8 Brigham Young and Priesthood Work at the General and Local Levels

Like an admiral commanding a fleet of ships sailing on heavy seas, Brigham Young, during his years as President of the Church, stood at the helm and directed the various offices and officers in the priesthood for the general good of the kingdom of God on earth. And yet, oddly, although biographies of Brigham Young devote much attention to the move west—the gathering, colonization, missionary outreach, Indian relations, economics, politics, and theology—they rarely assess him carefully as a leader of the priesthood or explore in detail how stakes, wards, and quorums—the Church’s fundamental organizational units—operated during his administration.1

For President Young, the holy priesthood was “a perfect system of laws and government,” one that “rules and reigns in eternity.”2 With total certitude he believed that “we have the only true authority, upon the face of the whole earth, to administer in the ordinances of the Gospel.”3

“The Holy Priesthood is not on the earth, unless the Latter-day Saints have it,”4 he proclaimed. “There is no act of a Latter-day Saint—no duty required—no time given, exclusive and independent of the Priesthood,” he explained in 1858; “Everything is subject to it, whether preaching, business, or any other act pertaining to the proper conduct of this life.”5

“No man can lawfully officiate in any office in the Kingdom of God,” President Young believed, “[that] he has not been called to, and the authority of which has not been bestowed upon him.”6

“Have we reason to rejoice?” he asked in 1857, and then he answered his own question:

We have. There is no other people on this earth under such deep obligation to their Creator, as are the Latter-day Saints. The Gospel has brought to us the holy Priesthood, which is again restored to the children of men. The keys of that Priesthood are here; we have them in our possession; we can unlock, and we can shut up. We can obtain salvation, and we can administer it. We have the power within our own hands, and this has been my deep mortification, one that I have frequently spoken of, to think that a people, having in their possession all the principles, keys, and powers of eternal life, should neglect so great a salvation. We have these blessings, they are with us.7

Wanting Church members to be able to receive all the priesthood blessings to which they were entitled, he labored constantly to help priesthood bearers at all levels understand and then carry out their duties. At times he redeployed priesthood assignments to best utilize the quorums and officers while advancing the entire fleet through changing and unpredictable currents, winds, and weather.

To be assessed in proper context, Brigham Young’s handling of priesthood operations needs to be compared both with prevailing Church practices at the time he succeeded Joseph Smith and with current priesthood functions. President Young presided over the Church for thirty-three years, more than twice as long as Joseph Smith (fourteen years). He presided over a church whose membership grew to more than five times that of Joseph Smith’s time, more than 104,000 compared to about 20,000. The Church had a dozen bishops and wards in Nauvoo, but at Brigham’s death it had 241—a twenty-fold increase. Joseph’s ordained followers numbered perhaps 4,000 maximum, but a priesthood census taken among stakes within a year of Brigham’s death found 22,000. During the same period, the number of seventies quorums increased from three to about seventy-five. Joseph Smith died before all ordinances for the dead could be implemented, particularly the sealing of deceased couples together—something Brigham Young later authorized. Joseph never presided over a church filled with believing adults who had received temple endowments; Brigham Young did. During President Young’s watch, explosive growth in Church membership produced situations demanding expansion and adaptation by priesthood quorums and governing units.

During his years as Church President, Brigham Young was instrumental in clarifying and solidifying the function of the priesthood. Not only did he define how succession in the First Presidency should take place, he also set up the structure of wards and stakes through the framework of priesthood callings. Courtesy Perry Special Collections.

As we might expect when comparing Brigham Young’s era with today’s Church, a number of priesthood practices implemented then are different from our day. During the early 1870s, for example, middle-aged LDS stalwart John H. Picknell, an ordained seventy, was a counselor in the Salt Lake Stake deacons quorum presidency. “I’ve Seventies’, Priests’, Teachers’ & Deacons’ meetings to attend, Teacher in two wards, a Priest in one,” he once itemized; “I’m out almost every night in the month.” At another stake deacons quorum meeting, acting deacon Matthias Cowley explained that “I was an Elder before I was a deacon” and added that “if we were all to stay away because we are Elders or Seventies, where would the Teachers and deacons’ quorums be? Why! Here your [deacons] president is a high priest, & his counsellors, Seventies.”8

While Brigham Young was President, half of the Apostles served at times concurrently as stake presidents. For many years, the seventies quorums, not subject to stake presidents but administered by the First Council of the Seventy, were more numerous than elders quorums. At times, the Salt Lake Stake was the “center stake of Zion,” exercising authority over other Utah stakes. Both a ward bishop and a ward president presided in several settlements, a double leadership structure Brigham Young favored. Other priorities sometimes meant that ward bishops served for years without being ordained, and a few bishops had counselors who were not high priests. Although most young men were not ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood, youths as young as fourteen were encouraged to receive their temple endowments, thus receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood without prior ordination to the Aaronic Priesthood.

It is not surprising that priesthood operations in the past differ from those of today, when the dynamic and adaptive sweep of LDS priesthood history from 1829 to the present is examined. Since the 1830s, change has touched most priesthood offices and quorums. For example, at times the First Presidency has included more than two counselors; members of the First and Second Quorums of the Seventy are now General Authorities; the two quorums of the Seventy have shouldered some of the responsibilities once carried by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; Assistants to the Twelve once served a vital function and then were phased out; the Presiding Bishopric no longer is responsible for Aaronic Priesthood operations; the Presiding Patriarch’s authority over stake patriarchs has been redefined; administrative positions between the general and the stake levels, such as area presidents and area authorities, have been created; the position of regional representative was created and later phased out; terms of service for bishops and stake presidents have shortened over time; stake high councils receive a myriad of assignments beyond their scripturally assigned disciplinary function; stake presidents, rather than General Authorities, now set apart missionaries; the majority of men serving full-time missions once were seventies but now are primarily elders; and home teaching has replaced ward teaching, to cite some of the better-known changes.9

All LDS Church Presidents have tried diligently to tailor priesthood instructions, as recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants, to fit the pressing needs of their day.10 No prophet presided during a period when the seas of changing circumstances churned more than they did during President Young’s administration. His biographical record should show that among numerous contributions he made to the shape and development of priesthood operations in the Church, the following twelve are the most important historically:

1. Reconstituting the First Presidency and establishing how succession in the Presidency should take place.

2. Clarifying and institutionalizing the Apostles’ roles at home and abroad.

3. Transforming the seventies’ office into a major non-General Authority level of priesthood.

4. Institutionalizing and clarifying the role of the Presiding Bishopric.

5. Establishing wards as the Church’s primary units of governance and ward bishops as the key local ecclesiastical officer.

