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There are several good reasons for a fresh biography of Brigham Young. In the quarter-century since Arrington and Bringhurst published their studies, a vast amount of scholarship on the early Utah period of Mormonism has become available.
In writing Pioneer Prophet, I have sought to avoid the parochialism and polemicism that has been endemic to Mormon history by placing Young more fully within the context of mid-nineteenth-century American religion and politics. Finally, greater access to church-controlled primary sources differentiates this study from all previous biographies save Arrington’s.
I have relied upon the most contemporary, firsthand, and unedited sources in an attempt to untangle what actually took place. When it was impossible to transcend the limitations of the historical record, I have preserved a sense of ambiguity.
How might we make sense of Young’s ambiguities and complexities, his strengths and his weaknesses? We should begin by remembering that he was a nineteenth-century man and avoid any tortured attempt to make him palatable for a twenty-first-century audience, Mormon or otherwise. Young believed that God had cursed black people with inferiority and servitude, viewed American Indians as savages inclined toward idleness, and—especially until his later years—made misogynistic comments about women. While distinctively Mormon ideas colored his thinking, in many respects Young approached such matters as
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Young’s highest loyalty was to his church and its kingdom, not to the United States, and certainly not to a shared Protestant moral order that vehemently excluded the Latter-day Saints.
Young did not typically distinguish between his own self-interest and that of his church. In his mind, those two things were inseparable.
Brigham Young was Joseph Smith’s successor, but he was in his own right an American religious pioneer.
Especially in newly settled regions of the country, Methodists and other early nineteenth-century evangelicals also reported prophetic dreams, visions, miracles of all sorts, remarkable healings, and other phenomena. Dow claimed the God-given ability to tell fortunes and predict future calamities. Thus, the Young family embraced a rugged faith that emphasized direct encounters with God and ecstatic manifestations of the divine.
As a young man, he both refused to drink and refused to sign a temperance pledge,
After the founding of the American Temperance Society in 1826, perhaps a million Americans joined it and signed a pledge of complete abstinence from alcohol, a thought unimaginable to earlier generations. Brigham made no such promise.
Occupying roughly the same economic terrain as Brigham Young though lacking his skills as a craftsman, Joseph Smith Jr. hired himself out for an array of odd jobs, ranging from farm chores to digging for treasure. For the latter task, Smith sought and utilized seer stones. According to Smith’s mother, Lucy, the small rocks gave Joseph the ability to “discern things invisible to the natural eye.”
speaking in tongues belonged to an age that had long since passed, and its contemporary practice was a sign of delusion, a badge of lunacy reserved for fringe movements such as the Shakers.
The Kirtland converts to Mormonism wanted a far more sweeping restoration of New Testament Christianity than did Campbell. Many had visions, and they embraced healing the sick, speaking in tongues, and prophesying.
When the Young brothers and Kimball spoke in tongues, therefore, some Kirtland Mormons expected Smith to condemn the practice. Young later recalled that the controversy revolved entirely around “the gift of tongues that was upon me” and whether Smith would “condemn the gift brother Brigham had.” Smith, though, pronounced that “it was the pure Adamic language” and of God.
While sheltering themselves from foretold judgments, they would build up a sacred city. Probably because of their millennial emphasis, Joseph Smith’s elders began referring to their movement as the “Church of the Latter Day Saints” and its members simply as “Saints.”13
En route to Missouri, the marchers encountered a large Indian burial mound on the banks of the Illinois River, in which they found a skeleton of a man with an arrow embedded between two ribs. Smith reported a vision in which he learned that the bones were of a warrior named Zelph, a “white Lamanite” who fought in a great battle described in the Book of Mormon. Until at least 1845, Young kept the arrow in his possession, and the party rejoiced at this apparent proof of the new scripture’s authenticity.
Smith’s interest in Hebrew reflected the strong Old Testament imprint that characterized his movement. Rather than ordain ministers and build churches, Smith ordained priests and built temples. He emphasized the learning of Hebrew, rather than biblical Greek or Latin.
In January, the apostles, including Brigham Young, finally confronted Smith and his two counselors in the church’s presidency (Rigdon and Frederick Williams) about their lingering grievances. The Twelve remained upset about Smith’s letter of chastisement from the previous August. Marsh spoke first, followed by the other apostles, including Young. It was one of the very few times that Young spoke openly against the prophet. Perhaps surprised by the apostles’ unity, Smith responded tenderly, asked their forgiveness, and promised not to believe any future complaints against them until having met
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Regional newspapers, though, immediately questioned the safety of “Morman Money.” “As far as we can learn,” editorialized the Cleveland Gazette, “there is no property bound for their redemption, no coin in hand to redeem them with, and no responsible individuals whose honor or whose honesty is pledged for their payment.” “They seem to rest upon a spiritual basis,” the paper concluded. Once circulated, outsiders promptly sought to redeem the notes for specie and quickly drained the bank of its limited reserves. When one non-Mormon organized a run on the bank, rumors quickly circulated that the
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Young himself briefly doubted the prophet’s leadership. “It was not concerning religious matters,” explained Young, “it was not about his revelations—but it was in relation to his financiering.” Quickly repenting of this doubt, Young realized that “if I was to harbor a thought in my heart that Joseph could be wrong in anything, I would begin to lose confidence in him . . . until at last I would have the same lack of confidence in his being the mouthpiece of the Almighty.”
