Brigham Young died in Salt Lake City at 4 P.M. on Wednesday, August 29,
1877. He was attacked with acute cholera morbus on the evening of the
23rd, after delivering an address in the Council House, and it was
followed by inflammation of the bowels. The body lay in state in the
Tabernacle from Saturday, September 1, until Sunday noon, when the
funeral services were held. He was buried in a little plot on one of the
main streets of Salt Lake City, not far from his place of residence.
The steps by which Young reached the position of head of the Mormon
church, the character of his rule, and the means by which he maintained
it have been set forth in the previous chapters of this work. In the
ruler we have seen a man without education, but possessed of an iron
will, courage to take advantage of unusual opportunities, and a thorough
knowledge of his flock gained by association with them in all their
wanderings. In his people we have seen a nucleus of fanatics, including
some of Joseph Smith's fellow-plotters, constantly added to by new
recruits, mostly poor and ignorant foreigners, who had been made to
believe in Smith's Bible and "revelations," and been further lured to a
change of residence by false pictures of the country they were going to,
and the business opportunities that awaited them there. Having made
a prominent tenet of the church the practice of polygamy, which Young
certainly knew the federal government would not approve, he had an
additional bond with which to unite the interests of his flock with his
own, and thus to make them believe his approval as necessary to their
personal safety as they believed it to be necessary to their salvation.
The command which Young exercised in these circumstances is not
an illustration of any form of leadership which can be held up to
admiration. It is rather an exemplification of that tyranny in church
and state which the world condemns whenever an example of it is
afforded.
Young was the centre of responsibility for all the rebellion,
nullification, and crime carried on under the authority of the church
while he was its head. He never concealed his own power. He gloried in
it, and declared it openly in and out of the Tabernacle. Authority
of this kind cannot be divided. Whatever credit is due to Young for
securing it, is legitimately his. But those who point to its acquisition
as a sign of greatness, must accept for him, with it, responsibility for
the crimes that were carried on under it.
The laudators of Young have found evidence of great executive ability in
his management of the migration from Nauvoo to Utah. But, in the first
place, this migration was compulsory; the Mormons were obliged to move.
In the second place its accomplishment was no more successful than the
contemporary migrations to Oregon, and the loss of life in the camps
on the Missouri River was greater than that incurred in the great rush
across the plains to California; while the horrors of the hand-cart
movement--a scheme of Young's own device--have never been equalled in
Western travel. In Utah, circumstances greatly favored Young's success.
Had not gold been discovered when it was in California, the Mormon
settlement would long have been like a dot in a desert, and its ability
to support the stream Of immigrants attracted from Europe would have
been problematic, since, in more than one summer, those already there
had narrowly escaped starvation while depending on the agricultural
resources of the valley.
J. Hyde, writing in 1857, said that Young "by the native force and vigor
of a strong mind" had taken from beneath the Mormon church system "the
monstrous stilts of a miserable superstition, and consolidated it into
a compact scheme of the sternest fanaticism."* In other words, he might
have explained, instead of relying on such "revelations" as served
Smith, he refused to use artificial commands of God, and substituted
the commands of Young, teaching, and having his associates teach, that
obedience to the head of the church was obedience to the Supreme Power.
Both Hyde and Stenhouse, writing before Young's death, and as witnesses
of the strength of his autocratic government, overestimated him. This
is seen in the view they took of the effect of his death. Hyde declared
that under any of the other contemporary leaders: Taylor, Kimball, Orson
Hyde, or Pratt: "Mormonism will decline. Brigham is its tun; this is
its daytime." Stenhouse asserted that, "Theocracy will die out with
Brigham's flickering flame of life; and, when he is laid in the tomb,
many who are silent now will curse his memory for the cruel suffering
that his ambition caused them to endure." But all such prophecies remain
unfulfilled. Young's death caused no more revolution or change in the
Mormon church than does the death of a Pope in the Church of Rome.