6. Institutionalizing stakes to be meaningful intermediate units of administration.

7. Requiring endowments prior to missions or marriage, which caused men to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood, thereby depleting the Aaronic Priesthood of mature males.

8. Requiring boys to serve in at least one Aaronic Priesthood office before reaching adulthood.

9. Establishing patriarchal priesthood ordinances and practices, including the law of adoption, family organizations, and plurality of wives.

10. Preserving, promoting, and refining temple ordinances and rituals for the living and for the dead while making temple blessings available in the Nauvoo Temple, the Salt Lake Endowment House, and the St. George Temple.

11. Directing civic and secular affairs semi-theocratically through priesthood officers.

12. Conducting a thorough priesthood reorganization in 1877, including the issuing of the first “handbook” regarding Church administration.

I deal with these developments below at appropriate places, weaving them into a tapestry designed to showcase individually how each of the Church’s priesthood offices and units functioned during Brigham Young’s presidency. Each of the presiding quorums is discussed, followed by stake, ward, and local quorum operations.

The Apostolic Presidency, 1844–1847

Brigham Young’s leadership of the Church began while he was President of the Quorum of the Twelve, a body that collectively succeeded Joseph Smith from August 1844 to December 1847. During that period, he and the Twelve promoted four major priesthood-related ventures.

The first occurred during the October 1844 conference (where he was sustained as President of the Twelve) when the Twelve declared every United States congressional district to be a missionary district and then assigned to each a high priest to reside there and “have entire charge” under the Twelve “of all spiritual matters, superintending the labors of the elders, and the calling of conferences.”11 Seven dozen high priests were set apart to permanent assignments and instructed to take their families with them to those districts. However, unexpected pressures for the Church to leave Nauvoo canceled the assignments.

The second venture, apparently linked to the Twelve’s districting of the United States, was President Young’s orchestration of a mass-ordination of seventies, expanding the number of seventies quorums from three to thirty (see “The Seventies,” below). Apparently Young and the Twelve anticipated a vast missionary push, designed to convert individuals in the United States districts that had just been announced. But, again, the uprooting from Nauvoo and the tremendous work needed to build settlements in Utah allowed Church leaders to send out only a fairly limited missionary force year by year.

As a third priesthood-related measure, President Young implemented the bestowal of the temple endowment upon all Nauvoo adults who were “faithful and worthy” Saints and who wanted to receive that blessing.12 To be endowed, he taught, is to “possess the keys of the eternal priesthood.”13 Day and night, the Nauvoo Temple stayed open in late 1845 and early 1846, during which time 5,615 adults received the endowment.14 The availability of the endowment led to the priesthood practice of expecting an LDS male to hold the Melchizedek Priesthood and be temple-endowed before going on a full-time proselyting mission or being sealed in eternal marriage. A byproduct of this expectation was that almost all active, practicing LDS adult males received Melchizedek Priesthood ordinations, thus removing them from the pool of manpower eligible to receive Aaronic Priesthood offices (see “Aaronic Priesthood Quorums and Labors,” below).

Fourth, with Brigham Young’s guidance, the principle of succession in the Presidency was clarified and implemented. An absolutely critical test for a new organization is whether or not it can survive the passing or loss of its founder. The failure rate is substantial. The Church faced that test when Joseph Smith was killed. It wobbled slightly and dealt with a crucial succession question not fully articulated by revelations, handbooks, or Joseph Smith’s teachings. The Prophet’s successor was the Twelve as a body, and they directed the Church in lieu of a First Presidency for three-and-a-half years. Not until December 27, 1847, did the Twelve organize a new First Presidency and obtain ratification from the Church’s membership. The precedent established then is still followed: the Twelve as a body succeeds a deceased prophet and then selects the senior Apostle, with divine sanction, as the new President of the Church.

The First Presidency

During the Brigham Young years, the First Presidency became a powerful quorum with well-defined purposes and procedures.

Personnel

Only six men served as first and second counselors to President Young during his twenty-nine years as President. His first counselors were Heber C. Kimball until 1868, then George A. Smith until 1875, followed by John W. Young until 1877. The president’s second counselors were Willard Richards to 1854, Jedediah M. Grant to 1857, and Daniel H. Wells until Brigham’s death in 1877. In 1873, Young called five extra counselors, who, a year later, were designated “assistant counselors”: John W. Young, George Q. Cannon, Lorenzo Snow, Brigham Young Jr., and Albert Carrington. Joseph Smith had set the precedent for having more than two counselors by having Oliver Cowdery, Hyrum Smith, Joseph Smith Sr., and John Smith simultaneously serve as counselors.

Responsibilities

The First Presidency was responsible for all spiritual and temporal Church matters. They wanted all people to receive the gospel ordinances and temple blessings at the hands of the priesthood and to be set to work building the kingdom of God. They ensured that the basic ordinances of blessing babies, baptizing, confirming, administering the sacrament, and ordaining to the priesthood were performed properly.

One of the First Presidency’s priorities was temple building and the performance of temple ordinances. Brigham Young believed that only in a temple could people “receive the ordinances of the holy Priesthood.”15 Fulfilling the Twelve’s mandate from Joseph Smith, Brigham Young energetically rushed the Nauvoo Temple to basic completion and arranged for washings, anointings, endowments, and marriage sealings to be administered there. After the exodus from Nauvoo, lacking a Utah temple, he arranged for the temporary Endowment House to be built and placed his counselor Heber C. Kimball in charge of it. Some baptisms for the dead took place. President Young, eager to have a fully-functioning temple operational before he died, dedicated the St. George Temple and installed Apostle Wilford Woodruff as its president.

