10 The Priesthood Reorganization of 1877: Brigham Young’s Last Achievement

Death knocking loudly at his door, President Brigham Young labored restlessly in his last five months of life to reorganize the Church’s government structures. His priesthood reorganization of 1877, thorough and massive, involved every stake, 241 wards, hundreds of quorums, and more than a thousand leadership positions. But this final achievement has been underrated or ignored by historians, unknown to Church members, and so far is a missing entry on his leadership balance sheet.

The contributions of Young as colonizer, economic director, immigration organizer, preacher-teacher, defender of the faith, and family man are explored in various scholarly probes. But what of his priesthood labors? As head of the fast-growing Church for thirty-three years, he worked through priesthood channels. Thanks to studies by Leonard Arrington, Dale F. Beecher, and Donald G. Pace, we know something about how Young utilized ward bishops. D. Michael Quinn introduces us to some of the inner workings of the then Church hierarchy. James N. Baumgarten’s excellent master’s thesis at least opened the door on what we need to know about the seventies, then led by Brigham Young’s brother Joseph. Gary L. Phelps’s and my own research shed light on the work of ward and Aaronic Priesthood teachers. But other priesthood offices and units and their historical developments await researchers’ attention, including such fundamental matters as the role and function of the Presiding Bishopric, of stakes and stake presidents and high councils, of high priests, patriarchs, wards, elders, priests and deacons, of basic priesthood ordinances, and of various meetings. Among published histories and biographies about the Brigham Young era, only The Story of the Latter-day Saints attributes much importance to Brigham Young’s 1877 reorganizings. Other accounts skip the topic entirely or else merely list the stakes affected.1

This chapter describes and analyzes the reorganization itself. It provides one more building block historians can use to analyze Brigham Young’s use of power and to generalize about how the Church historically has handled the dynamics of change.2 Offering a deep look at inner Church operations, this study assumes a familiarity on the readers’ part with basic Mormon terminology regarding priesthood matters. To understand what happened in 1877, I examine the reform in terms of what changes were needed, how the program was implemented, and what resulted.

The reorganization institutionalized both conservative and innovative elements. As a devoted student and disciple of the Prophet Joseph Smith, President Young knew well the priesthood revelations and also the explanations of those by the revelator himself.3 After Joseph Smith’s death, few, if any, understood priesthood matters better than the Vermont painter-glazier. Part of his 1877 effort, therefore, was to bring priesthood practices into closer harmony with the revelations.

But practical application of those revelations required creativity and innovation. The revelations said what but not always how. Implementation, therefore, required new approaches at times, as Elder Orson Pratt explained it in 1877:

To say that there will be a stated time, in the history of this Church, during its imperfections and weaknesses, when the organization will be perfect, and that there will be no further extension or addition to the organization, would be a mistake. Organization is to go on, step after step, from one degree to another, just as the people increase and grow in the knowledge of the principles and laws of the Kingdom of God, and as their borders shall extend.4

Brigham Young’s failing health by 1877 made needed priesthood reorderings urgent. That April he confessed, “I feel many times that I could not live an hour longer.” Knowing the Twelve would succeed him, he became very eager to put the Church in excellent order organizationally for them. Earlier, in June 1875, he took a major step in this direction by assigning proper seniority to members of the Twelve, making John Taylor quorum president instead of Orson Hyde. Then in 1876, he took another step, clarifying the interrelationship of stakes, by announcing—to the surprise of many leaders—that Salt Lake Stake held no “center stake” authority over other stakes, that all stakes were equal and autonomous relative to each other. By 1877 he wanted the Twelve freed from local assignments—half the quorum served as stake presidents—to assume general leadership again.5

Rapid growth in Church membership, another causative factor, was creating serious administrative problems by 1877. A quarter of a century earlier, Brigham Young had presided over but twelve thousand Saints in the Rockies (1852), yet by the 1870s the region had approximately a hundred thousand people, due to immigration and to the number of children born in the territory. To find work and homes, people moved farther and farther away from the main cities.6 Similar to an adolescent boy going through a quick growth spurt, the Church had outgrown its organizational britches. More “concentrated and localized” units were needed. “The organizations of the stakes of Zion on account of their rapid growth have become somewhat loose,” Elder Taylor told Utah Stake that June. “Many things have been left apparently at loose ends,” observed Elder Pratt, adding: “The Lord is about to ‘right up’ the people; and he has inspired him who presides over us, to organize us more fully.” Another member of the Twelve, Elder Franklin D. Richards, noted that some priesthood instructions in the revelations had “not been generally observed” in some areas.7

What were some of these loose ends? At the stake level, some presidents lacked counselors, some presidencies were not properly ordained and set apart, and in six of the thirteen stakes, Apostles presided as stake presidents: Charles C. Rich (Bear Lake), Brigham Young Jr. (Cache), Erastus Snow (St. George), Orson Hyde (Sanpete), Lorenzo Snow (Box Elder), and Franklin D. Richards (Weber). Some stakes lacked high councils, some had seventies serving on the high council, not all had properly functioning elders quorums, and the holding of quarterly conferences, “a standing revelation which has not been generally observed,” had given way to “occasional Conferences in some places.” The time had come, Brigham Young decided, for a more substantial and mature organization in the stakes of the Church.8

Another unorthodox practice, although not without historical precedent, was having local presiding bishops. Early in 1877, no less than fifteen presiding bishops served various areas. In Bear Lake, for example, William Budge presided over sixteen communities, handling tithing and exercising some ecclesiastical leadership over local leaders. But “things did not move smoothly and pleasantly by a long way,” John Taylor admitted. So Brigham Young announced in 1877, “There was no such thing as a presiding bishop” other than the Presiding Bishop, Edward Hunter.9

At the ward level, there was widespread need “to introduce the more perfect system of the Aaronic Priesthood,” meaning properly ordained bishoprics, because “many irregularities” had developed. In Weber Stake, the fifth largest stake in Utah, “they did not have Bishops to watch over the people, but had Presidents.” Some places had acting bishops who needed either proper ordination or replacement. During the reorganizings, one Paysonite noted that “our bishop has never had the privilege of choosing councilors. It is presumed he will now have that privilege.” Some bishops had but one counselor. In a few cases, seventies served as bishops’ counselors without being ordained as high priests. Some bishops counselors had moved away and had never been replaced. The critical problem posed by these irregularities was that without three high priests, properly ordained and set apart, no bishopric legally could serve as a Church court. As a result “all kinds of little differences” went to high councils for resolution, normal difficulties “which ought to be taken to the Bishops Court.” “There is a law regulating these things,” Elder Taylor cautioned, “which we hope to comply with.”10

