any other assistance than to rescue a few children.'
Brigham Young at the monument
Travelling south, Young's party stopped at the cairn. Wilford Woodruff recorded it in his journal: the pile of stone about twelve feet high and beginning to tumble down, the wooden cross reading 'Vengence is mine and I will repay saith the Lord,' and then — 'President Young said it should be Vengence is mine and I have taken a little.'
Lee, Haight and Wood are excommunicated
Thirteen years after the massacre, John D. Lee, Isaac Haight and George Wood were cut off from the Church for the murders. Lee travelled to St. George in December to ask Young why now — 'If it was wrong now, it certainly was wrong then.' Haight was rebaptized in 1874. The Church had already, in 1859, released Haight and other Cedar City leaders from their callings.
Poland Act
Congress gave federal judges jurisdiction over antipolygamy prosecutions in Utah and the power to select jurors, stripping the Mormon-dominated probate courts of criminal jurisdiction. Church leaders then arranged a test case to challenge the Morrill Act.
Sources in their own name
Source records in the database whose author line names this person. Each links to the topic that uses it.
Speeches Before the Utah Territorial Legislature, 23 January and 5 February 1852
Brigham Young
The moment the restriction was publicly announced, and the reasoning Young gave for it.
Journal of Discourses, 26 vols.
Brigham Young, Wilford Woodruff, John Taylor, George Q. Cannon and others
What Brigham Young and his contemporaries actually preached about race and priesthood, in their own words and at length.
Brigham Young to Isaac C. Haight, 10 September 1857
Brigham Young
Exactly what Young told Cedar City to do about the emigrant train, and on what date he told them.
Journal of Discourses, vols. 4–5 (1856–1857)
Brigham Young; Jedediah M. Grant; Heber C. Kimball; George A. Smith
The actual Reformation and blood-atonement rhetoric — Grant at JD 4:49–51, Young at JD 4:53–54 and 4:219–220 — and George A. Smith's own report of his southern tour at JD 5:36.
Journal of Discourses, vol. 11 — discourse by Brigham Young, 19 August 1866
Brigham Young
The most contested nineteenth-century statement tying plural marriage to exaltation, in the surrounding context that both camps argue over.
Deposition of Brigham Young, July 1875 (Lee trial)
Brigham Young
Young's own sworn account: that he received a communication from Haight or Lee about the Arkansas company, answered it, cannot produce the original, and gave no direction about the property.
Appears alongside
People who share the most dated events with Brigham Young.
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