The First Presidency performed many marriage sealings, including plural marriages. President Young exercised the sealing powers he held by virtue of being President of the Church and holding all the keys of the priesthood. He sealed couples together in celestial marriage and delegated that authority to a few others. Whereas Joseph Smith introduced plural marriage quietly among selected associates, to Brigham Young fell the responsibility of publicly announcing the doctrine and of convincing Latter-day Saints to believe in and participate in polygamy. Through example, public discourse, and private counsel, he championed plural marriage. As a result of his leadership, aided by that of other General Authorities, up to 25 percent of LDS households participated in plural marriage at a given point in time.16 About two out of five men in good Church standing took plural wives.17 President Young successfully promoted the principle.

Another sealing ordinance involved sealing family units for eternity. In the context of this ordinance, President Young promoted the law of adoption. Through the law of adoption, Church members whose own parents were not priesthood bearers could become sealed in life and for eternity to General Authorities, thereby joining that authority’s family by priesthood adoption. This practice continued until the 1890s.18

In terms of manpower and resources, missionary work sometimes took a back seat to settlement and colonizing labors. Nevertheless, President Young promoted missionary work by involving the Twelve deeply in its management and by sending missionaries throughout the world.

Of necessity, President Young’s primary labors were devoted to establishing a home base for the Church, securing a Mormon homeland in the Great Basin. His concern was to help LDS converts reach Zion, to develop agricultural and mineral-production settlements, and to see that the Saints received the gospel ordinances and had ecclesiastical leaders and organizations to belong to. Up to 1877, when President Young reorganized Church units, the Church in gathered Zion had 13 stakes and 101 wards, albeit in varying states of health and functionality. Young’s 1877 restructurings (see below) were monumental in the course of the historical development of priesthood work.

Council Meetings with Church Leaders

After the First Presidency was reconstituted in December 1847, they met almost daily with the Twelve at Winter Quarters. In Utah, the two presiding quorums met together often, although a majority of the Twelve rarely was present because of assignments away from Salt Lake City. These meetings were small council meetings that some additional persons attended—usually the senior president of the First Council of the Seventy, the Presiding Bishop, and the president of the Salt Lake Stake (regarded as a “center stake” for the Church—see below). When four men were added to the Quorum of the Twelve in 1849, those attending the historic meeting were the First Presidency; three of the Twelve; Presiding Bishop Newel K. Whitney; high priests president John Young and his counselor George B. Wallace; and Jedediah M. Grant of the First Council of the Seventy.19

It appears that President Young regarded the First Presidency not so much as a quorum apart from the Quorum of the Twelve but “as a kind of executive committee of the Twelve.”20 Minutes exist for sixteen meetings of the First Presidency and Twelve in the 1850s, fifteen in the 1860s, and five in the 1870s.21 Wilford Woodruff’s journal itemizes 217 meetings of the First Presidency and the Twelve between 1847 and 1853. Those of the Twelve who were “home” did consult regularly with the First Presidency. Woodruff’s annual summaries in his diary show that by the mid-1850s and continuing to 1876, their conjoint meetings became prayer circle gatherings, from seventeen to sixty-six times a year, that served at times as “spiritually oriented council meetings” in which members discussed scriptures, doctrine, history, and occasionally organizational and temporal matters.22 A review of the minutes of Brigham’s meetings with the Twelve “show Brigham Young not always telling them what to do, not often chastising them, but usually sincerely seeking their judgment—seeking to establish and maintain harmony and unity. Most of the meetings took the form of relaxed discussions among peers.”23

Throughout Brigham Young’s presidency, most decisions came from “the President-in-council”—the President, his counselors, available members of the Twelve, one or more of the Seventies’ presidency, one or more of the Presiding Bishopric, and one or more from the Salt Lake Stake presidency and the Salt Lake high priests quorum.24

General Epistles

Important to Church policy, practice, and belief were the First Presidency’s general epistles to the Saints throughout the world. In Nauvoo, President Young and the Twelve utilized this method of communication with the Church worldwide. Then, when the First Presidency was reconstituted, it issued many general instructions during Brigham Young’s tenure as President.

The first known document of the apostolic presidency was written by Brigham Young to the Church membership from Boston on July 16, 1844. The Twelve issued a general epistle on December 23, 1847, followed soon after by the First General Epistle of the First Presidency, dated August 1, 1849. A Fourteenth General Epistle is dated December 10, 1856, ending the practice of numbering the general letters. Others followed, however, including two in 1869 and the vital Circular of the First Presidency of July 11, 1877, which ordered the reorganization of stakes and quorums. In addition, the First Presidency sent numerous letters addressed to the bishops.25

General Conferences

During Brigham Young’s presidency, the Church’s annual and semiannual conferences became major forums for the First Presidency and the Twelve to address the Saints, and, unlike at Nauvoo, the conferences took place in suitable conference auditoriums—the original Salt Lake Tabernacle and then the “new” (and now famous) Tabernacle. President Young arranged for clerks to record conference discourses in shorthand so they could be published in the Deseret News and in LDS periodicals abroad. A sixteen-page semimonthly publication called Journal of Discourses was published in England, which became a monumental reference collection packed with leaders’ counsel, including discussions of priesthood theory and practice. It contains 390 sermons by Brigham Young.26

Tours to Distant Settlements

The First Presidency adopted a role that was not practiced and probably not needed before the Utah gathering: making visits into the Mormon communities to consult firsthand with local priesthood officers.27

Secular Leadership

Before, during, and after his terms as governor of Utah Territory, Young acted forcefully to ensure that priesthood leaders, not unbelieving outsiders or apostates, were the political and economic leaders of the Mormon people. As a result, General Authorities and local Church leaders served prominently in territorial executive, legislative, and judicial positions and as county and city officials.