Smith faced prosecution for violating the law, and creditors swarmed Kirtland, suing Smith, Rigdon, and other church leaders, including Brigham Young.51 Smith never effectively restored financial or ecclesiastical peace in Kirtland. Several members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles publicly censured Smith, and others privately doubted his prophetic calling. As Smith left for a trip to Canada, the situation in Kirtland deteriorated further. An open battle between Smith loyalists and dissenters took place in the temple, complete with pistols and bowie-knives. Young missed the altercation; he
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In October, Smith and Rigdon were convicted of issuing banknotes without a charter and fined $1,000 each. When they temporarily left Kirtland for Missouri, it gave the Kirtland dissidents a chance to act. Parrish and others who rejected Smith’s leadership organized themselves as “the old standard” and pledged to return the church to its original principles. Calling themselves the Church of Christ, the church’s original name, they wrested control of the temple and pledged to hold it, “if it is by the shedding of blood.” Excommunications held no sway. “Far from flourishing as their prophet had
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Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon departed Kirtland, fleeing their ecclesiastical enemies and creditors. Soon after their flight, the printing office burned down in flames and scorched the temple, already in the control of Warren Parrish’s “old standard” church.54
Non-Mormon Missourians expected the Saints to limit themselves to newly created Caldwell County, but a few Mormons had settled beyond its borders. Such activity increased when church leaders from Kirtland arrived in 1838. In late May, the prophet and other Mormon leaders had explored a portion of neighboring Daviess County, recognized “an old Nephitish Alter,” and then identified nearby Spring Hill as “the place where Adam shall come to visit his people, or the Ancient of days shall sit as spoken of by Daniel the Prophet.” By revelation, Smith renamed the area “Adam-ondi-Ahman,” and the
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Fierce loyalty and spiritual fervor had brought Young into Smith’s cadre of trusted assistants, but sheer luck—Young was thirteen days older than Kimball—made him leader of his quorum.
Smith steadily moved his church further away from Protestant, Trinitarian Christianity, and he also increasingly emphasized the order of priesthood hierarchies while distancing the church from the often chaotic spirituality of its early years.
The next spring, Smith initiated a select number of trusted followers into a new rite, which became known as “the endowment.”9
In particular, the Nauvoo endowment ceremony was influenced by the Spring 1842 induction of Smith and several dozen other Mormons—including Brigham Young—into Nauvoo’s newly established Masonic Lodge.
In the late 1830s and early 1840s, Smith became attracted to the Masonic emphasis on secrecy, the fraternity’s study of hieroglyphics and other Egyptian esoterica, and its pageantry and ritual.
Accordingly, he ushered leading male members of the church into the lodge, and he openly used the Masonic rite as an inspiration for the church’s endowment ceremony. In the words of Joseph Fielding, Masonic ritual could serve the Mormons as a “Stepping . . . Stone or Preparation for something else, the true Origin of Masonry.”
As was logical for a prophet committed to the “restitution of all things,” from the earliest days of his church Smith considered the marriage practices of the Hebrew patriarchs. In Kirtland, Smith engaged in his first well-documented nonmonogamous relationship, with a servant girl named Fanny Alger. Smith’s defenders, and some of his detractors, later described the relationship with Alger as the prophet’s first plural marriage. The relationship angered Smith’s wife Emma; it also produced allegations of adultery from high-ranking associate Oliver Cowdery, who termed it a “dirty, nasty, filthy
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Whether Smith was motivated by religious obedience or pursued sexual dalliances clothed with divine sanction cannot be fully resolved through historical analysis. In Nauvoo, he gradually and carefully revealed an elaborate theological edifice surrounding plural marriage.
Smith’s logic created a strong incentive for male church leaders to take additional wives. “I understand that a Man’s Dominion will be as God’s is,” Joseph Fielding wrote in his journal, “over his own Creatures and the more numerous the greater his Dominion.” Plural marriage, thus, provided the means by which a man could expand his eternal kingdom and achieve the highest level of celestial glory. At the same time, Smith promised both men and women that if they embraced this new order of marriage they would receive access to priesthood power and tremendous spiritual blessings.17
After marrying two other women in late 1841, the prophet was sealed to perhaps eleven women in the first eight months of 1842, most of whom were already married. He and other church leaders viewed those prior marriages as mere civil contracts, while the sealings were eternal covenants full of sacramental blessings and priestly power. Smith ultimately married around thirty women.18
Although details remain scarce and contested, it is clear that at least some of the marriages were not just for eternity. “I lived with the Prophet Joseph as his wife,” testified Almera Johnson several decades later, implying sexual relations in the visits of Joseph Smith to her.19 Almera’s brother Benjamin Johnson emphasized that to his “certain knowledge he occupied the same bed with her.”20 In an 1892 deposition, Emily Dow Partridge reluctantly testified that she spent the night with Smith on the day of their sealing.21 It was the only night they shared a bed together, though her opaque
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Smith began introducing the doctrine to trusted associates, who termed the principle “celestial marriage,” “eternal marriage,” the “patriarchal order of marriage,” “the new and everlasting covenant of marriage,” and “spiritual wifery.” A few months after their return from England, Smith discussed plural marriage with several of the apostles. “It tried our minds and feelings,” recalled John Taylor. “We saw it was something going to be heavy upon us.”23 While most Mormons reacted negatively when Smith first informed them of the doctrine, the idea of polygamy could not have come as a complete
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Young officiated at a second marriage ceremony, the prophet’s sealing to Mary Elizabeth Rollins, who was already married to non-Mormon Adam Lightner. Many decades later, Mary Rollins related that Smith informed her that God commanded him back in 1834 “to take me for a wife.” Since that seemed impossible, “he got afraid, the angel came to him three times the last time with a drawn sword and threatened his life.”
