1 Brigham Young’s “Social World”: Sacred Cosmos in a Secular Age

Brigham Young has long been recognized and praised as a skilled and successful practical leader, a man understandable in secular terms. The fact that he was so intimately involved and so successful in activities regarded as essentially temporal and secular (business, migration, colonization, politics) has reinforced the tendency to think of him primarily in those terms. The Frenchman Jules Remy, an astute observer and one of the earliest travelers to leave a detailed firsthand assessment of Young in Utah, wrote of him as “eminently what the Americans call practical . . . as much at home in attending to the management of his own private fortune as to his people’s prosperity.” Few men, he concluded, possessed

in so high a degree as he does, the qualities which constitute the eminent politician and the able administrator. All who have had an opportunity of seeing him at his work, friends, or enemies, are unanimous on this point.¹

As if to prove the validity of this assessment, other contemporaries as well as later historians stressed the Mormon leader’s successful secular leadership and great practical genius. Ray A. Billington, for example, wrote that Young “displayed the organizing genius that endowed the Mormon migrations with an order and comfort unrivaled in the history of the overland trails.” ^[1] Samuel Eliot Morison concluded that his colonizing efforts placed him “among the most successful commonwealth builders of the English speaking world.” Comparing him to other great American colonizers, Herbert Bolton felt that none “so completely molded his people and their institutions as Brigham Young molded the Mormons.” Allan Nevins called him “the most commanding single figure of the West.”² Evaluations of Young have nearly always been in this same vein: generalizations about his practical abilities as if they alone explained his success. This pervasive emphasis, however, has obscured more important and basic aspects of his personality and leadership—especially the religious dimension.³

Concentrating on primarily practical skills and successful secular leadership cannot fully explain a man for whom practical decisions were grounded in religious principle, a man of wealth who claimed not to be greatly attached to material things, a man with an integrated world view where the practical was a necessary schoolmaster for the eternal and where everyday experience had eternal significance. Neither can such an emphasis explain his ability to inspire the loyalty and spark the labors of tens of thousands. Many people came to Utah thinking of Young as a shrewd and cunning practical genius, perhaps feeling that part of his power must have flowed from relentless and unscrupulous pursuit of goals. They came away, if they had the chance to observe him closely, knowing there was more to the puzzle than that. Jules Remy was one of those. Contrary to his expectations, Remy came away from several interviews with Young thoroughly convinced that, in addition to his great secular talents, Young was a genuinely ^[2] religious man and that his religious conviction was profoundly related to his success as a leader.

Remy first sensed the religious integrity of Brigham Young after listening to his remarkable private explanations of the religious blindness of the French people, along with his prediction that they would nonetheless eventually recognize the truth to be found in Mormonism, a doctrine, insisted Young, that would one day revolutionize the world. These ideas, “uttered without affectation, and with an air of conviction so profound,” forced Remy and his companion to admit Young’s good faith, “contrary to the idea we had entertained.” Subsequent observations only corroborated Remy’s view that Young was not “the accomplice of the great juggler Joseph,” but that he had himself been deceived by that “archimposter.” Remy was certain that had he visited with Smith, the contrived and studied sincerity of the false prophet would have been cause for laughter. With Young it was completely different. “We found his demeanour grave and impressive,” Remy wrote of another visit, “and, far from being tempted to laugh at it, what alone it caused us to feel, was deeper regret at seeing this remarkable man plunged into such error.” As they departed, he gave them a religious benediction infused with “so much pious warmth and kindness, that we withdrew perfectly convinced of the sincerity of his faith.”⁴

Remy clearly made the connection between Brigham Young’s faith and his leadership. As part of his qualifications for leadership Remy noted not only his practical ability but also his “unquestioned integrity.” At the pulpit, said Remy, he spoke “from ^[3] the heart and the fullness of it.” Young’s sincerity and deep religious convictions, he concluded, added to his power as a leader:

Convinced of the truth of the religion he has embraced . . . he had set before him, as the object of his existence, the extension and the triumph of his doctrine; and this end he pursues with a tenacity that nothing can shake, and with that stubborn persistence and ardent ambition which makes great priests and great statemen.⁵

Although largely glossed over in later assessments, Young’s religious integrity was perceived by other contemporaries as well. Mormon apostate John Hyde left one of the most remarkable appraisals, acknowledging even in his denunciation of Mormonism that Young’s profound religious sincerity was an integral part of his influence. Hyde thought Joseph Smith was surely an impostor, but observed that Young, never detecting the fraud, both “reverenced him as a prophet, and loved him as a man.”