"Regret it who may," wrote a Salt Lake City correspondent less than
three months after his burial, "the fact is visible to every intelligent
person here that Mormonism has taken a new lease of life, and, instead
of disintegration, there never was such unity among its people; and in
the place of a rapidly dying consumptive, whose days were numbered, the
body of the church is the picture of pristine health and vigor, with all
the ambition and enthusiasm of a first love."** The new leadership has,
grudgingly, traded polygamy for statehood; but the church power is
as strong and despotic and unified to-day on the lines on which it is
working as it was under Young, only exercising that power on the more
civilized basis rendered necessary by closer connection with an outside
civilization.
* "Mormonism," p.151.
** New York Times, November 23, 1877.
Young was a successful accumulator of property for his own use. A poor
man when he set out from Nauvoo, his estate at his death was valued at
between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000. This was a great accumulation for a
pioneer who had settled in a wilderness, been burdened with a polygamous
family of over twenty wives and fifty children, and the cares of a
church denomination, without salary as a church officer. "I am the only
person in the church," Young said to Greeley in 1859, "who has not a
regular calling apart from the church service"; and he added, "We think
a man who cannot make his living aside from the ministry of the church
unsuited to that office. I am called rich, and consider myself worth
$250,000; but no dollar of it ever was paid me by the church, nor for
any service as a minister of the Everlasting Gospel." * Two years after
his death a writer in the Salt Lake Tribune** asserted that Young had
secured in Utah from the tithing $13,000,000, squandered about $9,000
on his family, and left the rest to be fought for by his heirs and
assigns.*** Notwithstanding the vast sums taken by him in tithing for
the alleged benefit of the poor, there was not in Salt Lake City, at
the time of his death, a single hospital or "home" creditable to that
settlement.
* "Overland Journey," p. 213.
** June 25, 1879.
*** "Having control of the tithing, and possessing unlimited
credit, he has added 'house to house and field to field,' while every
one knew that he had no personal enterprises sufficient to enable him
to meet anything like the current expenses of his numerous wives and
children. As trustee in trust he renders no account of the funds that
come into his hands, but tells the faithful that they are at perfect
liberty to examine the books at any moment."--"Rocky Mountain Saints,"
p. 665.
The mere acquisition of his wealth no more entitled Young to be held up
as a marvellous man of business than did Tweed's accumulations give him
this distinction in New York. Beadle declares that "Brigham never made
a success of any business he undertook except managing the Mormons,"
and cites among his business failures the non-success of every distant
colony he planted, the Cottonwood Canal (whose mouth was ten feet
higher than its source), his beet-sugar manufactory, and his Colorado
Transportation Company (to bring goods for southern Utah up the Colorado
River).*
* "Polygamy," p. 484.
The reports of Young's discourses in the Temple show that he was as
determined in carrying out his own financial schemes as he was in
enforcing orders pertaining to the church. Here is an almost humorous
illustration of this. In urging the people one day to be more regular
in paying their tithing, he said they need not fear that he would make a
bad use of their money, as he had plenty of his own, adding:--"I believe
I will tell you how I get some of it. A great many of these elders in
Israel, soon after courting these young ladies, and old ladies, and
middle-aged ladies, and having them sealed to them, want to have a bill
of divorce. I have told them from the beginning that sealing men and
women for time and all eternity is one of the ordinances of the House
of God, and that I never wanted a farthing for sealing them, nor for
officiating in any of the ordinances of God's house. But when you ask
for a bill of divorce, I intend that you shall pay for it. That keeps
me in spending money, besides enabling me to give hundreds of dollars
to the poor, and buy butter, eggs, and little notions for women and
children, and otherwise use it where it does good. You may think this a
singular feature of the Gospel, but I cannot exactly say that this is in
the Gospel."*
* Deseret News, March 20, 1861. For such an openly jolly old
hypocrite one can scarcely resist the feeling that he would like to pass
around the hat.