Critical for the health of a ward was the contact teachers and priests—the home teachers of that generation—had with the families. These officers were responsible for monitoring conduct, dealing with iniquity, and settling disputes among members. While many wards had strong Aaronic Priesthood units, too many did not. Without Aaronic Priesthood workers, wards and stakes were incomplete. Brigham Young’s deathbed concern was that bishops see that the teachers be diligent.11 But staffing Aaronic Priesthood quorums was not easy—they preferred using men rather than boys then—as Elder Richards explained to Bear Lake Stake:

Stated how the Aaronic Priesthood seemed to be overstepped by members being advanced at once to the higher or Melchizedek Priesthood, and that there did not seem to be enough in the Church who did not possess this higher priesthood to fill up the quorums of the lesser, hence it became necessary to appoint Elders and Seventies to act as Priests, Teachers, and Deacons. . . . No stake organization would be complete without them.12

Another reason stakes lacked Aaronic units was the hazy concept, erased only in 1876, that officers of Salt Lake Stake’s quorums, because they were sustained in general conference, were like General Authorities to their priesthood counterparts in other stakes. Only by April 1877 were all stakes fully informed that each stake, in order to be completely organized, must contain three Aaronic quorums, each with a separate presidency.13

Another matter needing attention was the large number of Saints not officially enrolled in any ward. Saints migrating out from settlements in search of work cut themselves off from ward participation. Brigham Young called them “the scattering sheep of Israel in these mountains who acknowledge no particular fold.” He wanted all members enrolled in a ward, accounted for, visited, labored with, and their religious conduct monitored.14

Why did the reorganization not come before 1877? One possible answer was that population pressures did not reach the breaking point, the unmanageable point, until 1877. Another is that Brigham Young’s health had not become precarious until then. A third reason involves the St. George Temple. In my mind, it is no coincidence that the priesthood reorganization began immediately after the first fully functioning temple in Utah Territory was completed at St. George; priesthood and temples are directly interrelated. Leaders in that generation firmly believed that priesthood on earth was but a small extension of heavenly priesthood, a twig on the great heavenly priesthood tree. Because temples are meeting points between earth and heaven, the opening of the St. George Temple made leaders more conscious of the need for earthly priesthood to mirror more fully the heavenly one. Elder Taylor was one who constantly preached that heavenly priesthood patterns, explained in the revelations, must be copied in the earthly Church.15

One of Joseph Smith’s teachings in 1842, not forgotten by Brigham Young, was 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.” Perhaps the connection between temples and stakes went beyond the dedication of two new temple sites during 1877 and the assignment of all the stakes to the Logan, Manti, or Salt Lake temple districts to spur construction. In 1884, Elder Erastus Snow said, possibly referring to 1877, “Seeing the different stakes of Zion that were being organized we perceived the idea, possibly, of as many temples.”16

As with the temple connection, the reorganization of 1877 had a connection with the United Order movement. Brigham Young constantly labored to increase temporal and spiritual unity among the Saints. We have no evidence that by 1877 he had changed this conviction voiced in 1862, “I have had visions and revelations instructing me how to organize this people so that they can live like the family of heaven, but I cannot do it while so much selfishness and wickedness reign in the Elders of Israel.” In 1874–75, he supervised the implementation of more than 150 United Orders throughout the region. Their serious problems and short lives hurt him deeply, perhaps pointing out to his observant mind many leadership and organizational weaknesses at ward and stake levels. “We are starting in on some things,” said John Taylor in November 1876, “to try to get us united on temporal affairs,” noting that recently “the spirit of God has been operating upon President Young.”17 Possibly his statement means that plans to reorder the priesthood were then being formulated.

During 1877 the prophet still advocated United Orders. When initially instructing the Twelve about their role in the upcoming reorganizings, he specifically told them to preach temporal and spiritual unity in every stake. He warned those attending April general conference that “we have no business here other than to build up and establish the Zion of God. It must be done according to the will and law of God, after that pattern and order by which Enoch built up and perfected the former-day Zion.”18 Elder Pratt preached that the reorganizings were part of “a plan which the Lord has revealed that will entitle the Latter-day Saints to greater blessings and privileges through which that union will be brought about which we have long desired in our hearts.”19 Those in attendance at October general conference, six weeks after Brigham Young’s death, heard Elder Lorenzo Snow emphatically state, “There is no salvation for us only in the United Order. This principle is not going to die out because Pres. Young is gone. We must carry out that principle if we wish salvation.”20 In fact, during the months before his death, Young explained the linkage he saw among United Orders, temple building, and the nearly completed priesthood reorderings:

In consequence of tradition and the weakness of our human nature, we could not bring our feelings to obey this holy requirement [Order of Enoch]. The Spirit had prompted him to see if the brethren would do anything by way of an approach to it, and hence we had commenced to build Temples, which was a very necessary work and which was centering the feelings of the people for a still further union of effort. . . . He said that after something had been done towards Temple-building, the same Spirit whispered to perfect the organization of the Priesthood.21

But temporal and spiritual unity of a group requires individual righteousness. Reduced to its root purpose, the 1877 reorganization was designed to increase righteousness among leaders and members. The Church exists to perfect the Saints, so by improving Church structure the Saints in turn ought to be better influenced to improve themselves. Brigham Young expected the reorderings to produce “a radical change, a reformation, in the midst of this people.” If anyone inquired about the reorganizings, he wrote to his son Willard,

We will answer, to more completely carry out the purposes of Jehovah, to give greater compactness to the labors of the priesthood, to unite the Saints, to care for the scattering sheep of Israel in these mountains who acknowledge no particular fold, to be in a position to understand the standing of everyone calling himself a Latter-day Saint, and to consolidate the interests, feelings, and lives of the members of the Church. There are some of the reasons why we are now more fully than heretofore organizing the holy Priesthood after the pattern given us of our Father in Heaven.22

Beyond internal causes for the 1877 reorderings, there may have been an external, political one. The 1870s boiled with conflict between Mormons and Gentiles. Skimpy evidence, involving Tooele and Beaver counties, suggests politics did influence the 1877 effort to some degree. The gentile minority in Tooele controlled election machinery, and invalidating Mormon votes would control elective offices. President Young sent in a county outsider, Elder Francis M. Lyman, who as the new stake president worked hard to win back Mormon political control there. In Beaver the General Authorities feared a repeat of the Tooele problem, so they used the 1877 reorganizing conference in Beaver to terminate Mormon political handholding with Gentiles. If other counties faced similar problems, perhaps Brigham Young’s goal to create one effective stake per county was some kind of short-term or long-term political defense effort. Assessment of political motives behind the 1877 movement, however, is not possible until we have detailed political studies of the twenty Utah counties and their communities.23