General Conference Sustainings

A look at general conference sustainings between 1849 and 1877, specifically the order in which officers were presented, reveals several variations in priesthood sustaining practices during the Brigham Young period:

1. In 1873, the Church sustained seven counselors in the First Presidency; from 1874 through 1877, the Presidency was readjusted to include two counselors plus five assistant counselors.

2. Up through 1859 and again between 1872 and 1877, President Young was sustained as President and Prophet, Seer, and Revelator, but from fall 1859 to spring 1872, the terms prophet, seer, and revelator were not used.

3. A Presiding Patriarch or “Patriarch to the Whole Church” was sustained at every conference, although the title varied slightly.

4. Members of the First Council of the Seventy, who were the seven senior presidents of all the seventies quorums, were sustained variously as “President of the Presidency of Seventies and Six Associates,” “President of the Presiding Council of Seventies,” “President of the First Seven Presidents of the Seventies,” “Members of the First Seven Presidents of the Seventies,” “President of all the Seventies and Six Counselors,” and “Presidents of all the Quorums of Seventies.”

5. Until 1860, the Presiding Bishop was sustained without counselors, except on one occasion. At four conferences, the Church sustained Assistant Presiding Bishops and Traveling Bishops.

6. The president and counselors in the Salt Lake Stake presidency were sustained at nearly every general conference, as were the stakes high council, the president and counselors of the high priests quorum, and president and counselors for the stake’s priests, teachers, and deacons quorums.

The sustaining order sometimes changed slightly. In 1849 and 1850, the high priests quorum presidency, which was the only such quorum in existence and served as the general quorum (see below) for all high priests in Utah no matter where they lived, was sustained before the Senior Presidents of the Seventies, and at other times before the Salt Lake Stake presidency. The stake presidency was sustained ahead of the Presiding Bishop in 1849, 1850, and 1851, probably reflecting its earlier role as the presidency of the Church in Utah during the first year. The Presiding Patriarch was sustained after the First Presidency and before the Twelve; it was later positioned after the Twelve.

The Twelve Apostles

Before Joseph Smith died, he placed upon the Twelve the responsibilities for gathered Zion in addition to the foreign ministry. They had crossed the threshold, comparatively speaking, but suddenly had to step forthrightly into the room after the martyrdom. Under Brigham Young, the Twelve learned from hard experience where they fit in the Church’s administrative structure.

Although the Apostles were subordinate to the First Presidency “in cases of doctrinal and other pronouncements made as revelation from the Lord,” the First Presidency sought and considered their opinions and insights. Once decisions were made, after differences of opinion were aired during discussion stages, the Twelve gave public support “despite any private reservations.” President Young felt strongly about securing unity among the General Authorities.28

Personnel

While Brigham Young was Church President, there were few changes in personnel among the Twelve, who were relatively young men when called. Only twelve new members were called. And, during that time, four were dropped from the quorum: William Smith (1845), John E. Page (1846), Lyman Wight (1848), and Amasa Lyman (1867).

When the First Presidency was reconstituted late in 1847, it drew three members from the quorum: Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, and Willard Richards. Near that same time, Elder Wight was excommunicated. With President Young’s approval, the four vacancies were filled on February 12, 1849, by Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, and Franklin D. Richards. The First Presidency ordained these men and continued to ordain all new Apostles.29

When the First Presidency and Twelve met together in October 1859 to choose a replacement for Parley P. Pratt, who had died in 1857, President Young asked members of the Twelve to nominate one or two men in writing rather than having the First Presidency nominate someone. Several names were discussed, as were the merits of proven experience versus inexperienced potential. Finally the Twelve deferred to President Young, who selected George Q. Cannon; the Twelve sustained him without dissent.

In 1866, President Young received a revelation to ordain Joseph F. Smith to the apostleship even though there was no vacancy in the quorum. The Twelve approved and helped President Young ordain the new Apostle. Thereafter, though the Twelve did not select new Apostles on their own, their suggestions and opinions were solicited before the calls were issued.30

Of four men called into the First Presidency as counselors to Brigham Young after Elders Kimball and Richards, only George A. Smith was from the Quorum of the Twelve.

As noted earlier, rarely was a majority of the Twelve together at one time in Salt Lake City. In fact, the first time the entire Quorum of Twelve was able to meet together in Utah was on October 6, 1868.31

First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, 1869. Center front, left to right: George A. Smith, President Brigham Young, Daniel H. Wells. Back row, left to right: Orson Hyde, Orson Pratt, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Ezra T. Benson, Charles C. Rich, Lorenzo Snow, Erastus Snow, Franklin D. Richards, George Q. Cannon, Brigham Young Jr., and Joseph F. Smith. Courtesy Church Archives.

Assignments

From 1848 to 1877, President Young constantly gave assignments to members of the Twelve, the two main ones being to preside over missions outside Utah and to establish and direct remote settlements of the Church. A summary of the Apostles’ activities shows the following:

Orson Hyde spent nineteen years presiding over Great Basin settlements between 1854 and 1877. Orson Pratt spent eleven years on missions. John Taylor spent six years on missions. Ezra T. Benson spent three years on missions and nine years presiding over settlements. Charles C. Rich spent twenty-three years presiding over settlements. Lorenzo Snow spent three years on a mission and twenty-four presiding over the Brigham City settlement. Erastus Snow spent eight years on missions and sixteen years presiding over settlements. Franklin D. Richards spent seven years on missions and eight presiding over Weber Valley.32

Inherent in the work of presiding over missions was the labor of organizing, scheduling, and arranging finances for each year’s emigration. In addition, whenever Apostles returned home from such missions, they helped supervise the LDS emigrants traveling with them, such as happened in 1856 when Elders John Taylor, Erastus Snow, and Franklin D. Richards directed much of the movement. In 1860, Elders Erastus Snow and Orson Pratt went to the eastern United States to supervise LDS emigration.