The whole secret of Brigham’s influence lies in his real sincerity. Brigham may be a great man, greatly deceived, but he is not a hypocrite. . . . Brigham Young embraced Mormonism in sincerity, conscientiously believed, faithfully practised, and enthusiastically taught it. . . . For the sake of his religion, he has over and over again left his family, confronted the world, endured hunger, come back poor, made wealth and given it to the Church. He holds himself prepared to lead his people in sacrifice and want, as in plenty and ease. No holiday friend nor summer prophet, he has shared in their trials as well as their prosperity. . . . No man prays more fervently nor more frequently than Brigham Young. No man can more win the hearts nor impress the minds of his hearers than Brigham while in prayer. Few men can persist in believing him a hypocrite. . . . I am convinced that if he be an imposter, he has commenced by imposing on himself.⁶

Both the French traveler and the English apostate agreed: Brigham Young’s beliefs were not merely facade and he could not be understood apart from his religion. In fact, as Remy perceived, it was his unshakable conviction that he had the truth and that God was with him that gave him such formidable strength as a man and as ^[4] a leader. He had the faith that, in the words of Eric Hoffer in his popular classic The True Believer, “organizes and equips man’s soul for action,” the faith that imparts a sense of power and confidence and emboldens man to try the unprecedented and the impossible.⁷

Young himself recognized that to a large extent he possessed his leadership qualities because of his religious principles and convictions that transcended temporal bounds. In 1858 Alfred Cumming peacefully replaced Brigham Young as governor of the Territory of Utah after a confrontation between Mormon militia and an unwelcome federal army that had come as an “escort” for the new appointee. In the spring of 1859 Young and Cumming discussed at some length the dangers still facing the Mormon community, especially the growing threat of military intervention directed by anti-Mormon territorial judges. Uncertain that he had the power to restrain the army, Governor Cumming felt the Mormons should exercise great caution to avoid disaster. While Young insisted that the governor had the authority to prevent abuses and should wield it vigorously, he affirmed that he did not fear and would not cower. “My religion is true and I am determined to obey its precepts while I live,” he told the governor:

with all due respect to your Excellency I do not wish any [advice]. I do not calculate to take the advice of any man that lives in relation to my affairs. I shall follow the counsel of my heavenly Father, and I have faith to follow it, and risk the consequences. . . . You may think strange of it, but you will yet see that I am right.⁸

As noted earlier, those who have discussed Young have generally done so in secular terms. They have written of settlements ^[5] and colonies and migrations; of treks and teams and labor and building; of business and economics and finance. It is partly because of the limitations of this secular perspective—a perspective that either ignores or fails to come to terms with Young’s own view of the world and the religious dimension of his leadership—that many significant questions about Young’s leadership remain unanswered more than a century after his death. The secular perspective that has proved useful in assessing some Mormon accomplishments under Young has been less helpful for explaining his actions or uncovering the foundation for his policies. It lacks the interpretive power of assessing Young in his own terms.

Was he a good man or evil, an unfeeling despot oppressing his people or a fatherly leader watching out for their good? What were his purposes in frequently chastising and cajoling the Saints? One must examine his actions in light of his motivations to begin to answer such questions. Were his people duped or mesmerized by his powers of personality, or were they following a leader whose heart they knew and whose goals they shared? Understanding the Mormon social world and its religious underpinnings provides a perspective that suggests answers. Was Young simply a master pragmatist, able to react effectively in each new set of circumstance, or was he acting, gradually implementing long-range plans according to fixed goals and principles? These kinds of questions cannot be answered without taking into account the genuine religious dimension that profoundly influenced Young and how his people responded to him.

There have been revisionist studies of Mormon leaders that take seriously the religious dimension. Jan Shipps, the author of ^[6] one of them, noted that as a Methodist scholar of religious studies she could perhaps understand the mainspring of Mormonism better than the Catholic sociologist of religion Thomas O’Dea because she was willing to see in Joseph Smith the possibility of genuine religious motivation and experience. O’Dea, in other words, may have missed the essence of Mormon experience because he could not take Mormonism seriously as a religion in the same way she could. One need not accept another world view in order to take it seriously, of course, but, as the scholar of religions Mircea Eliade has noted, there is little understanding of another’s mental universe without in some measure taking it seriously.⁹

Because Brigham Young has been known widely as a secular or practical leader more than a religious one, the need for such an approach to his life may still be less evident. It is important to observe, however, that, in contrast to the popular stereotypes, his perspective was a religious one and he usually talked about himself in religious terms. He spoke of faith and priesthood duty, prayer and revelation, salvation and eternity. He talked of establishing Zion, building the kingdom of God, making Saints. He thought in terms of fighting the devil and powers of evil and enjoying the blessings of heaven. Young and his colleagues saw the events of everyday life through the filter of a religiously based world view. For them the distinction between the temporal and the spiritual, the religious and the secular vanished as they set about implementing their religious vision in the real world.

One biographer of Brigham Young concluded that “without Brigham Young the Mormons would never have been important . . . but ^[7] without the Mormons Brigham Young might have been a great man.” Such an assessment, ignoring entirely the religious dimension, explains nothing; Young would have found it ludicrous. Had he ever tried the comparison he surely would have reversed it: without him Mormonism he still would have prospered, but without Mormonism he would have been unimportant. Mormonism, he once said, “has done everything for me that ever has been done for me on earth.”¹⁰

Brigham Young saw his abilities as a gift from God and his leadership successful because God was with him and his people. He saw himself as a rough and unpolished instrument with the grit to do his best and the faith to leave to God the rest. He breathed defiance in the face of a federal army not because he trusted in the arm of flesh but because he was fully confident that God overruled. In the short run he expected setbacks; temporary failure left him unshaken. Devils, after all, will rage and man fall short of his potential. Even when he and his people failed in specific practical endeavors (iron production or sugar manufacturing, for example), Young remained serenely confident. God still reigned in His heaven and, if the Saints had sacrificed in unity, if they had improved in righteousness or grown closer to their God, failure, Young thought, might prove a better school than success. He was certain that in the long run the kingdom would triumph and, as he liked to say, no power on earth or hell could prevent it.