Records do not tell us when Brigham Young first contemplated the large-scale reorganization. But as early as January 20, 1877, he had in mind at least a few changes. That day he wrote to Presiding Elder A. K. Thurber in Richfield, responding to Elder Thurber’s lament that in all of Sevier County “there is no permanent organization in the Stake except the High Council.” Young replied that “in all the settlements” in that county there would be “ordained Bishops as soon as we can get to it.” Meanwhile, he said, appoint local leaders temporarily “till we direct otherwise.”24

By the time of the St. George Temple dedication during April general conference, the reorganization plan was ready and launched. First, on March 30 and again on April 4, Brigham Young explained the plan to the Twelve and instructed them “to travel and organize stakes of Zion in all the vallies of the mountains.” To start the movement, he personally presided over the reorganization of St. George Stake on April 4 and 5. Then on April 7 he surprised Fillmorite Francis M. Lyman by privately telling him to “get ready” to move to and preside as stake president over either Davis or Tooele counties—two areas not then stakes. Thus, without fanfare and without announcement that all stakes would be reorganized, the movement had quickly commenced (see table 1).25

Table 1 
1887 Stake Organizing Conferences Schedule

Sources: Stake Manuscript Histories and Historical Records, MSS, Church History Library.

The schedule for reorganizing the stakes was not worked out all at once but developed as the spring and summer months wore on. During April, three southern stakes were visited and reorganized by General Authorities. But only when Salt Lake Stake was reorganized in mid-May was public announcement made that all stakes would be visited and put in order, including Cache and Weber on the next two weekends. At Logan on May 20, the Twelve met and “decided on appointments for the next 2 months.” By the end of May, a nine-conference schedule for June was announced and Brigham Young projected that “there will probably be some twenty-one stakes [twenty were created] in the valleys of Israel.” By early June, the work was “engaging the greater portion of the time and attention” of the Twelve, “assisted as far as their duties will permit by the First Presidency.” By mid-June, conferences were scheduled for Juab and Sanpete counties, but “further than this we have not decided on,” leaving Sevier, Morgan, Summit, Wasatch, Millard, Beaver, Parowan, Box Elder, and Bear Lake conferences yet to be called.26

Reorganizings moved too slowly, so by the end of June two or more teams of General Authorities, instead of one, went out to do the work. “We have thus to divide,” Brigham Young said, “or we shall not get through with the organization of the stakes in time to commence the quarterly conferences in those that were first organized.” In July, three teams organized nine stakes. Then in August, the last two stakes had their turns. No other stake was organized or reorganized until the next January, when the distant Lower Colorado colonies became the Church’s first stake in Arizona.27

Brigham Young, despite health fluctuations, conducted nine of the twenty reorganizing conferences. “My own health is excellent,” he wrote in late April; “the pain which I have so frequently suffered in my stomach after speaking to large congregations, has troubled me but very little of late.” But the workload took its toll, and by June 1 he was too feeble to attend part of the Provo conference. Two weeks later, he admitted “in my anxiety to see the house of God set in Order that I have some what overtaxed my strength.” His namesake son described the president as “pale,” “worn,” and “very tired” on June 20. During the summer months, he “seemed to be anxious and restless until he had thoroughly organized the Church,” said George Q. Cannon, Young’s counselor, and “was so hurried, was so urged in his feelings concerning the organization of the people; pressing matters forward, anxious to get the Priesthood organized and the Stakes everywhere set in order.” On August 6, Brigham Young felt “much joy and satisfaction in our labors” and believed that “much good will result.”28

Overtaxed, he rested in late June in Cache Valley. But in early July he made a hot and dusty circuit into Juab and Sanpete counties. After a six-week break, he reorganized Box Elder Stake on August 18–19. A week later, he learned the twentieth and last stake, Bear Lake Stake, was reorganized. During the following week he died, but had the knowledge that the basic reorganization work was complete and the machinery set in motion to fully reorder wards and quorums at the local levels.

Planning and conducting twenty decision-loaded conferences required much physical and spiritual energy from the Brethren. Once dates were set, local arrangements had to be made. A letter, telegram, or verbal instruction from the First Presidency usually informed local authorities to publicize the conference and notify local Saints to be there. Two weeks before the Tooele meetings, for example, local leaders learned from the First Presidency:

We will hold meetings in Tooele City, for the organization of a Stake of Zion, on Saturday and Sunday, the 23d and 24th inst. Please notify the various wards and settlements in the County of this fact. We also desire that a statement should be prepared, for that meeting, of the number of Seventies, High Priests, Elders, and members of the Lesser Priesthood in the County.29

Two to ten General Authorities attended a stake’s conference. Travel was relatively easy between the rail terminals at Franklin, Idaho, and York, a few miles south of Payson. Beyond those railroad lines, however, travel posed problems, as President Young’s itinerary in Sanpete County shows:

After holding meetings in Nephi we shall proceed to Sanpete County. I shall take a carriage with me on the cars to York, but I shall want you to supply me with a good, solid team, (as the carriage carries six passengers), to convey me from the terminus of the railroad to Sanpete and return. If I should conclude to bring my own team I will let you know in good season by telegraph.30

John Taylor’s party, to reach Bear Lake Stake, left the train at Franklin and traveled in three carriages twenty-two miles to Mink Creek. There, they camped and were met by Bishop William Budge. On the road the next day, they were met in Emigration Canyon by Elder Charles C. Rich—the Bear Lake Stake president—and others. The party arrived at Paris, Idaho, at 3:00 pm the day before the conference opened. Elder Richards, covering a Wasatch Mountain circuit, took trains to Morgan City and to Coalville, but to reach Heber City from there, he traveled by carriage. The return trip lasted from 5:00 am to 5:40 pm. According to his diary that night, his three weeks of conferences and travels made him “very worn tired weary.”31

A large, accessible city in each stake hosted its conference. Tabernacles housed the meetings in Salt Lake, Parowan, Logan, Ogden, and St. George stakes. Local meetinghouses served the purpose in Farmington, Panguitch, Tooele, Heber, and elsewhere. At Fillmore they met in the statehouse. Either no meetinghouse was big enough or else summer heat made meetinghouses unbearable, so boweries were used in Utah at Brigham City (twenty-five hundred capacity but many had to stand outside), Coalville, Manti, Richfield (built for the occasion), Morgan City (one hundred feet square, built the day before), and in Idaho at Paris (“windy and somewhat unpleasant”). Arriving authorities sometimes received colorful greetings, like the “brass band, a concourse of citizens, and a host of Sunday School children” that met Brigham Young at the Brigham City depot.32

The conferences had specific purposes. First the extent of the stake was defined by designating which wards, old and new, it included. Apparently, Brigham Young wanted one stake per county, a goal that was all but met: twenty counties and twenty stakes, Iron County having two and sparsely settled Paiute County none. Most of the new stakes had been operating more like independent districts than like parts of old stakes anyway, so their births caused very little confusion.