Another assignment given to various Apostles related to publications and public relations. In the late 1840s, Elder Orson Hyde was sent east to obtain a printing press and then to publish a newspaper at Kanesville, which was named the Frontier Guardian. After the Church publicly announced its belief in polygamy, the First Presidency sent Orson Pratt to Washington, D.C., on a public relations crusade. There he published a periodical called The Seer for eighteen months in which he defended in print LDS doctrines. Similarly, John Taylor published The Mormon in New York, and Erastus Snow published the St. Louis Luminary.

In the mid-1850s, the First Presidency appointed several Apostles to divide Utah settlements into districts and then do “home missionary” work among them, mainly by holding conferences and meetings. They helped promote the Mormon Reformation of 1856. Upon the Twelve’s shoulders fell the major work of instituting the Priesthood Reorganization of 1877 (see below).

Seniority

Brigham Young made a major seniority adjustment among the Twelve that proved to be crucial in determining who became his successor. At the time the First Presidency was reconstituted on December 27, 1847, the Twelve, in order of seniority, were: Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, Lyman Wight, Willard Richards, Wilford Woodruff, John Taylor, George A. Smith, Amasa Lyman, and Ezra T. Benson. But during a meeting with the Twelve in 1875, Brigham ruled that because Elders Hyde and Orson Pratt had separated themselves briefly from the quorum in 1838 and 1842 respectively, they had lost their seniority standings to Elders Taylor, Woodruff, and George A. Smith. And because John Taylor had helped ordain Wilford Woodruff to be an Apostle, Woodruff’s seniority over Taylor in the quorum was not proper, so the two exchanged seniority positions.

When Brigham Young selected five extra counselors in 1874, four of them were members of the Twelve. However, those four served in both capacities and were not replaced within the Quorum of the Twelve.

The Presiding Patriarch

On May 24, 1845, soon after Brigham Young assumed Church leadership, Apostle William Smith, the Prophet’s brother, was ordained patriarch by virtue of his lineage. Immediately he claimed to have independent presiding authority in the Church and even primacy over the Twelve. (D&C 124:124 placed the patriarch position hierarchically before the First Presidency.) He was excommunicated that fall for apostasy. After that, the hereditary office of Patriarch to the Church was vacant for two years.

John Smith, popularly known as Uncle John Smith (Joseph Smith’s uncle), succeeded William on January 1, 1849. In theory, John presided over a “quorum” containing all other Church patriarchs. He died on May 23, 1854.

John Smith, uncle to Joseph Smith Jr., served as Church Patriarch from 1849 to 1854. Courtesy Church Archives.

Brigham Young determined that the position was subordinate to the First Presidency and Twelve and defined the office as being patriarch to the Church, not over the Church. During Uncle John Smith’s tenure, the Presiding Patriarch was sustained after the First Presidency and before the Twelve. But when young John Smith (son of Hyrum Smith) succeeded Uncle John, the position was sustained after the Twelve, showing to the Church its relative position in the hierarchy. The younger John Smith was ordained at age twenty-two under the hands of Brigham Young and seven of the Apostles on February 18, 1855. In that position, he bestowed thousands of blessings upon the heads of the Saints. Patriarchs were called at the local level, but, apparently, no “quorum” of patriarchs was actually organized wherein the Presiding Patriarch directed or instructed the other patriarchs.33

The Seventies

At the time of the martyrdom, the Church had three seventies quorums.34 But under the direction of Brigham Young and the Twelve, new seventies units were created on such a scale that by the time of the exodus some thirty were in operation. In August 1844, the First Quorum of Seventies was divided to provide ten sets of seven presidents, who became the presidents of seventies quorums number two through eleven, effectively disbanding the first quorum. The seven presidents of the first quorum became the senior presidency over all seventies units, serving as the First Council of Seventy—the Church’s third quorum of General Authorities. That October the Twelve instructed that elders under age thirty-five be ordained as seventies. Over four hundred were ordained, so that eleven quorums were filled. By January 1846, the number of quorums increased to thirty, and in 1861, senior president Joseph Young reported that the quorums in Utah then numbered sixty-two.35

Why the number of seventies was so dramatically expanded is not understood. Apparently Brigham Young and the Twelve wanted these seventies to become a massive missionary force in the near future. “Seventies were designed to be messengers to every land and kingdom under heaven,” Apostle Amasa M. Lyman said during dedicatory services of Nauvoo’s impressive Seventies Hall in December 1844.36 Seventies quorums provided many, perhaps most, of the ordinance workers in the Nauvoo Temple when washing, anointings, and endowments were administered late in 1845 and early in 1846. During the exodus to the west, seventies were the largest priesthood body in the Church. At Winter Quarters, seventies helped erect a Council House, and general conferences of seventies from all quorums occurred weekly that first winter. Seventies held a five-day jubilee at the log tabernacle on the Iowa side of the river (present-day Council Bluffs).37

Seventies were the largest body of priesthood in Brigham Young’s 1847 vanguard party, which included eight Apostles, four bishops, fifteen high priests, eight elders, and seventy-eight seventies.38 More than one-third of the men serving in the Mormon Battalion (1846–47) were seventies.39 Drawn from many different quorums, these men expediently formed one “mass” seventies quorum in Los Angeles on April 18, 1847, by electing their own seven presidents under the direction of Levi W. Hancock of the First Council of the Seventy, the only General Authority in the battalion.

During the trek west and then the settlement and colonization of the Great Basin, seventies quorum members became scattered; this was a serious problem, because once a man was enrolled in a particular quorum, he remained a member of it as long as he was a seventy. During the 1850s, the Deseret News ran frequent notices of seventies quorums presidents looking for their missing members and occasional inquiries by quorums searching for their presidents.40 Many dispersed seventies did what the Mormon Battalion had done and regrouped themselves into “mass” quorums (disapprovingly dubbed “muss” quorums by Brigham Young), consisting of all seventies living in a ward or stake, without regard to the particular quorum to which they officially belonged.

