Timeline

Brigham Young is born in Whitingham, Vermont

The ninth of eleven children of John Young, a Revolutionary War veteran and struggling farmer, and Abigail "Nabby" Howe Young. The family moves repeatedly across Vermont and upstate New York.

1 The Brigham Young Podcast with John Turner – Pt. 1

His mother dies

Nabby Young dies of tuberculosis when Brigham is fourteen. His father soon remarries and the children are scattered; Brigham is put out to work and later recalls a childhood of hard labor and little schooling.

1 The Brigham Young Podcast with John Turner – Pt. 1

Carpenter, painter, and seeker

Brigham learns the carpentry and painting trades around Auburn and Port Byron, New York, and samples the revivals and reform movements of the Burned-over District. He joins the Reformed Methodists around 1823.

1 The Brigham Young Podcast with John Turner – Pt. 1

Marries Miriam Works

Brigham marries Miriam Angeline Works in Aurelius, New York. They have two daughters, Elizabeth and Vilate, and settle in Mendon.

1 The Brigham Young Podcast with John Turner – Pt. 1

The Book of Mormon reaches the Young family

Brigham's brother Phineas obtains a copy from Samuel Smith in 1830. Brigham reads it, investigates for nearly two years, and visits a branch of the new church in Pennsylvania to see the gifts of the Spirit for himself.

1 The Brigham Young Podcast with John Turner – Pt. 1

Baptized into the Church of Christ

Brigham is baptized in Mendon by Eleazer Miller and ordained an elder the same day. He begins preaching almost immediately.

1 The Brigham Young Podcast with John Turner – Pt. 1

Miriam dies

Miriam Works Young dies of tuberculosis. Brigham leaves his daughters with Heber and Vilate Kimball and throws himself into missionary work.

1 The Brigham Young Podcast with John Turner – Pt. 1

Meets Joseph Smith in Kirtland

Brigham travels to Ohio with his brother Joseph and Heber Kimball. In an evening meeting he speaks in tongues before the prophet, who pronounces it "the pure Adamic language." The two become fiercely bound to each other.

1 The Brigham Young Podcast with John Turner – Pt. 12 Brigham Young Sang in Tongues

Marries Mary Ann Angell

Mary Ann Angell, a convert from New York, becomes Brigham's second wife and the mother of six of his children, including Brigham Jr. and John Willard.

2 Brigham Young Sang in Tongues

Zion's Camp

Brigham marches with Joseph Smith's expedition to relieve the Missouri Saints. The camp fails militarily but its veterans, Brigham among them, fill the church's new leading quorums.

2 Brigham Young Sang in Tongues

Ordained an apostle

Brigham is named to the newly organized Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, ranked third by age. The Twelve are sent east on the first of many missions.

2 Brigham Young Sang in Tongues

The Kirtland Temple is dedicated

Brigham takes part in the temple's dedication and its "Pentecostal" season of visions, tongues, and washings. He later describes it as the high point of the Kirtland years.

2 Brigham Young Sang in Tongues

The Kirtland Safety Society collapses

The church's bank fails and dissent sweeps Kirtland, including several apostles. Brigham defends Joseph Smith so loudly that he flees Kirtland for his own safety on December 22, 1837.

2 Brigham Young Sang in Tongues

The Missouri war

In Far West the Saints are drawn into open conflict with their neighbors. After Thomas Marsh defects and David Patten is killed at Crooked River, Brigham becomes the senior apostle. Joseph Smith is jailed at Liberty.

2 Brigham Young Sang in Tongues

Leads the exodus from Missouri

With the prophet in jail, Brigham organizes the covenant that removes the poor along with the rich and moves thousands of Saints to Illinois. On April 26, 1839, the Twelve return to Far West to lay the temple cornerstone as prophesied.

2 Brigham Young Sang in Tongues

Mission to England

Brigham leaves Nauvoo sick and nearly penniless, leads the Twelve in Britain, publishes the Millennial Star and a British edition of the Book of Mormon, and organizes the emigration of thousands of converts. He returns as the church's most capable administrator.

2 Brigham Young Sang in Tongues

Enters plural marriage

Brigham marries Lucy Ann Decker, the first of some fifty-five wives. He accepts the doctrine after what he calls a period of dread, then becomes one of its most committed practitioners.

The Council of Fifty

Joseph Smith organizes a secret council to plan a political kingdom and his run for president. Brigham is a member and is sent east that spring to campaign.

Joseph and Hyrum Smith are killed

Brigham is in Boston when he hears the news from Carthage. He later says his first thought was whether Joseph had taken the keys of the kingdom with him.

The succession crisis

At a mass meeting in Nauvoo the Saints choose the Twelve, led by Brigham, over Sidney Rigdon. Some remember Brigham looking and sounding like Joseph. Rival claimants, including James Strang, soon draw off followers.

Endowments in the Nauvoo Temple

Brigham keeps the unfinished temple open day and night so that more than five thousand Saints can receive the endowment before the exodus. On February 4, 1846, the first wagons cross the Mississippi.

Winter Quarters

The Saints winter on the Missouri River in present-day Nebraska. Hundreds die. On January 14, 1847, Brigham dictates "the Word and Will of the Lord," his only written revelation to be canonized.

Enters the Salt Lake Valley

Brigham, ill with mountain fever, arrives with the vanguard company two days after its first members. Within days he lays out the city and the temple block.

Sustained as president of the church

At Kanesville, Iowa, the Saints reorganize the First Presidency with Brigham at its head, three and a half years after Joseph Smith's death.

Governor of Utah Territory

Congress creates Utah Territory, and President Fillmore appoints Brigham its first governor and superintendent of Indian affairs. He governs a theocracy inside a republic for most of the decade.

Plural marriage is announced; the priesthood ban is declared

In February Brigham tells the territorial legislature that Black men cannot hold the priesthood. In August, at his direction, Orson Pratt announces plural marriage to the world.

The Reformation and the handcart disaster

A fiery religious "Reformation" sweeps the territory as the Willie and Martin handcart companies are caught by early snow on the plains. More than two hundred die before rescue parties sent by Brigham reach them.

The Utah War

President Buchanan sends the army to install a new governor. Brigham declares martial law and orders the Saints to prepare to burn their homes. Peace is negotiated in the spring of 1858 and Alfred Cumming replaces him as governor.

The Mountain Meadows Massacre

Mormon militiamen in southern Utah murder about 120 members of an emigrant train from Arkansas. Brigham's exact role, before and after, is the most disputed question of his career.

The railroad and the Morrill Act

Congress outlaws bigamy in the territories in 1862. Brigham builds the Salt Lake Theatre, founds ZCMI, and contracts to grade the transcontinental railroad, which is completed at Promontory in May 1869.

Arrests and the Ann Eliza divorce

Federal officials arrest Brigham for "lewd and lascivious cohabitation" and later for murder in connection with an 1857 killing. His plural wife Ann Eliza Webb sues for divorce in 1873 and lectures across the country as "the twenty-seventh wife."

John D. Lee is executed

Twenty years after Mountain Meadows, Lee is shot at the massacre site, the only man punished for it. Two weeks later Brigham dedicates the St. George Temple, the first completed in Utah.

Brigham Young dies in Salt Lake City

He dies at seventy-six, most likely of a ruptured appendix, after reorganizing the stakes of the church that summer. Some twenty-five thousand people file past his coffin in the Tabernacle.