Tooele illustrates how a new stake was born. Until 1877 all settlements in the county were branches supervised by Presiding Bishop John Rowberry, similar to a district of the Church today. An April 1876 census shows three thousand Saints there. Annual county Church conferences were held in previous years. When the area received stakehood in 1877, the six branches became wards, ranging in size from 27 families and 124 individuals at Vernon to 200 families and 1,195 souls at Tooele. Later, new dependent branches were formed, each with a presiding priest in charge.33

John Rowberry was the presiding bishop in Tooele when he received notice of the organization of a stake in his area, just two weeks before the meeting. He created a report detailing the number of seventies, elders, and members of the Aaronic Priesthood for that meeting. Courtesy Church Archives.

Population and geography determined where new stakes should be. (See table 2.) The seven new ones, ranging in membership size from Davis with forty-five hundred to Morgan with fifteen hundred, were about the same population as the seven smallest existing stakes, and the average size of wards was about the same in the seven new stakes (333) as in the comparison stakes (329). Branches became wards where possible. Otherwise, they were attached to an existing ward as dependent branches.34

Table 2 
Stake Statistics from Early Quarterly Reports following the 1877 Reorganizings 
(Stakes Ranked according to Size of Membership) [broken into two parts]

Sources: Stake Historical Reports 1877–80; Presiding Bishopric, March 1, 1878, Statistical Report of the Stakes, MS, Church History Library.
a Box Elder Stake began with sixteen wards but disorganized Corrine Ward by December.

Another vital conference purpose was to select new stake and ward officers or resustain those already in office. President Young usually determined who would be stake president. An exception occurred in Sevier County, where a priesthood council made nominations from which the two visiting Apostles made the final selection. Brigham Young personally appointed Francis M. Lyman as Tooele Stake president. He wanted John Murdock, if he agreed to quit cooperating with Gentiles, retained as Beaver Stake’s presiding officer. At Cache Stake, Young asked the outgoing stake president, his Apostle-son Brigham Jr., and others of the Twelve for nominations for stake leaders. They declined, “Make your own appointments, Brother Brigham, and we will vote for them.” So he chose Moses Thatcher to be the new stake president. At the Juab conference, prior to the 2:00 pm Sunday meeting, General Authorities in attendance sustained President Young’s choice of George Teasdale of Salt Lake City as the new stake president.35

What happened to presidencies in the thirteen existing stakes? In the six stakes where Apostles stepped down from being stake presidents, strong local leaders replaced them. In the seven other stakes, four incumbents continued as presidents and three were released: Joel Grover (Juab) became a local bishop, Thomas Callister (Millard) became a stake patriarch, and Albert K. Thurber (Sevier) became a first counselor in the stake presidency. Their places were taken by strong local leaders, except at Juab where Salt Laker George Teasdale was selected.

Seven stakes were new. In them, three of the new presidents had been serving the region as presiding bishops: Willard G. Smith (Morgan), Abraham Hatch (Wasatch), and William W. Cluff (Summit). In three other new stakes, prominent local men received the call. And in one new stake, Tooele, outsider Francis M. Lyman was installed.

Nearly every stake—seventeen of twenty—received new counselors at the conferences. High councils too were created, continued, or reorganized in all stakes. About half the stakes immediately called presidents for the high priests and for the elders quorum; other stakes waited until after the conferences. Only two stakes sustained patriarchs at first, but within a year most had at least one called. Only about one-fourth of the stakes sustained priests, teachers, and deacons quorum presidents at the conferences.

Local priesthood councils participated in nominating other stake and ward officers. The council at Sevier Stake nominated four men for stake president, two dozen for high council, and at least one for each settlement for bishop, including four for Richfield and four for Monroe. Elders Orson Hyde and Erastus Snow and the Sevier council decided on officers all the way down to elders presidency and priests presidents.36 In Wasatch Stake, Elders Franklin D. Richards and John Taylor did not question that acting Presiding Bishop Abraham Hatch was to be the new stake president. They met with him Friday afternoon and poured over names of Melchizedek Priesthood men, “receiving suggestions as to the fitness of men for various offices.” Then, next afternoon, in priesthood council they “determined most of the officers for the Stake.”37

In Tooele Stake, at a Saturday evening priesthood council, Elder John Taylor “called upon any and all who wished to make nominations of men, who were honest, sober, truthful Latter Day Saints, so they may have plenty of good names to choose from for High Councillors, Bishops and their Counsellors and presidents of Quorums.” The next morning, the new stake president met with the Twelve “when names were canvassed to fill the various offices of the Stake.” During a lunch break, Lyman met again with the Twelve “when the names of parties to fill the various offices were further discussed and decided upon.” At the afternoon session, Elder Taylor presented the selections for sustaining votes.38

Nominations and sustainings went smoothly, according to available records. “The Spirit seems to fully approve of our labors and selections,” wrote Elder Richards, regarding the Tooele slate. There were several cases of dissent, however. When Brigham Young proposed to Parowan Stake members that William Dame be replaced by Jesse N. Smith as their stake president, “a number of the people objected,” and the stake reorganization was postponed from April to July, when William Dame and Jesse N. Smith were sustained as co-presidents. In Salt Lake’s Third Ward, members voted down Elder George Q. Cannon’s proposal that their long-time bishop be replaced. As a result, President Young appointed a priest that August to preside, and not until December was former Bishop Jacob Weiler put back into his office. Kanab could not unite behind a nominee for bishop until that December.39

Sustained, the new officers needed ordinations and settings apart, ceremonies that usually followed the last conference session. Only General Authorities could ordain stake presidents and bishops, but stake presidents handled all other ordinations and settings apart.

Beyond determining boundaries and officers, the conferences had other purposes. One was to instruct. Sermon subjects ranged from the need for temporal and spiritual unity to temple building, children’s educations, and duties of priesthood officers. Specific local problems also received comment.