Under Brigham Young, the seventies became the backbone of the missionary force. Seventy percent of all missionaries called between 1860 and 1875 were seventies or were ordained such in order to go on missions. New seventies, after returning from missions, were assigned to memberships in existing quorums. Between 1846 and 1856, only six new quorums were organized; but between March and July of 1857, sixteen new quorums were organized, possibly a product of the Mormon Reformation just ending. By the 1860s, the seventies quorums numbered more than sixty.41

President Joseph Young, Brigham’s brother, being the senior member of the First Council of the Seventy, was the Church’s senior president of all seventies. The First Council kept in touch with seventies quorums, which were not under stake jurisdictions. The quorums each met for gospel discussion, held conferences and socials, and advanced various community projects.

During Brigham Young’s administration, three confusions developed and lingered for decades concerning the seventies. First, by vastly expanding the number of seventies quorums, he created two levels of seventies: the seven presidents of the first quorum, or First Council, were General Authorities, but the other quorums and their presidents were not. So the Church had two types of seventies, a practice that continued until October 1986, when local seventies units were phased out and the First and Second Quorums of Seventy were revitalized as General Authority–level quorums.

A second problem involved the authority that First Council members held in comparison to high priests. Seventies could not be high priests, and yet Brigham Young’s generation referred to the First Council members as Seventy Apostles.42 Controversy regarding who had higher authority, seventies or high priests, continued into the twentieth century.

A third problem was that seventies quorums were based on memberships and not on geography; as noted above, they became mixed up, and quorums were depleted when their members moved. Revelations in the 1880s solved this dilemma by putting seventies quorums on geographic footings.43

By the time Brigham Young died, the elders in Utah’s stakes had come to outnumber seventies by two to one—9,084 compared to 4,477. The elders’ number had risen because men were ordained elders in order to receive the endowment.

The Presiding Bishopric

The Presiding Bishop was the last General Authority–level office in the Church’s hierarchy to be implemented. That office was authorized by revelation in 1841 (see D&C 124:20–21, 141). However, from then until 1847, Bishop Newel K. Whitney and Bishop George Miller functioned jointly as General Bishops for the entire Church. After the Saints’ departure from Nauvoo, Bishop Miller became disaffected from Brigham Young’s leadership. So, on April 6, 1847, Bishop Whitney was sustained as Presiding Bishop of the Church.

For a time, his counselors were President Brigham Young and First Presidency counselor Heber C. Kimball. Bishop Whitney’s successor, Edward Hunter, served without counselors at first. In 1852, Presidents Young and Kimball were designated as Bishop Hunter’s counselors, but then Hunter served again without counselors until 1856. Finally, starting in 1856 and continuing since then, the Presiding Bishop has had counselors who together form the Presiding Bishopric.44

From 1849 onward, the Presiding Bishop served President Young and the Church by handling numerous temporal matters, including tithing, and through direct contacts with bishops.45 Regarding Bishop Hunter’s relationship to the First Presidency, Brigham Young stated in 1851 that the Presiding Bishop’s duty was to preside over all bishops, and “it is the business of the First Presidency to correct him and from whom he receives his instructions.”46 President Young made it clear that he felt he had upon himself more or less “the responsibility of both priesthoods.”47 The First Presidency framed policy, the Presiding Bishop supervised it, and the local bishops implemented it.48

At biweekly meetings with Salt Lake Valley bishops and any others who were in town, the Presiding Bishop dealt with practical and spiritual matters, including the operations of the Aaronic Priesthood and, by association, the Melchizedek Priesthood. Constantly, Bishop Hunter labored to see that the Aaronic Priesthood offices were filled and honored.

To help handle tithing, Bishop Hunter used “assistant presiding traveling bishops” as well as regional presiding bishops from 1851 to 1877. The use of regional bishops became widespread.49

Stakes and Stake Officers

Early in 1849, to overcome disruptions caused by the exodus from Nauvoo, the First Presidency took several major steps to “regularize church government” in the Salt Lake Valley. They selected John Young, Brigham’s oldest brother, to be president of the Church’s only high priests quorum; Daniel Spencer to be stake president; a high council with Isaac Morley as president; and John Nebeker as elders quorum president. They appointed Presiding Bishop Newel K. Whitney to organize in Great Salt Lake Valley one quorum each of priests, teachers, and deacons. A committee, chaired by Bishop Whitney but including Brigham Young, divided Salt Lake Valley into nineteen wards and established other wards in nearby areas; each ward soon had its own bishop.50

At Brigham Young’s death, stakes in the Mountain West numbered twenty, including seven created during the previous five months. During Brigham Young’s presidency, the terms stakes, branches, and settlements were used imprecisely and interchangeably. Always the basic local Church governing unit was a stake. When one place was settled, it was considered a stake in embryo and started with a president. Then a bishop and a high council were added. High councils usually had their own president who was not the stake president. More bishops would be called if more wards were created in that area. Each stake was expected to have one quorum each of high priests, elders, priests, teachers, and deacons. When Sanpete Stake finally established Aaronic Priesthood quorums, Ephraim and Manti each contributed half the needed forty-eight priests, twenty-four teachers, and twelve deacons.

Salt Lake Stake was unusual because of its size and because it was the headquarters location of the Church. Even as late as 1877, one-fifth of Utah Mormons resided in the Salt Lake Stake. Stake sizes then varied from Salt Lake Stake’s 19,798 members to tiny Panguitch Stake’s 859. The average stake membership, not counting Salt Lake Stake, was 4,421. Stakes averaged twelve wards each, but Salt Lake Stake had thirty-five. For years, Salt Lake Stake served as a type of superior “central stake.” Its high council was considered a “general high council” that could be asked to settle problems other high councils could not solve.51 As noted earlier, Salt Lake Stake officers, including quorum presidents, often were sustained at general conference.