We have seen how Young gave himself control of a valuable canyon. That
was only the beginning of such acquisitions. The territorial legislature
of Utah was continually making special grants to him. Among them may
be mentioned the control of City Creek canyon (said to have been worth
$10,000 a year) on payment of $500; of the waters of Mill Creek;
exclusive right to Kansas Prairie as a herd-ground; the whole of Cache
Valley for a herd-ground; Rush Valley for a herd-ground; rights to
establish ferries; an appropriation of $2500 for an academy in Salt Lake
City (which was not built), etc.*
* Here is the text of one of these acts: "Be it ordained by the
General Assembly of the State of Deseret that Brigham Young has the
sole control of City Creek and canyon; and that he pay into the public
treasury the sum of $500 therefore. Dec. 9, 1850."
Young's holdings of real estate were large, not only in Salt Lake City,
but in almost every county in the territory.* Besides city lots and farm
lands, he owned grist and saw mills, and he took care that his farms
were well cultivated and that his mills made fine flour.**
* "For several years past the agent of the church, A. M. Musser,
has been engaged in securing legal deeds for all the property the
prophet claims, and by this he will be able to secure in his lifetime to
his different families such property as will render them independent at
his death. The building of the Pacific Railroad is said to have yielded
him about a quarter of a million."--"Rocky Mountain Saints," p. 666.
** "His position secured him also many valuable presents. From a
barrel of brandy down to an umbrella, Brigham receives courteously and
remembers the donors with increased kindness. I saw one man make him a
present of ten fine milch cows."--Hyde, "Mormonism," p. 165.
As trustee in trust for the church Young had control of all the church
property and income, practically without responsibility or oversight.
Mrs. Waite (writing in 1866) said that attempts for many years by
the General Conference to procure a balance sheet of receipts and
expenditures had failed, and that the accounts in the tithing office,
such as they were, were kept by clerks who were the leading actors in
the Salt Lake Theatre, owned by Young.* It was openly charged that, in
1852, Young "balanced his account" with the church by having the clerk
credit him with the amount due by him, "for services rendered," and
that, in 1867, he balanced his account again by crediting himself with
$967,000. A committee appointed to investigate the accounts of Young
after his death reported to the Conference of October, 1878, that "for
the sole purpose of preserving it from the spoliation of the enemy," he
"had transferred certain property from the possession of the church to
his own individual possession," but that it had been transferred back
again.
* "The Mormon Prophet," pp. 148-149,
Young's will divided his wives and children into nineteen "classes," and
directed his executors to pay to each such a sum as might be necessary
for their comfortable support; the word "marriage" in the will to mean
"either by ceremony before a lawful magistrate, or according to the
order of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or by their
cohabitation in conformity to our custom."
On June 14, 1879, Emmeline A. Young, on behalf of herself and the heirs
at law, began a suit against the executors of Young's estate, charging
that they had improperly appropriated $200,000; had improperly allowed
nearly $1,000,000 to John Taylor as trustee in trust to the church,
less a credit of $300,000 for Young's services as trustee; and that they
claimed the power, as members of the Apostles' Quorum, to dispose of
all the testator's property and to disinherit any heir who refused to
submit. This suit was compromised in the following September, the seven
persons joining in it executing a release on payment of $75,000. A suit
which the church had begun against the heirs and executors was also
discontinued. The Salt Lake Herald (Mormon) of October 5, 1879, said,
"The adjustment is far preferable to a continuance of the suit, which
was proving not only expensive, but had become excessively annoying to
many people, was a large disturbing element in the community, and was
rapidly descending into paths that nobody here cares to see trodden."
Just how many wives Brigham Young had, in the course of his life, would
depend on his own and others' definition of that term. He told Horace
Greeley, in 1859: "I have fifteen; I know no one who has more. But some
of those sealed to me are old ladies, whom I regard rather as mothers
than wives, but whom I have taken home to cherish and support."* In
1869, he informed the Boston Board of Trade, when that body visited Salt
Lake City, that he had sixteen wives living, and had lost four, and
that forty-nine of his children were living then. "He was," says Beadle,
"sealed on the spiritual wife system to more women than any one can
count; all over Mormondom are pious old widows, or wives of Gentiles and
apostates, who hope to rise at the last day and claim a celestial share
in Brigham." J. Hyde said that he knew of about twenty-five wives with
whom Brigham lived. The following list is made up from "Pictures
and Biographies of Brigham Young and his Wives," published by J. H.