Beaver Stake’s unique problems, for example, drew fire from Elders Erastus Snow and Wilford Woodruff. They called a special priesthood meeting that excluded anyone not “vouched for” by those present. They first dressed down two Latter-day Saint county judges who threatened Utah’s future by issuing questionable divorces to out-of-state parties. Then the Apostles chastised the stake president for going “heart and hand with the gentiles,” thereby giving Gentiles too much local political power. Brigham Young’s instructions were that if John Murdock were not repentant about this, he was to be replaced. He repented and was resustained. Then members themselves were criticized for selling and drinking liquor dispensed at the Mormon co-op store. Elder Snow warned: “I advise you sisters to get together in the capacity of a Relief Society, and gut the store of every drop of liquor in it, and spill the liquor on the ground.” Finally, the Apostles cancelled out county central committee nominations for the upcoming election and substituted another man as their handpicked nominee for the legislature. Immediately following the conference, twenty-five of the newly sustained officers were rebaptized, including the stake presidency.40

Elders Wilford Woodruff (top) and Erastus Snow chastized members and leaders of the Beaver Stake for misusing judicial power, accommodating gentile practices and politics, and selling and drinking liquor. Courtesy Perry Special Collections.

On July 11, after fourteen of twenty stakes were reorganized, the First Presidency issued a lengthy, historic epistle to the Church.41 It explained the purposes of the reorderings, expounded on priesthood principles to be followed when wards and quorums were organized, and listed a wide range of instructions regarding Church government and duties of officers and members. It served then much like bishops’ and stake presidents’ handbooks serve today and was carefully and often referred to by local leaders. It represents the constitution of the 1877 movement, the guidebook, the codification of priesthood principles necessary to operating stakes, wards, and quorums. It was the most comprehensive policy statement about priesthood practices since the Doctrine and Covenants was first published. In summary form, the epistle’s most important statements included:

Stake presidencies are responsible for all church matters in their stakes.

Bishoprics, to be properly organized, must have three high priests.

There will be no more local presiding bishops.

All members are to be enrolled in a ward or branch, visited regularly, and brought to repentance when necessary. If these conditions are not met, leaders share in their sins.

A priest, teacher, or acting priest presides over branches.

Branches and wards should maintain Sunday Schools and Sabbath meetings.

High priests are a stake quorum with unlimited numbers and are not to meet on a ward basis.

Seventies meet only for missionary purposes; otherwise they should meet with high priests or elders quorums.

No more high priests or seventies will be ordained without First Presidency approval.

Quorums must have scriptural minimums in order to organize: no less than ninety-six elders, forty-eight priests, twenty-four teachers, and twelve deacons. Wards should combine if necessary to create quorums with those minimum enrollments.

Melchizedek Priesthood men can serve in lesser priesthood jobs when needed.

Stakes will hold quarterly conferences that General Authorities will visit.

Stakes and wards will compile quarterly reports and submit them to the First Presidency.

Careful transcripts of all bishops courts must be kept.

Members, when moving, must obtain letters of recommendation from previous wards.

Youths should be given some priesthood office; experienced teachers should take along young men during their home visits to train them in priesthood work.

Bishoprics should administer sacrament weekly to Sunday School children.

Parents should instruct their children and send them to Sunday Schools.

Tithing should be paid promptly to aid temple construction.

Every settlement should have YMMIAs and YLMIAs.

Home industry is to be encouraged and developed; grain must be stored.

Stake presidencies should travel through wards frequently and call men as home missionaries to help them preach in the wards.

Local leaders read this epistle publicly and discussed it with local priesthood groups. In August, Brigham Young added two instructions. Raising donations to support temple laborers became the bishops’ responsibility rather than the quorums’. Also, stakes were to hold monthly priesthood meetings on the first Saturday of each month. These, like the epistle’s instructions, were quickly complied with. Three more additions to the reform plan came right after Young’s death: bishops were instructed to hold weekly ward meetings with their Aaronic Priesthood quorums, dates were published for stake conferences for the next six months, and Deseret News Press published forms for ward and stake reports.42

The twenty stake reorganizing conferences were but the first phase of the 1877 reorganization movement. The second phase was the post-conference part that reordered priesthood work at the ward and quorum levels. If Brigham Young dominated the first phase, the stake presidencies and ward bishops dominated the second. This second phase involved installing bishops’ counselors not already installed; calling and setting apart quorum presidents for elders, priests, teachers, and deacons units; and calling males to fill up the new quorums. Stake presidents made two or three circuits through the wards to complete this phase of the reorganization, sometimes assisted by resident General Authorities.

Salt Lake Stake, with a quarter of all Mormons in Utah Territory, clearly illustrated how the second phase was implemented.43 Conferences were held in virtually all nineteen city wards and six county wards. Ten new wards were created and staffed. Of thirty-five total wards, fifteen received new bishops; and five acting bishops and twelve acting counselors were ordained and/or set apart. Of 70 total counselors for the 35 wards, 47 were newly called. Of 105 total bishopric personnel in the stakes, 62 (59 percent) were newly ordained because of the reorganization. These changes came during the stake presidency’s first circuit in June and July. A second circuit did not begin until November.

During the lull, two major developments occurred. First, in August when the prophet asked stakes to hold monthly priesthood meetings, he specifically instructed Salt Lake Stake to erect a new priesthood hall to house those monthly gatherings. As a result, the Old Tabernacle was razed, and laborers commenced the stately Assembly Hall, which Brigham Young helped design. Second, at October stake conference the stake presidency called thirty-five men as home missionaries to serve as preachers in the wards. Finally, the stake’s November 3 priesthood meeting initiated the stake presidency’s second circuit of the wards. It was time to create quorums.

The Assembly Hall in Salt Lake City was built specifically as a site for monthly priesthood meetings as directed by President Brigham Young in 1877. Courtesy Perry Special Collections.

The stake also needed new elders quorums. Until 1876, one quorum had served the two dozen wards, its presidency being sustained in conferences. When Brigham Young asked in 1876 for quorums to support laborers for the Salt Lake Temple, quorum president Edward W. Davis set up branch elders units in some of the county population pockets. This loose collection of elders groups, belonging to the one stake quorum, changed radically during the second phase. For the stake’s thirty-five wards, fifteen elders quorums were formed. Quorums needed ninety-six members minimum, an impossibility for most wards, so multiward quorums were formed. The First Ward, for example, with twenty-nine elders, and the Tenth Ward with seventy-nine, combined to become the Second Elders Quorum, joined shortly by elders from the Sugarhouse Ward. Only four quorums were one-ward quorums. For the rest, it took from two to five wards to supply enough elders to create a quorum. By December the Deseret News published the new quorum numberings and a list of the fifteen new presidencies.

