Pioneers and prominent men of Utah : comprising photographs, genealogies, biographies, Part 261

Author: Esshom, Frank Ellwood, b. 1865
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Utah : Utah pioneers book publishing company
Number of Pages: 1336

USA > Utah > Pioneers and prominent men of Utah : comprising photographs, genealogies, biographies > Part 261

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He next appears at Far West, Mo., the new gathering place of the Saints, where after the apostasy of Thomas B. Marsh and the death of David W. Patten (his seniors among the Aposties), he succeeded to the presidency of the Twelve. This was in the very midst of the mob troubles that cul- minated in the expulsion of the Mormon community from that State. In the absence of the first presidency, composed of the Prophet, his brother Hyrum Smith, and Sidney Rig- don, who had been thrown Into prison, President Young, though not then in Missouri, directed the winter exodus of his people, and the homeless and plundered refugees- twelve to fifteen thousand in number-fiecing through frost and snow by the light of their burning dwellings, were safely landcd upon the hospitable shores of Illinois.

His next notable achievement was in connection with the spread of Mormonism in foreign lands. As early as July, 1838, he and his fellow Aposties had been directed by the Prophet to take a mission to Europe, and "the word of the Lord" was piedged that they should depart on a certain day from the Temple lot In Far West. This was before the mob troubles arose, before the Mormons had been driven, and before there was any prospect that they would be. But all was now changed, the expulsion was an accom- plished fact, and it was almost as much as a Mormon's life was worth to be seen In Missouri. The day set for the departure of the Apostles from Far West (April 26. 1839) was approaching, but they werc far away, and apostates and mobocrats were boasting that the revelation pertalning to that departure would fail. Before daybreak, however, on the morning of the day appointed, Brigham Young and others of the Twelve rode Into the town, held a meeting on the Temple lot, and started thence upon their mission, their enemles meanwhile wrapped in siumber, oblivious of what was taking place. Delayed by the founding of their new city, Nauvoo, in Hancock county, Ill., and by an epidemic of fever and ague that swept over that newly settled section, they did not cross the Atlantic until about a year later, and even then this Indomitable man and his no less indomitable associates arose from sick beds, leaving their families afiing and almost destitute, to begin their journey.

Landing at Liverpool penniless and among strangers, April 6, 1840-Mormonism's tenth anniversary-they re- mained in Great Britain a little over a year, during which time they baptized between seven and eight thousand souls and raised up branches of the church In almost every noted city and town throughout the United Kingdom. They established the periodical known as "The Miilennlal Star," published five thousand copies of the Book of Mormon, three thousand hymn books and fifty thousand tracts, emigrated a thousand souls to Nauvoo, and founded a permanent shipping agency for the use of future emigration. The

British Mission had previously been opencd, but Its founda- tions were now laid broad and deep. The first foreign mis- sion of the Mormon church, it still remains the most im- portant proselyting field for the energetic elders of this organization.

Brigham Young, soon after his return from abroad, was taught by the Prophet the principle of celestial or piural marriage, which he practiced as did others while at Nauvoo. He married among other women, several of the Prophet's widows. It was not until after the settlement of Utah, however, that "polygamy" was proclaimed.

Brigham Young was in the eastern states, when Joseph and Hyrum Smith were murdered in Carthage jail, June 27, 1844. The business which had taken him and most of the Apostles from home was an electioneering mission In the interests of the Prophet, who was a candidate for the presidency of the United States. As soon as they heard the awful tidings of the assassination, they hurried back to Nauvoo.

Their return was timely. The Saints, grief-stricken at the loss of their leaders, needed the presence of the Apostles, but not merely as a means of consolation. Factions were forming and a schism threatened the church. Sidney Rig- don, who had been the Prophet's first counselor in the first presidency, was urging with all his eloquence for he was an eloquent and a learned man-his claim to the leader- ship, contending that he was Joseph's rightful successor; notwithstanding that for some time he had absented him- self from Nauvoo and the society of the Saints, manifest- Ing a disposition to shirk the trials patiently borne by his much suffering associates. Brigham Young, with little learning and less eloquence, but speaking straight to the point, maintained the right of the Twelve Apostles to lead the church in the absence of the first presidency, basing his ciaim upon the teachings of the martyred Seer, who had declared: "Where I am not, there is no first presidency over the Twelve." He had aiso repeatedly affirmed that he

had rolled the burden of the "Kingdom" from his own shoulders upon those of the Twelve.