High Priests and Elders

As noted previously, Brigham Young had in mind sending high priests throughout the United States to preside over branches of the Church to be created by a major missionary labor. When Utah was first settled, a high priests quorum was formed in Salt Lake City, which served for several years as a general quorum to which all high priests in Utah belonged. “The High Priests’ Quorum is strictly but one quorum,” President Young explained in 1861, “though many quorums of High Priests are made to accommodate members of that quorum living in different localities.”52 Kaysville high priests, for example, were enrolled in the general quorum and journeyed to Salt Lake City to attend its meetings.

Brigham Young instructed quorum president David Pettigrew in 1854 to organize high priests in the various settlements into “branch quorums” to make the meetings more accessible and regular.53 Such branch units, however, did not catch fire very well. Reports at the general quorum during October 1856 general conference revealed that one unit could get only seven out of thirteen members to attend. Other reports from various settlements north and south caused quorum president John Young to call not for a reformation but for a resurrection. In 1862, a general quorum was organized for high priests living outside of Salt Lake County, including among others Davis, Utah, and Weber counties, but no record of its meetings has been found.54

“It was a common practice among many of the early bishoprics in Utah to choose counselors who were elders and seventies and who remained as such during their service,” one priesthood historian has noted, a practice Brigham Young did not seem concerned about until the 1870s.55

Elders’ units were formed in some communities and not in others. Meetings, as with high priests and seventies meetings, consisted primarily in the bearing of testimony and admonishings from the quorum leaders to live right, attend meetings, sustain the leaders, and bear their testimonies.56

Aaronic Priesthood Quorums and Labors

Before the endowment was introduced, which required men to hold the Melchizedek Priesthood before receiving it, adult males served in Aaronic or Melchizedek Priesthood offices as they were needed. Church practice was to have adult deacons, teachers, and priests—men of experience and wisdom—visit the members to help solve their problems, ferret out iniquity, reconcile feuding parties, and teach members to pray and to do their duties.

After the endowment was available, few stalwart men lacking Melchizedek Priesthood could be found for Aaronic Priesthood ordination. As a result, Brigham Young instructed that Melchizedek Priesthood holders be called by bishops or by Aaronic Priesthood quorum officers to act in the lesser offices. During his administration, acting deacons, acting teachers, and acting priests did the Aaronic Priesthood work of caring for meetinghouses, administering the sacrament, assisting the needy, and doing watch-care activity that today is called home teaching. Stake deacons, teachers, and priests quorums, organized in a few stakes, held monthly meetings where presidencies instructed the men in their duties. Although the quorums were stake entities, the work of quorum members always was ward work directed by ward bishops.57

As was the case before the exodus to Utah, selected young men received Melchizedek and Aaronic Priesthood ordinations. Their numbers were not large. But in accordance with the philosophy that “the strong take along the weak,” sometimes young men served like apprentices with older men in priesthood callings. Most LDS young men, however, first received priesthood when they needed to receive temple endowments.

Wards, Ward Bishops, and Ward Presidents

One of Brigham Young’s major contributions to priesthood work was making wards an effective local unit of Church administration. Wards with bishops first existed in Nauvoo, created so that the poor could be cared for and funds for Nauvoo needs could be collected.58 However, no wards held Sunday worship services or had buildings to meet in. By contrast, ward meetings and buildings became a common and central feature in Brigham Young’s Utah.

President Young wanted wards (or branches or settlements) to have both a president and a bishop—a dual leadership. He explained that “as soon as Elders have wisdom sufficient to magnify their calling and Priesthood, we will give to every Branch, no matter how small the Ward, both a Bishop and a President.”59 Several ward presidents were called and served. In 1858, for example, Brigham Young told one settlement leader to “select one of your number for a President, and one for Bishop.”60 Late in 1859, the First Presidency ordained Charles Hancock “to be the President and Bishop in Payson.” On June 12, 1872, Brigham Young sent a letter regarding the Perpetual Emigrating Fund “to the Presidents and Bishops of the various Wards throughout the Territory.”61

At times, President Young selected the bishops. When a Salt Lake City bishop resigned in 1859, Brigham Young informed ward member Andrew Cunningham that “you are hereby requested to fill the vacancy thus created, and commence to act in the office upon receipt of this notification.”62 It was not unusual for President Young to name a bishop for a ward who had to move there to take office. In 1861 he sent advice to Andrew Moffitt, who had been ordained to be the bishop of Manti, replacing Bishop Warren S. Snow, who was leaving on a mission. “Proceed to Manti, at your earliest convenience,” Young counseled, “and take charge of all matters and things pertaining to the Bishopric in that place.”63 When Canute Peterson was selected to be Fort Ephraim’s bishop, he had to be released as a counselor in the Lehi bishopric.64 President Young appointed outsider Thomas Callister to move to Fillmore to be the bishop there and to act as “presiding bishop over all the other Wards or settlements in Millard County.”65

In some cases, President Young allowed people to help select their bishop. In 1855 he counseled North Cottonwood Ward “brethren” to “select some young and vigorous man faithful and capable as your Bishop and I would recommend Bro John Hess as a capable person.” But, whomever the ward’s brethren selected, Young wanted him to come to the President’s office as soon as possible to be ordained.66

Late in 1859, the First Presidency sent some of the Twelve to Cache Valley and authorized them to organize the area into a stake. “Upon your selections and elections,” the First Presidency instructed the people, “they will set apart and ordain a President to preside over all your settlements, also twelve men to compose a High Council, and a Bishop for each settlement, a settlement, for the present, constituting one ward.”67 Also in 1859, President Young wrote to Apostle Lorenzo Snow in Box Elder County and instructed him to call together the people of Willow Creek Ward and “inform them that they are at liberty and we wish them to select one good man of their number to be their Bishop, and President,” whom Elder Snow should then ordain. “If they have no such man, and wish one sent into their Ward to fill those offices,” Young added, Elder Snow should attend to it.68