The stake likewise needed more Aaronic Priesthood quorums. Prior to 1877, there had been stake deacons, teachers, and priests quorums, whose presidencies were sustained at each general conference. Wards often had deacons quorums but none for teachers or priests; they did have groups of ward teachers, but these were not considered Aaronic Priesthood teachers quorums. The ideal continued to be to call mature men into these quorums, but in practice such men received the Melchizedek Priesthood, and the Aaronic quorums were plagued with vacancies. The only solution was to call boys into the work, a solution implemented by the 1877 reorganization.

A September survey showed 170 Aaronic Priesthood bearers in the Salt Lake Stake. Conscious of quorum minimums, stake leaders in early November doubted the stake had enough ordained teachers to form even two quorums and knew “there were only enough Priests in the whole city to organize one quorum.” By December 31, dozens of new teachers were ordained and three quorums formed: one for nine wards with nineteen teachers, one with nineteen teachers from eight wards, and a third with twenty-two teachers from four wards. Thirty-seven priests were ordained so the stake could have one priests quorum. By contrast, deacons units were easy to fill. Most wards could come up with twelve deacons. During November and December, 354 new deacons were ordained in the stake, so that all but two of the thirty-five wards had a quorum, and four wards had more than one. Mill Creek Ward alone set up five. By the year’s end, the stake had forty-one deacons quorums.

Other stakes implemented the second phase similarly. Between September and February, Box Elder Stake’s Aaronic Priesthood numbers nearly doubled (from 182 to 352). Bear Lake Stake’s deacons increased in a few months from thirty-seven to eighty-nine. It took Morgan Stake until February to create one priests quorum. Juab needed until January to start its one elders and two deacons quorums. Beaver Second Ward ordained “a number of young men” as priests and deacons that fall. Sevier Stake created two new elders quorums by its first quarterly conference. A Cache Stake report in December showed one priests quorum had been created (“mostly boys”); one ward said it filled a deacons quorum with “small boys”; one bishop reported his ward had fourteen priests (“mostly young boys”), a full deacons quorum, only one ordained teacher, and a quorum of acting teachers (“older brethren”); and another ward had ordained a number of “young men as teachers to labor with experienced Acting Teachers.” Three circuits by the Weber Stake presidency saw them organize or reorganize six elders, six priests, twelve teachers, and eleven deacons quorums by October. By the year’s end most stakes had completed their stake, ward, and quorum organizations; and leaders expressed great satisfaction at the changes and improvements made.44

Threats to prune the ungodly from the Church were not fulfilled. At least we find no evidence that excommunications escalated in the wake of the reorganizings. This disappointed some, like Isaiah Coombs of Payson who expected a “reformation.” Paysonites in August, he wrote, talked much about “the proposed cleansing of the Church by cutting off all dead branches, which it is hoped will soon be inaugurated.” Brigham Young, sounding severe in public on the matter, on his deathbed privately told Elder Cannon that “offending members should be carefully looked after and attended to but not dealt rashly with.” Erastus Snow’s instructions to bishops were similar: they should manifest “that fatherly love, tenderness and anxiety that parents feel for their offspring,” a policy that seems to have been followed.45

But members were forced to repledge their allegiance or declare their disloyalty when offered the chance to be rebaptized. Many Saints had been rebaptized in 1874–75 during the United Order movements, but many had not. So both types were given a second chance to be rebaptized in 1877, and hundreds of Saints were rebaptized. Elder Richards, installing a new bishopric in Davis Stake, had them “rebaptized, reconfirmed, and ordained and set apart.” Leaders in the South Bountiful Ward reported on September 8 that 117 of its 400 members had been rebaptized. On July 5, Bishop Frederick Kesler supervised his ward’s rebaptism and then assisted in confirming fifty-nine persons at fast meeting. Part of Wasatch Stake’s reorganizing conference included a Sunday morning rebaptismal service. At Fillmore on July 21, two Apostles counseled Saints there “to renew their covenants by baptism” and twenty-two responded. At the Beaver Stake reorganization, twenty-five were rebaptized, including the new stake presidency; then ward rebaptisms followed, totaling over four hundred by November. Parowan members were asked on August 12 “to go and renew their covenants” if they had not done so already. When Tooele Stake organized the Quincy Branch, twenty-one were rebaptized there. Reports dated November 3 from the Sevier Stake listed forty-eight rebaptisms for four wards. Woodruff Ward reported that 80 percent of its 336 souls were rebaptized. Summit Stake in November questioned what course to take regarding “some that had not renewed their covenants,” but no answer is noted. The 116 rebaptisms at Nephi that fall made one St. Georgean think a “silent reformation” was under way. The main reason for rebaptisms, counseled Elder Erastus Snow, was “to draw the Saints more closely together and to separate the wheat from the chaff.”46

As instructed by the July letter, stake presidents began visiting all their wards on a regular basis. During the first stake quarterly conference, most stakes also called home missionaries to visit and speak regularly in ward sacrament meetings. To cite a few examples, Tooele and Millard stakes called twenty, Morgan sixteen, Cache twenty-two, and Utah twenty-four. Some stakes, like Weber, used high councilmen as home missionaries. Others called seventies. A few home missionaries received specific assignments to work with language groups such as the Germans, Swiss, or Native Americans. By December, two-thirds of the stakes had their missionaries called and operating.47

Quarterly conferences began in all stakes, replacing the annual, semiannual, and random conferences of the past. With rare exceptions, every quarterly conference, starting that fall, was visited by members of the Twelve or First Presidency. At each stake’s first quarterly conference, the officers called in previous weeks to complete the organizations were sustained and set apart. At these quarterly conferences, ward leaders turned in reports so stake leaders could compile quarterly reports to give to the visiting authorities. Table 2 is a Church census for the stakes, based on the fall and winter quarterly conference reports, that show the approximate size and officer range of stakes in late 1877.

By the second quarterly conference, if not the first, nearly every stake reported it was fully organized at the stake, ward, and quorum levels. The reorganization of 1877 was completed, and stakes thereafter settled down to operating with their new machinery, to letting their new officers and units serve, to doing the everyday work of ecclesiastical leadership and followership.