The great majority of the people sustained President Young, and followed him in the exodus from Illinois, leav- ing Eider Rigdon and other claimants at the head of various small factions which have made no special mark in history. Brigham, by virtue of his position in the quorum of the Tweive, was now virtually president of the church, though he did not take that title until nearly two years later, when the first presidency was again organized. The exodus began in February, 1846.

Expelled from Nauvoo across the frozen Mississippi, armed mobs behind them, and a savage wilderness before, the homeless pilgrims, with their oxteams and heavily loaded wagons, haited in their westward flight upon the Missouri river, where, in the summer of the same year they filled a government requisition for five hundred men to serve in the United States in its war against Mexico. Thus originates the famous Mormon Battalion, whose story is told in another place.

President Young and his associates, after raising the Battalion and witnessing Its departure for the West, set about preparing for the journey of the pioneers to the Rocky Mountains. This company, Including himself, num- bered one hundred and forty-three men, three women and two children, meagerly supplied with wagons, provisions, firearms, plows, seed-grain and the usual camp equipment. Leaving the main body of their people upon the Missouri, with Instructions to follow later, the pioneers started from Winter Quarters (now Florence, Neb.), early in April. 1847. Traversing the trackiess plains and snow-capped mountains, they penetrated to the very heart of the "Great American Desert," where they founded Salt Lake City, the .parent of hundreds of cities, towns and villages that have since sprung into existence as Brigham Young's and Mor- monism's gift to civilization. The date of their arrival In Salt Lake Valley was July 24, a day thenceforth "set among the high tides of the calendar."

Fiinging to the breeze the stars and stripes, these Mormon colonizers took possession of the country, which then be- longed to Mexico, as in the name of the United States, and after the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, by which, In Feb- ruary, 1848, the land was ceded to this nation, they or- ganized, pending the action of Congress upon their petition for a State government, the Provisional State of Deseret, of which Brigham Young was elected governor, March 12, 1849. They thoroughly explored the surrounding region, placated or subdued the savage tribes (President Young's policy was to feed the Indians rather than fight them), battled with crickets, grasshoppers and drouth, Instituted irrigation, redeemed arid lands, built cities, established newspapers, founded schools and factories, and made the whole land hum with the whirring wheels of industry. They were emphatIcally what they styled themselves, "the busy bees of the hive of Deseret."

There was but one branch of industry that they did not encourage. It was mining. In the midst of one of the richest metal-bearing regions in the world, their leader discountenanced mining, advising his people to devote them- selves primarily to agriculture. "We cannot eat gold and silver," said Brigham Young. "We need bread and clothing first. Neither do we want to bring in here a roving, reck- less frontier population to drive us again from our hard- earned homes. Let mining go for the present, until we are strong enough to take care of ourselves, and meantime let us devote our energies to farming, stock-raising, manufac- turing, etc., those health-giving pursuits that lie at the basis of every State's prosperity." Such, if not his precise language, was the substance of his teachings upon this point. It was the premature opening of the mines, not mining itself, that he opposed.

Congress denied Deseret's prayer for Statehood, but on the 9th of September, 1850, organized the Territory of Utah, of which Brigham Young became governor, by appointment of President Miliard Filimore, after whom the grateful Mor- mons named the county of Miliard and the city of Fill- more, originally the capital of the Territory. Governor Young served two terms, and was succeeded in 1858 by Governor Alfred Cumming, a native of Georgia, Utah's first non-Mormon executive.

Just prior to Governor Cumming's installation occurred the exciting but bloodless conflict known as "The Echo Canyon War," but officially styled "The Utah Expedition." It was the heroic crisis of Brigham Young's life, when, on the 15th of September, 1857, he, as governor of Utah, pro- ciaimed the Territory under martial law, and forbade the United States army then on our borders (ordered here by President Buchanan to suppress an imaginary Mormon up- rising) to cross the confines of the commonwealth. His purpose was not to defy the national authorities, but to hold in check Johnston's troops (thus preventing a possible repetition of the anti-Mormon atrocities of Missouri and Illinois) until the government-which had been misled by false reports-could investigate the situation and become convinced of its error. Governor Young, backed by the Utah militia, fully accomplished his design and the affair was amicably settled,

Though no longer governor of Utah, Brigham Young re- mained president of the Mormon church, and as such was the real power in the land. Under his wise and vigorous administration the country was built up rapidly. The settlements founded by him and his people on the shores of the Great Sait Lake formed a nucleus for western civliiza- tion, greatly facilitating the colonization of the vast arid plateau known as the Great Basin. Idaho, Montana, the Dakotas, Colorado, Wyoming, Nevada (once a part of

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Utah), Arizona and New Mexico, owe much in this con- nection to Utah and her founders.