Polygamy, however, was not meant to be only for the prophet, and Young would soon have to take further steps of obedience.25 At some point in early 1842, Smith told him to “go & get another wife.” Young recalled that the instruction came in the form of a “command,” not a choice. Still, he hesitated. “I felt as if the grave was better for me,” he later explained. After discussing the matter with Smith, though, the apostle quickly moved from apprehension to exhilaration.
Young first proposed to seventeen-year-old Martha Brotherton, a winsome young woman from England who had recently arrived in Illinois with her parents and siblings. Young knew Brotherton from his time in Manchester, where he spent the night at her family’s home on two occasions.
In the affidavit, Brotherton stated that Young and Kimball persuaded her to meet with Joseph Smith in the upper room above Smith’s store, the same room in which Young had officiated at two of Smith’s plural weddings and in which he would soon receive his endowment. According to Brotherton, Smith and Kimball left her with Young, who then “arose, locked the door, closed the window, and drew the curtain” before asking her if she would marry him “were it lawful and right.” Young then explained the prophet’s teaching on the matter: “brother Joseph has had a revelation from God that it is lawful and
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Undeterred by Brotherton’s rejection and the unfolding scandal, on June 14 Young married twenty-year-old Lucy Ann Decker. Smith officiated at the ceremony. At the time she became Young’s first plural wife, Lucy Ann Decker was already the wife of William Seeley, whom she had married at around the age of fourteen.
It is also uncertain when Mary Ann Young learned of her husband’s entrance into plural marriage. Early plural marriages—such as many of Joseph Smith’s as well as Heber Kimball’s first polygamous sealing—often took place without the consent of first wives. While probably not fully aware of the implications of Smith’s emerging theology, when she learned about celestial marriage Mary Ann likely reacted with a combination of displeasure and stoic acceptance.
Mary Ann then further indicated her support in the autumn of 1843 by attending two of Brigham’s subsequent sealings.34
Much like the seventeenth-century Puritans, the Mormons strictly confined sexuality within marriage but affirmed its vitality within such confines. Mormon polygamists extended such reasoning to plural unions.36
Young spent much of the summer and fall attempting to repair those ecclesiastical cracks and rebut Smith’s critics within and outside the church. Young and scores of other Mormons loyal to Smith fanned out across the region, denouncing Bennett’s allegations. The anti-Bennett campaign marked the beginning of a ten-year effort to deny the doctrine and practice of polygamy.
Hyrum Smith vigorously rebutted John C. Bennett’s allegations of “spiritual wifery.” “If an angel from heaven should come and preach such doctrine,” Hyrum stated, denouncing polygamy at a May 1843 meeting, “[you] would be sure to see his cloven foot and cloud of blackness over his head.” Joseph had not yet introduced his brother to the doctrine of plural marriage, probably because he feared Hyrum would oppose and possibly expose it.
According to Young’s later recollection, Hyrum then confronted Young about the doctrine. “I do know that you the Twelve know some things I don’t know,” he interrogated Young, “. . . is it so?” “I don’t know anything about what you know,” Young artfully evaded the question, “I know what I know.” After Hyrum pressed him on whether Joseph had “a revelation that a man should have more than one wife,” Young forced the prophet’s brother to “swear with an uplifted hand” never to say another word against plural marriage. “I told him the whole story,” Young later explained, “and [he] bowed to it and
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The doctrine of plural marriage imperiled the relationship Brigham and Mary Ann had previously enjoyed.41
Young’s close friend Heber Kimball offered his fourteen-year-old daughter Helen in marriage to Smith out of his “great desire to be connected with the prophet.” Young did not express any such desire. Shortly after Young’s sealing to Lucy Decker Seeley, Young’s oldest daughter Elizabeth married, and Young moved his daughter Vilate to Boston when she was thirteen.42
Brigham and Augusta’s marriage, moreover, was born of mutual faith and attraction. She wrote of a “love” that had sprung up rapidly. “Sister Cobb,” Young asserted in 1847, “was given me by Revelation but I never did anything till long after she was given until I got the ceremonies performed and all made right.” Young’s comment makes clear that the relationship included sexual relations after their sealing.49