Similar to a train going through a tunnel, the Church entered, passed through, and exited from the 1877 reorganization. What difference did it make? What changes did it produce? Was the Church any better because of the passage? Brigham Young’s counselor George Q. Cannon delivered an October assessment that painted Young’s reorganization work in heroic proportions:

He set the Priesthood in order as it has never before been since the first organization of the Church upon the earth. He defined the duties of the Apostles, he defined the duties of the Seventies, he defined the duties of the High Priests, the duties of the Elders and those of the lesser Priesthood, with plainness and distinction and power—the power of God—in a way that it is left on record in such unmistakable language that no one need err who has the spirit of God resting down upon him.48

Using Cannon’s statement as the frame for judging Brigham Young’s last achievement, we will now examine each priesthood office in terms of how the 1877 reorganization affected it.

The Twelve

Six of the Twelve were released as stake presidents because Brigham Young felt they now must work “in a wider and more extended sphere,” in “a larger field than a Stake of Zion.” He gave them an “increase of responsibility and jurisdiction” for which they would be held to “a stricter accountability” than before.49

He expected the movement to give the Twelve a spiritual shot in the arm; in starting the movement he said, “The Twelve must take a different course—that is some of them—or they would lose the crown and others would take what they might have had.” Table 1 shows much involvement by the Twelve in the stake reorganizing conferences. They conducted meetings, interviewed, ordained and set apart, preached, met members, and gave private counsel. These were tasks that built them up spiritually, if Elder Franklin D. Richards’s diary is representative. He recorded how he felt the Spirit confirm the choices of Tooele Stake’s officers. Then in late July, he recorded how John Taylor and he spent time “in searching revelations and sayings of Joseph Smith in Church history on the subject of Priesthood.” For part of another day he “read diligently in revelations and history of Joseph Smith.” After his Brigham City sermon on priesthood duties, Richards recorded his spiritual feelings: “I thank Thee O lord for the measure of thy Spirit to aid me in my labors in the ministry and for increasing my knowledge in the Gospel of the Holy Priesthood.”50

A new and major assignment given the Twelve was to visit quarterly stake conferences, something they started doing that fall. Elder Taylor, aware that the Twelve’s duties now more than ever made it impossible for them to “pay any attention to their own private affairs,” won approval in October conference for the Twelve to receive for the first time “a reasonable recompense for their services” from Church funds.51

The Seventies

Unlike the Twelve, the First Council of the Seventy gained no new responsibilities. Rather, they and their six dozen quorums generally lost importance. Seventies needed reorganizing to put their quorums on a strict geographic basis, rather than struggling to retain the no-matter-where-you-live-you-belong-to-your-original-quorum situation. That change came six years later, initiated by a revelation to John Taylor. But, as James N. Baumgarten noted, “It seems strange that more definite steps for organization were not taken” during the Brigham Young era. Perhaps strong positions taken by Brigham and by Joseph Young regarding the authority and status of seventies required both of their deaths before change could come; we need to know much more about the relationship between these Young brothers. But 1877 clearly added to or created situations that made the 1883 changes necessary.52

The reorganization set the seventies back in a number of ways. First, if Joseph Young said in 1876 that seventies could ordain high priests and bishops, 1877 realities shattered that theory. The First Council played no meaningful role in the movement, and all seventies called to presiding positions in wards and stakes were first ordained as high priests and then set apart to particular positions—their seventies’ authority was not sufficient.

Second, like a reaping machine in a grain field, the movement took seventies by the hundreds—Joseph Young said almost a thousand total—and made them high priests to preside in wards and stakes. Seventies quorums were emptied. Brigham said to Joseph at Logan, “Your quorums are depleted, but no matter, when the Lord has new positions, take them and you will be destined to enjoy all the blessings. It will make no difference whether we are deacons or elders if we are doing our duty.”53

Third, the depleted ranks were not soon filled. Ending the seventies’ practice of freely recruiting new members, Brigham Young ordered that no more seventies would be ordained without First Presidency permission, a position taken specifically to reduce the number of new seventies. Even men called on missions that October were not ordained as seventies as had been customary.54

Fourth, seventies were told not to meet as quorums unless they had specific missionary business to conduct; otherwise they should meet with elders or high priests.

Fifth, seventies vigorously responded in 1876 to the call to provide men and to pay them to work on the temples, feeling that assignment gave their quorums needed meaning in Zion; but 1877 instructions took away the fund-raising task and gave it to the bishops. Slight solace came from the fact that, despite losing men and purpose, seventies in a few cases were called upon by stake presidents to serve as home missionaries.

Stakes and Stake Presidents

In early Utah, Salt Lake Stake played a vital role, much like its predecessors in Kirtland, Missouri, and Nauvoo. Salt Lake Stake, in 1877, contained one-fourth of the Church members and a heavy concentration of General Authorities. It served as the main stake, like a center stake of Zion. But as more and more stakes were born, the general role of stakes in ecclesiastical government needed to be clearly identified. The most important product of 1877 was making stakes meaningful governing units between the wards and the General Authorities. This was done by creating new stakes, calling new officers in almost every stake, and giving them more responsibility. Statistically, 1877 did this:

Presidents were made responsible for every person and every program, except seventies’ work, within their stake boundaries. Diarist Jens Weibye noted new duties given stake presidents in 1877 that impressed him: “to preside wherever they go in Sanpete Stake, also in High counsils, Relief society, Quorum Meeting, Sabbath School, etc. One of the Presidency of the Stake should be present, in every High Council Meeting, when there is any Busines.”55 Ended in 1877 was a practice, at times common, to have a high council president who was not the stake president. Stake presidents participating in the second phase of the reorganizings benefited from having to preach, instruct, meet members, and seek spiritual guidance. One counselor, after visiting many wards, “was satisfied that the Lord approved of it, for, while engaged in that labor, he realized the power and Spirit of God to a remarkable degree.”56 Such experiences now could happen to these men regularly because of their new assignments to develop quarterly conferences, to conduct monthly priesthood meetings, to visit and speak regularly in the wards, and to keep all their wards properly organized and staffed.