It was presumed by many that the opening of the great conflict between the northern and the southern states, would find Brigham Young and his people arrayed on the side of secession and in arms against the Federal government. What was the surprise, therefore, when, on the 18th of October, 1861, at the very threshold of the strife, with the tide of victory running In favor of the Confederacy, there flashed eastward over the wires of the Overland Telegraph line, just completed to Salt Lake City, the following mes- sage signed by Brigham Young: "Utah has not seceded, but is firm for the constitution and laws of our once happy country." At this time also the Mormon leader offered to the head of the nation the services of a picked body of men to protect the mail route on the plains, an offer graciously accepted by President Lincoln. Early in 1862, Utah applied for admission into the Union.

The prevailing prejudice, however, was too dense to be at once dispelled. Hence, notwithstanding these evidences of loyaity, springing not from policy but from true patriot- ism, a body of Government troops-the California and Nevada Volunteers, commander by Colonel Patrick E. Connor-were ordered to Utah and assigned the task of "watching Brigham Young and the Mormons," during this period of nationai peril. The insult implied by the pres- ence of the troops-who founded Fort Douglas on the bench east of Salt Lake City-was keenly felt, and considerable friction arose, though no actual collision occurred between the soldiers and the civilians in general. Gradually the acerbities wore away and friendly feelings took their place. In after years, when President Young was summoned to be tried before Chief Justice McKean, who should offer to become one of his bondsmen but General Patrick Edward Connor, ex-commander at the Fort, who was then engaged extensively in mining, of which industry he was Utah's pioneer.

It was twenty-two years after the settlement of Salt Lake Valiey when the shriek of the locomotive broke the stili- ness of the mountain solitudes, and the peaceful settlements of the Saints were thrown open to the encroachment of modern civilization. A new era then dawned upon Deseret. Her days of isolation were ended. Population increased, commerce expanded and a thousand and one improvements were planned and explained. Telegraphs and railroads threw a net-work of steel and electricity over a region formerly traversed by the slow-going oxteam and lumber- ing stage coach. The mines, previously opened, were developed, property of all kinds increased in vaiue, and in- dustry on every hand felt the thrill of an electric reawaken- Ing. Tourists from East and West began flocking to the Mormon country, to see for themselves the "peculiar peo- ple" and their Institutions, trusting no more to the wild tales told by sensationai traducers.

In the midst of it ali, Brigham Young remained tbe master mind and leading spirit of the time. He had pre- dicted the transcontinental rafiroad and marked out Its path while crossing the piains and mountains in 1847, and now, when it was extending across Utah, he became a con- tractor, helping to build the Union Pacific grade through Echo and Weber canyons. Two and a half years earlier he had established the Deseret Telegraph line, a locai enter- prise constructed entirely by Mormon capital and labor under his direction. In the early "seventies" he with otbers built the Utah Central and Utah Southern railroads, the pioneer lines of the Territory, and of the first-named road he was for many years the president.

But while in sympathy with such enterprises and anxious to forward them, he was not to be caught napping by the changes that he knew would follow. Just before the com- ing of 'the railroad be organized Zion's Co-operative Mer- cantile Institution, a mammoth concern designed to con- solidate the commercial interests of his people. In this and in other ways he sucessfully met the vigorous and in many respects unfriendly competition that surged in from outside.

With the increase of the Gentile population came the for- mation of rival political parties, the first that Utah had known. Non-Mormon churches and newspapers also mui- tiplied, religious and political agitators made the air sul- phurous with their imprecations against "the dominant power," and Congress at regular intervals was asked to exterminate the remaining "twin relic of barbarism." Still, Mormonism, personified in Brigham Young, continued to bold its own.

