After guiding an exodus of thousands of Mormons westward to the Great Salt Lake Valley, Young founded Salt Lake City and served as the first governor of the Utah Territory.
Despite limited formal schooling, Brigham Young was an advocate of education. He founded the institutions that would later become Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Brigham Young was also known for his practice of plural marriage.
He was the second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), from 1847 until his death in 1877. During his time as church president, Young led his followers, the Mormon pioneers, west from Nauvoo, Illinois to the Salt Lake Valley.
Another significant act of loyalty occurred when Brigham Young was given the privilege of sending the first message from Salt Lake City on the newly completed transcontinental telegraph in October 1861. His message to Lincoln: "Utah has not seceded, but is firm for the Constitution and laws of our once happy country."
We believe Jesus is the Son of God, the Only Begotten Son in the flesh (John 3:16). We accept the prophetic declarations in the Old Testament that refer directly and powerfully to the coming of the Messiah, the Savior of all humankind. We believe that Jesus of Nazareth was and is the fulfillment of those prophecies.
While most members of the Church do not mind being called "Mormons," a more formal way to refer to a person who belongs to the faith is "a Latter-day Saint," or "a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
People began referring to Latter-day Saints as "Mormons" in the 19th century shortly after the Church was established. The word comes from the Book of Mormon, a sacred book of scripture used by Mormons in addition to the Bible.
Yes, Under the Banner of Heaven is based on a true story that is documented in the 2003 book of the same name. Under The Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith written by author Jon Krakuaer, documents the real-life murder of Brenda Lafferty in the 1980s.
Residents resented the Mormons' growing power, feared the poverty of some recent arrivals would lead to "pauperism," and even worried that local Mormon converts would deed their property to the church rather than relatives.
Mormons also believed in States' Rights, as did the Confederacy. Moreover, Utah was surrounded by Arizona, New Mexico, and Southern California, all of which expressed secessionist leanings. But Mormon leader Brigham Young was anxious to affirm Utah's loyalty to the Union.
The Mormons, as they were commonly known, had moved west to escape religious discrimination. After the murder of founder and prophet Joseph Smith, they knew they had to leave their old settlement in Illinois. Many Mormons died in the cold, harsh winter months as they made their way over the Rocky Mountains to Utah.
Utah WarUnited States 5th Infantry 10th Infantry B Battery (Phelps') of the 4th Artillery 2nd DragoonsDeseret / Utah Mormons Nauvoo Legion Native American alliesCommanders and leadersPresident James Buchanan Governor Alfred Cumming General Albert S. JohnstonGov. Brigham Young Gen. Daniel H. Wells Cap. Lot SmithStrength7 more rows
May 1857 – July 1858Utah War / Period
Missourian victory1838 Mormon WarDateAugust 6, 1838 – November 1, 1838LocationNorthwestern Missouri, United States (Caldwell County, Carroll County, Daviess County, Livingston County)ResultMissourian victory Mormons expelled from Missouri and resettled in Nauvoo, Illinois.
The Mountain Meadows Massacre (September 7–11, 1857) was a series of attacks during the Utah War that resulted in the mass murder of at least 120 members of the Baker–Fancher emigrant wagon train.
Johnston's Army President Buchanan and the Secretary of War, John Floyd, sent 2,500 troops to Utah in July of 1857. This body of troops became known to people in Utah as Johnston's Army.
On Sept. 11, 1857, a group of California-bound pioneers camping in southern Utah were murdered by a Mormon militia and its Indian allies. The massacre lasted less than five minutes, but when it was over, 120 men, women and children had been clubbed, stabbed or shot at point-blank range. Their corpses, stripped of clothes and jewelry, ...
Children who survived the massacre later described seeing their parents' clothes and jewelry on the bodies of local settlers. Bagley, who says he is a "Jack Mormon," or lapsed believer, contends that the attack had less to do with greed than ideology.
In 1857, at the time of the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Brigham Young, was serving as President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and as Governor of Utah Territory. He was replaced as governor the following year by Alfred Cumming. Evidence as to whether or not Young ordered the attack on the migrant column is conflicted. Historians still debate the autonomy and precise roles of local Cedar City LDS Church officials in ordering the massacre an…
The Mountain Meadows Massacre victimized several groups of emigrants from the northwestern Arkansas region who had started their treks to California in early 1857, joining along the way and becoming known as the Baker–Fancher party. For the decade prior the emigrants' arrival, Utah Territory had existed essentially as a theocracy led by Brigham Young. As part of Young's vision of a …
On September 8, 1857, Captain Stewart Van Vliet, of the US Army Quartermaster Corps, arrived in Salt Lake City. Van Vliet's mission was to inform Young that the US troops then approaching Utah did not intend to attack the Mormons, but intended to establish an army base near Salt Lake City and to request Young's cooperation in procuring supplies for the army. Young informed Van Vliet that he was skeptical that the army's intentions were peaceful and that the Mormons intended t…
Young first heard about the massacre from John D. Lee, one of the participants. A few days after the massacre, September 29, 1857, Lee briefed Young in Salt Lake City. (Brigham Young was mistaken when he later testified that the meeting took place "some two of three months after the massacre" Young 1875.) Decades later, Young's son, who was 13 in 1857, said that he was in the office during that meeting and that he remembered Lee blaming the massacre on the Native Am…
During the 1870s Lee, Dame, Philip Klingensmith, Ellott Willden, and George Adair, Jr. were indicted and arrested; warrants were obtained to pursue the arrests of four others (Haight, John Higbee, William C. Stewart, and Samuel Jukes) who had successfully gone into hiding. Klingensmith escaped prosecution by agreeing to testify against the others. In 1870, Young excommunicated some of the participants, including Haight and Lee, from the LDS Church. The …
1. Briggs, Robert H. (2006), "The Mountain Meadows Massacre: An Analytical Narrative Based on Participant Confessions" (PDF), Utah Historical Quarterly, 74 (4): 313–333.
2. Carleton, James Henry (1859), Special Report on the Mountain Meadows Massacre, Washington: Government Printing Office (published 1902).