Bishops were expected to serve for life, if possible. They were the workhorses of the Church, often managing both religious and secular concerns in their settlements: resource managers, land distributors, public works directors, helpers of the poor and needy, Church court judges, militia advisers, baptizers, blessers of babies and the sick, preachers, funeral conductors, directors of the home teachers of that era, planners and conductors of religious meetings, and enforcers of Church rules. By the mid-1850s, they became involved in annual tithing settlements with their ward members, who previously were expected to settle tithing affairs with the Presiding Bishop.69

President Heber C. Kimball, in charge of the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, requested ward bishops to call and interview appropriate candidates and arrange for their presence with letters of recommendation and temple clothing at the Endowment House at the proper times.70 A form for a bishop’s letter of recommendation, created for use in connection with the opening of the St. George Temple early in 1877, states that the person named is recommended as a faithful member, one who has paid tithing and donations, and is worthy to receive what ordinances are written in the blank lines “if endorsed by President Young.”71

Because of Brigham Young’s development of and reliance on bishops, ward bishops have been the Church’s workhorse officer in the priesthood, the crucial local leader who brings people and the Church programs, including priesthood operations and ordinances, into a working relationship together.

Temples and Priesthood

Construction work on the Salt Lake Temple started in 1853, but progress was slow due to demands in Mormondom’s capital for many projects, coupled with the temple’s massive construction specifications. President Young alone held the sealing keys for temple work. The responsibility weighed on him, and he felt urgency to share the full range of temple ordinances, particularly the sealing of deceased relatives to each other, in a House of the Lord.

Years before, Joseph Smith had taken Brigham and other Church leaders into a room above his Nauvoo store. There, he divided off the room as best he could and carefully instructed them about the various temple ceremonies. “Brother Brigham,” he said when he was finished, “this is not arranged right . . . and I want you to take this matter in hand and organize and systematize all these ceremonies.”

President Young fulfilled that assignment by personally directing the completion of the Nauvoo Temple and administering ordinances there. In 1871, he dedicated the St. George Temple site and earmarked Church resources to pay for materials and workmen. Labor missionaries were sent from northern Utah settlements to help. “You cannot realize . . . how anxious he is to get this temple completed,” George Q. Cannon said of Brigham Young in 1876; “he has keys he wants to give in the Temple.”

From January to April 1877, President Young presided over dedications of the St. George Temple. In January, endowments for the dead were administered for the first time in this dispensation, some 3,208 by the end of March. He spent time from January to March developing a “perfect form of the endowments,” which was read and taught to temple workers in late March. Final dedications took place in April, four months before his death, and Saints immediately engulfed the temple to receive temple ordinances for themselves and others.72

The St. George Temple was dedicated in April 1877. Brigham Young knew the proper organization of the priesthood required the use of a fully functioning temple. The St. George Temple was the only temple completed during his tenure as Church President. Courtesy Perry Special Collections.

The Priesthood Reorganization of 1877

After opening the St. George Temple, ailing Brigham Young was suddenly filled with new life. Back in 1842, Joseph Smith had taught that “the Church is not fully organized, in its proper order, and cannot be, until the Temple is completed, where places will be provided for the administration of the ordinances of the Priesthood.”73 With the temple connecting heaven to earth, President Young felt an urgency to refine priesthood operations and make the earthly priesthood better mirror the heavenly one.

Rapid growth and other factors had made stakes, wards, and quorums “somewhat loose,” so he felt overwhelming obligations to reform those units’ operations. To start the task, he personally presided over a thorough reorganization of the St. George Stake that April. Then, during the middle months of 1877, he engineered sweeping reorganizations of priesthood involving twenty stakes, nine of which he personally conducted.

Only highlights of the extensive reorganization can be mentioned here.74 Six of the Twelve Apostles were released as stake presidents so they could work in “a larger field than a Stake of Zion.” The reorganization created seven new stakes and reorganized the thirteen existing ones. In the twenty stakes, fifty-three of the sixty members of stake presidencies were newly called, including sixteen new stake presidents. Most stakes created new high councils. Elders quorums were created or revitalized. Quarterly stake conferences were instituted, and the Church’s first uniform system for keeping statistical records was established. Stakes were asked to build meeting halls for stake priesthood assemblies and quarterly conferences—Temple Square’s Assembly Hall was one result. Adding to the existing 101 wards, 140 new ones were created, and 185 of the Church’s 241 bishops were newly ordained or set apart. All bishopric counselors had to be high priests. Seventies quorums were severely depleted when many of their members were called into the new bishoprics. Scores of Aaronic Priesthood quorums were created. Probably more than a thousand members received new ward or stake callings. A new policy asking that all young men be given some Aaronic Priesthood office before they reached adulthood produced several hundred youthful ordinations.

The 1877 reordering was the single most important redirecting of priesthood since priesthood authority was restored forty-eight years earlier. The First Presidency’s July 11, 1877, letter, which explained what changes were being made and why, was the Church’s first priesthood handbook of instructions since publication of the Doctrine and Covenants. The reorganization was a final testament by Brigham Young, who sought all his life to follow accurately Joseph Smith’s teachings regarding how priesthood should operate in the Church.

“It is a great joy and comfort to know that he had the privilege of living to complete one Temple and to see it dedicated,” Apostle Erastus Snow observed, “and that he superintended the setting in order of the priesthood and the ordinances for the redemption of the dead . . . something he greatly desired to see done before he should pass away.”75

“The Church is more perfectly organized than ever before, perhaps with the exception of the general assembly at Kirtland,” Apostle John Taylor observed that September; “but in some things now we are more stable and complete than we were even then.”76

In some respects, the Assembly Hall on Temple Square, started in 1877 and completed in 1880, stands as a stately and inspiring memorial to President Young’s final priesthood reorganization. It also stands as a tribute to his lengthy stewardship as Church President over the workings of priesthood offices, quorums, and powers from 1844 to 1877.

This article was originally published in The Lion of the Lord: Essays on the Life and Service of Brigham Young, ed. Susan Easton Black and Larry C. Porter (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1995), 338–70.