Under the anti-polygamy statute enacted by Congress in July, 1862, but one attempt was made to prosecute the Mormon leader. This was in March, 1863, when a plot was said to be forming to arrest him by military force and run him off to the States for triai. He forestailed the suc- cess of the scheme-if such a scheme existed-by surrender- ing to the United States Marshal and going before Chief Justice Kinney in chambers, where he was examined and held to bail, but subsequently discharged, there not being sufficient evidence to justify an indictment. The charge in this case was that of marrying a plural wife, the only act made punishable by the law of 1862, which was silent as to the maintenance of polygamous relations. Thence- forth that law remained a dead letter, no attempt being made to enforce it, the Mormons regarding It as uncon- stitutional, as it trenched upon a principle of their rellgion, and many non-Mormons, Including noted editors, jurists and statesmen, sharing the same view. In 1874 a test-case was instituted, under President Young's sanction, to secure a decision from the Supreme Court of the United States, but that decision, sustaining the law's constitutionality, was not rendered until eighteen months after his death.

But while measurably safe from prosecution under the anti-polygamy act, the Mormon leader and his compeers were not free from judiciai harassments. In the fall of 1871 President Young and others were prosecuted before Chief Justice Mckean under a local law enacted by tbe Mormons themseives against the social evil, adultery and other sexual sins, and never intended to apply to polygamy or association with piural wives, which was the head and front of their offending. These prosecutions, with others, were stopped by the Englebrecht decision of April, 1872, in which the court of last resort held that the grand jury which had found the indictments was illegal.

A few years later Judge Mckean had the Mormon leader again in tbe toils. Under his fostering care bad arisen the case of Ann Eliza Young vs. Brigham Young, in which the plaintiff, one of the defendant's plural wives, sued him for divorce and alimony. The judge in his zeal went so far as to give Ann Eliza the status of a legal wife, deciding against all law and logic that the defendant should pay her all- mony pendente lite, to the amount of nearly ten thousand doliars. Failing to promptly comply with this demand- which set the whole country In a roar-the venerable founder of Utah was imprisoned by order of court in the Utab penitentiary. Sentence was passed upon him March 11, 1875-the term of imprisonment being twenty-four hours-and just one week later the storm of censure re- sulting from this act culminated in Mckean's removal from office.

In the autumn of the same year President Grant visited Utah, the first executive of the nation to set foot within the Territory. The most Interesting incident of his visit was a cordial interview between him and President Young, who with a party welcomed the chief magistrate at Ogden and rode in the same train with him and his suite to Salt Lake City. This was the first and only time that Brigham Young met a president of the United States.

The closing labors of President Young's life, foliowing a vigorous and partiy successful effort to re-establish the "United Order" (a communal system introduced by the Prophet Joseph Smith), comprised the dedication in Jan- uary and Aprii, 1877, of the St. George Temple-the first Temple erected by the Saints since leaving Nauvoo; also a reorganization of the Stakes of Zion, beginning with St. George Stake on April 7th, and ending with Box Elder Stake on August 19th of that year. To effect the latter organization, he made his final trip beyond the limits of Sait Lake City.

President Young died at his residence, the historic Lion House, August 29, 1877. He left an estate valued at two and a half million dollars, most of which was divided among the members of his family. These were numerous, but their number, for sensational effect, has been grossly exaggerated. His children at his deatb numbered about forty. Six of his widows survive. The majority of his families dwelt in the Lion and Bee-hive houses, where each wife with her children had separate apartments, and where, contrary to facetious reports, all dwelt together in amity. The Gardo House, a bandsome and stately modern man- sion, surnamed by non-Mormons the "Amelia Palace," and pointed out to tourists as the "home of the favorite wife" was in reality the president's official residence, erected mainly for the entertainment of distinguished visitors.

The best known of President Young's sons are Brigham Young, president of the Twelve Apostles; Hon. Joseph A. Young, deceased; John W. Young, once a member of the first presidency, now a noted business man, and Coionel Wiliard Young, of the United States Army, who commanded a regiment of volunteer engineers during the war with Spain. Among the president's grandsons are Laurence H. Young, weil known as a business man. Major Richard W. Young (like his Uncic Willard a graduate of West Point) who recentiy won laurels in the Philippines. He commanded the Utah Light artillery at the capture of Manila, and was subsequently one of the judges of the supreme court at that place. Another grandson, Brigham S. Young, is a member of the Salt Lake Board of Education; another is John Willard Clawson, the painter; and still another, George W. Thatcher, Jr., musician. Elder Sey- mour B. Young, of the First Council of Seventy; Judge LeGrange Young; Brigham Bicknell Young, vocalist; Dr. Harry A. Young, kiilcd in the Philippines, and Private Joseph Young, who died in the same cause, are among the president's nepbews. Corporai John Young, siain In battle near Maniia, was his grand-nephew. Two of President Young's daughters have been mentioned. In addition might be named Mrs. Luna Thatcher, Mrs. Emily Clawson, Mrs. Caroline Cannon, Mrs. Zina Card, Mrs. Maria Dougall; Mrs. Phebe Beatie, Mrs. Dora Hagan, Mrs. Eva Davis, Mrs. Nettie Easton, Mrs. Louisa Ferguson, Mrs. Susa Gates, Mrs. Mira Rossiter, Mrs. Clarissa Spencer, Mrs. Miriam Hardy, Mrs. Josephine Young, Mrs. Fannie Clayton and otbers. The most noted grand-daughter is Emma Lucy Gates, the singer.