Most stakes created new high councils, bringing more than a hundred new men into those positions. Stakes also established many new Melchizedek Priesthood quorums. They sent home missionaries to wards to speak in and hopefully improve sacrament meetings. They eliminated the office of local presiding bishops; new bishops agents served instead. The 1877 movement also introduced the Church’s “first uniform system for keeping records,” involving among other things a ward “Long Book” for members’ records and a new “Stake Quarterly Report” book. These were “the first formal instruments used by the Church to measure enrollment and ordinance data,” and they continued in use until 1900. The 1877 program called for reliable monthly and quarterly reports and statistics from the wards; it also started quorum records books and other historical records. Researchers using the Church History Library today know that for many Church units, regular records date from 1877, even for many units organized well before then.57

Salt Lake Stake’s reorganizing included building the Assembly Hall for stake priesthood meetings. Other stakes, evidently, undertook similar building projects too. During the next seven years, tabernacles were begun in each city that in 1877 hosted a stake reorganizing conference in a bowery (Morgan, Coalville, Manti, Richfield, and Paris—Brigham City began its tabernacle probably before the reorganizings) and in Cedar City, Provo, Moroni, Panguitch, Wellsville, and Smithfield.58

Table 3 
New Units and Leaders

Sources: Ward and Stake Historical Records, Manuscript Histories, and Minute Books; Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia and Encyclopedic History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; and various biographical sketches.

High Priests

Seventies reaped by the 1877 movement were bundled into the high priests quorum, vastly expanding the high priests population. But, like the seventies, high priests had to swallow a humility pill. If 1877 was their report card, they failed. Their units, theoretically schools for preparing future leaders, produced very few of the leaders called in 1877, a fact that bothered Elder Taylor, who noted

how little prepared the High Priests were to take upon themselves the duties of their office, in presiding over Stakes, Wards, etc. We have had to take hundreds from the Quorums of Seventies and Elders. . . . If the High Priests had understood and performed their duties, we should not have been in the position we were and compelled to go outside these quorums to find men suitable for presiding.59

High priests were reminded that theirs was a stake quorum, so no ward-level meeting should be held. They would continue to have their own president, someone other than the stake president. They could not freely recruit new members as they had in the past.

Elders

Before 1877, elders units had lacked organization and purpose. But that year, they at least multiplied dramatically and were properly organized and officered. No new duties were identified other than holding regular meetings and answering all calls made by their ward bishop.

Bishops and Wards

Similar to a train exiting a tunnel with more cars than it had entered with, Church leaders in 1877 added three new wards for each two it already had and added four new bishops for each one that continued in office:

Although incomplete, records show that well over half of the 482 counselors were newly ordained or set apart. Those new leaders had to learn to function with their ward members, and the members with them. New wards were either former branches or parts split off from existing wards. Branches that became wards had the advantage in most cases of their branch president becoming their bishop and of keeping their same meeting place and meeting schedule, with the addition of quorum and perhaps auxiliary meetings. Wards taken from other wards had a harder adjustment: new leaders, new meeting location, and new organizations to staff. Often they also had to construct new meetinghouses.

Bishops, old or new, assumed additional duties. They were expected to strictly account for their ward members, keep Aaronic units in their ward or their section of the stake staffed, attend weekly Aaronic Priesthood meetings, attend monthly priesthood meetings, operate an effective ward teaching program, conduct the sacrament in Sunday School, turn in monthly and quarterly reports, keep accurate trial records, take over from the priesthood quorums the task of supporting temple laborers, and hold proper Sabbath meetings. Virtually all new bishoprics were properly ordained as high priests and set apart to their callings, thus qualifying as proper Church tribunals.

Priests, Teachers, and Deacons

The 1877 changes revolutionized Aaronic Priesthood work by stipulating that all young men receive some priesthood office instead of just a few youth having that privilege. Youth were the solution to the long-standing dilemma of how to keep lesser priesthood quorums staffed when capable men were recruited to the higher quorums. The new policy was for experienced teachers to take youths with them while ward teaching. The second phase created scores of new Aaronic Priesthood units, most filled with teenaged boys, some of whom became deacons at age eleven. Weber Stake ordained “all the boys above fourteen years not already ordained.” Reactions to this new youth priesthood were strongly favorable. An October report from Ogden noted the “great good that had already resulted from organizing the Lesser Priesthood, the young men responding to the call they received in such a manner as enkindled new life and spirit in the hearts of their parents and older members of the Church generally.” A Cache bishop said “a source of strength had been opened up through the organization of the Aaronic Priesthood, the young men acquitting themselves creditably.” The Salt Lake Stake presidency “felt especially blessed in ordaining the young to positions in the Priesthood.”60

The duties of priests and teachers to ward teach, and deacons to care for meetinghouses, were not new. But with more and better-supervised quorums, the work was accomplished more effectively. And it was done by youths, giving them some priesthood training before adulthood so that, presumably, they would make better Melchizedek Priesthood bearers.

Members

The movement did cause a reformation among many Saints. Published epistles and sermons, better stake and ward organizations, closer apostolic supervision, more visiting by acting and ordained Aaronic Priesthood bearers, and clearer instructions and expectations helped members toe the line a little better. Probably more than a thousand members received new ward and stake positions through which to grow and serve. Wards lacking Sunday Schools, Mutuals, and Relief Societies organized them to aid and bless their members. Many men had priesthood meetings to attend now that they did not have before. Members not previously part of any ward or branch were now enrolled and at least noticed by some authorities. Sunday School children started to receive the sacrament weekly. Despite strong talk of “lopping off the dead branches,” records show no notable increase in Church trials or excommunications. The reorganization movement “has had the influence of Waking Some up that were way off the line of their duty,” noted a bishop’s counselor in a tiny ward, who then added: “Nearly all the Branch has been rebaptized.” Rebaptisms gave members opportunities to repent and reorder their living patterns.61

The 1877 reordering was the single most important priesthood analysis and redirecting since the priesthood restorations of forty-eight years earlier. Church history records but few major retoolings of priesthood operations. Those identified include the calling of the first ward bishops in Nauvoo in 1839, the multiplying of seventies units in 1844, the structuring of wards and quorum work in Salt Lake City in 1849, the systematizing of quorum work in 1908, the correlation effort of 1928, and modern correlation programs commenced in 1961. Only the last one compares with the comprehensiveness and magnitude of the 1877 changes.62

The reorganization of 1877 was a final testament by Brigham Young, who sought all his life to follow accurately Joseph Smith’s teachings as to how priesthood ought to function in the Church. “The Church is more perfectly organized than ever before, perhaps with the exception of the general assembly at Kirtland, but in some things now we are more stable and complete than we were even then,” observed John Taylor that September. The semi-gothic Assembly Hall, built 1877–80, still stands on Temple Square as an impressive granite-and-wood memorial of President Young’s 1877 priesthood reorganization, his last major achievement as a prophet on earth.63

This article was originally published in BYU Studies 20, no. 1 (1979): 3–36, and received a Mormon History Association “Best Article” Award.