Crockwell of Salt Lake City, by authority of Young's eldest son and of
seven of his wives, but is not complete:--
* "Overland journey," p. 215.
[Illustration:
List of Wives]
NAME************* DATE OF MARRIAGE *** NUMBER OF CHILDREN*** Mary Ann
Angell * February, 1834. Ohio 6 Louisa Beman ** April, 1841. Nauvoo 4
Mrs. Lucy Decker Seely June, 1842. Nauvoo 7 H. E. C. Campbell November,
1843.Nauvoo 1 Augusta Adams November, 1843. Nauvoo 0 Clara Decker
May, 1844. Nauvoo 5 Clara C. Ross September, 1844. Nauvoo 4 Emily Dow
Partridge** September, 1844. Nauvoo 7 Susan Snively November, 1844.
Nauvoo 0 Olive Grey Frost** February, 1845. Nauvoo 0 Emmeline Free
April, 1845. Nauvoo 0 Margaret Pierce April, 1845. Nauvoo 1 N. K. T.
Carter January, 1846. Nauvoo 0 Ellen Rockwood January, 1846. Nauvoo 0
Maria Lawrence** January, 1846. Nauvoo 0 Martha Bowker January, 1846.
Nauvoo 0 Margaret M. Alley January, 1846. Nauvoo 2 Lucy Bigelow March,
1847. (?) 3 Z. D. Huntington ** March, 1847 (?). Nauvoo 1 Eliza K.
Snow** June, 1849. S. L. C. 0 Eliza Burgess October, 1850. S. L. C.
1 Harriet Barney October, 1850. S. L. C. 1 Harriet A. Folsom January,
1863. S. L. C. 0 Mary Van Cott January, 1865. S. L. C. 1 Ann Eliza Webb
April, 1868. S. L. C. 0
* His first wife died 1832.
** Joseph Smith's widows.
Young's principal houses in Salt Lake City stood at the southeastern
corner of the block adjoining the Temple block, and designated on the
map as block 8. The largest building, occupying the corner, was called
the Beehive House; connected with this was a smaller building in which
were Young's private offices, the tithing office, etc; and next to this
was a building partly of stone, called the Lion House, taking its name
from the figure of a lion sculptured on its front, representing Young's
title "The Lion of the Lord." When J. Hyde wrote, seventeen or eighteen
of Young's wives dwelt in the Lion House, and the Beehive House became
his official residence.* Individual wives were provided for elsewhere.
His legal wife lived in what was called the White House, a few hundred
yards from his official home. His well-beloved Amelia lived in another
house half a block distant; another favorite, just across the street;
Emmeline, on the same block; and not far away the latest acquisition to
his harem.
* The Beehive House is still the official residence of the head
of the church, and in it President Snow was living at the time of his
death. The office building is still devoted to office uses, and the
Lion House now furnishes temporary quarters to the Latter-Day Saints'
College.
Young's life in his later years was a very orderly one, although he was
not methodical in arranging his office hours and attending to his many
duties. Rising before eight A.m., he was usually in his office at
nine, transacting business with his secretary, and was ready to receive
callers at ten. So many were the people who had occasion to see him, and
so varied were the matters that could be brought to his attention, that
many hours would be devoted to these callers if other engagements did
not interfere. Once a year he made a sort of visit of state to all the
principal settlements in the territory, accompanied by counsellors,
apostles, and Bishops, and sometimes by a favorite wife. Shorter
excursions of the same kind were made at other times. Each settlement
was expected to give him a formal greeting, and this sometimes took the
form of a procession with banners, such as might have been prepared for
a conquering hero.