Brigham Young, like Joseph Smith, was a warm friend of education. Among the monuments left to perpetuate his memory are two noble institutions of learning, namely the Brigham Young academy and the Brigham Young college, the former at Provo, 50 miles south, and the latter at Logan, 100 miles north of Utah's capital. He also projected the Young university at Sait Lake City, but died before per- fecting his plans concerning it. Believing that man, in order to be fully educated, must be developed mentally, physicaliy, morally and spiritually, he provided that reli- gion and manual training should be included in the cur- ricuium of the institutions he founded. In the trust deed en-

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dowing the Brigham Young college with 10,000 acres of land (worth now about $200,000) it was prescribed that no text book should be used which misrepresented or spoke lightly of "the divine mission of our Savior or of the Prophet Joseph Smith." The founding of these institu- tions was not the sum of President Young's labors in the cause of education. The entire school system of the state, crowned with the University of Utah, is largely the result of his zealous efforts in this direction.

Among the president's many taients was a genius for architecture, some of the evidences of which are the St. George, Logan, Manti and Sait Lake temples, and the Sait Lake tabernacle. As early as 1862 he buiit the Sait Lake theatre, at the time of its erection the finest tempie of the drama between St. Louis and San Francisco. The Brigham Young memorial building, one of a group of structures belonging to the Latter-day Saints university, founded by the church at Sait Lake City, was erected with means raised from the sale of lands whereon he proposed piac- ing the Young university; said lands being donated by his surviving heirs for that purpose.

A more sketch, this, of the life and character of Utah's illustrious founder. You who would peruse him more fuily, pore over the annals of Mormonism during its first half century; you who would witness his works, look around you-they are manifest on every hand. He was not only a Moses, who ied his people into a wilderness, but a Joshua who established them in a promised land and divided to them their inheritance. He was the beatitude heart, the thinking brain, the directing hand in all the wondrous work of Utah's development, and to a great extent the development of the surrounding states and territories, trans- formed by the touch of industry from a desert of sage- brush and sand, into an Eden of fertility, a veritable "Garden of the Lord," redolent of fruits and blossoming with flowers. Brigham Young needs no monument of marbie

or bronze. His record is imperishabiy written upon the minds and hearts of many tens of thousands to whom he was a benefactor and friend. His name and fame are forever enshrined in the tempie of history, in the Pantheon of memory, in the Westminster Abbey of the soui.

"In regard to the Mountain Meadow Massacre, Brigham Young testified that he knew nothing of it until some time after it occurred, and then only by a floating rumor. The first official report was from John D. Lee, two or three months after it occurred."

"He personally donated $1,000 for the relief of the people left destitute by the fire in Chicago in 1871. And with donations from the Salt Lake City corporation, the receipts tendered by the management of the Sait Lake theatre, and personal donations, the amount aggregated about $20,000." "At the annual conference of the church in April, 1873, he resigned the office of trustee-in-trust, which he had heid for about 25 years, and George A. Smith was chosen to succeed him. At this conference he chosc five additional counselors to aid him in the presidency of the church. They were: Lorenzo Snow, Brigham Young, Jr., Albert Carring- ton, John W. Young and George Q. Cannon."

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Pioneers and prominent men of Utah : comprising photographs, genealogies, biographies, Part 261

Author: Esshom, Frank Ellwood, b. 1865 Publication date: 1913 Publisher: Salt Lake City, Utah : Utah pioneers book publishing company Number of Pages: 1336

Author: Esshom, Frank Ellwood, b. 1865
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Salt Lake City, Utah : Utah pioneers book publishing company
Number of Pages: 1336