Consistently throughout his life Brigham Young believed these things to be so, and he acted accordingly. An analysis that includes consideration of these aspects of his life has the potential to better explain Young and his associates than an ^[8] interpretation based on temporal and secular considerations alone. By examining in detail the early formative period during which this religiously based world view became an integral part of Young’s life, this study seeks to portray the all-encompassing religious framework from which he acted and use it to shed light on the complex issues confronting early Mormons and on the emergence of Brigham Young as a Mormon leader.

There is a special difficulty in comprehending the Weltanschauung or mental universe of Brigham Young. The predominant perspective of modern man is secular or naturalistic, the opposite of the sacral perspective of Young and associates. It is difficult, as the German scholar Ernst Benz has commented, for secular man to understand or appreciate the sacral view. In his “Mormonism and the Secularization of Religions in the Modern World,” Benz noted the agreement among sociologists that religion in all its historical forms more and more has disappeared from the consciousness of modern man until modern life and secularized life are in many respects the same. Benz sees secularization in its broadest sense as the desacralization of life—not only a diminishing influence of religious institutions on public life, but also a diminishing influence of religion on modern man’s self-understanding and behavior.¹¹

If there is something sacred about daily existence, modern man seldom notes it. Instead, he explains most phenomenon in human, ordinary, immediate, and practical terms without reference to Providence. He sees things in relationship to other things in the world rather than in reference to God or the divine. He talks ^[9] more of the real, the possible, the understandable than of the heavenly, the ideal, the cosmic. In most cases daily activities intrude more on religion than religion interprets and influences daily life.

By contrast, an equally comprehensive and pervasive sacral perspective has dominated many societies even in relatively recent times. This perspective has to do with the holy, the sacred, the cosmic, the divine—a perspective Mircea Eliade has termed the “sacred cosmos” perspective of homo religiosus.¹² It is a world view organized around unchanging goals and realities. It posits the transcendent nature of human life and the divine origin of the world. For those with this perspective all areas of life are infused with religious meaning; the temporal is inextricably related to the eternal in such a way that the latter gives sacred meaning to the former.¹³ Brigham Young and his colleagues were profoundly influenced by this kind of Weltanschauung.

The introduction to Paul Gager’s important study of the social world of early Christians presents one model for viewing religiously based societies. Beginning with Peter Berger’s definition of religion as “the human enterprise by which a sacred cosmos is established,” he argued that every human society builds a social world and that “sacred cosmos” is but a particular type of social world.

All new religions . . . are directed toward the creation of new worlds: old symbols are given new meaning and new symbols come to life; new communities define themselves in opposition to previous traditions; a new order of the sacred is brought into being and perceived by the community as the source of all power and meaning; new rituals emerge to remind the community of this sacred order . . . : mechanisms are established for ^[10] preserving this new world and for adapting it to changing circumstances; and eventually an integrated world view may emerge, including systems of theology, sacred scriptures, and ecclesiastical offices whose task is to give meaning not just to the community itself but to all other worlds as well.¹⁴

Brigham Young’s social world was such a sacred cosmos, an integrated “new world” with theology, scriptures, officers and ritual interpreting and giving meaning to every aspect of existence.¹⁵

Young’s sacred cosmos was also a social world. Although Young and his colleagues saw as revealed and eternal the concepts that served as a foundation for their Weltanschauung, there can be no doubt that the concepts obtained concreteness and specific significance through events, and through actions and relationships in the social sphere. In turn, the concepts influenced events and relationships. The social world was, in effect, “created” even as they lived in it and devoted their energies to extend it. It is because the sacral perspective both influenced and interpreted experiences that it provides a fruitful perspective for viewing the period.

Not all early Mormons shared the same social world or perspective, however. Some viewed the concepts differently than did Young, and some rebelled against specific applications of the concepts. To some extent early Mormonism resulted in the development of two social worlds, each with widely differing assumptions about man’s responsibilities, God’s role in history, and the scope of prophetic authority. One scholar has termed the differing perspectives “literalist” and “metaphorist,” the one breaking with traditional American protestantism by seeing a literal kingdom of God on earth and a literal merging of the temporal and the ^[11] spiritual, while the other, more in the mainstream of American religious thought, defined more narrowly the role of religion in daily life.¹⁶ Although the present study emphasizes the emergence in Young and his fellow apostles of that sacred cosmos that came to predominate in nineteenth-century Utah Mormonism, it also traces the tension between the two perspectives in the 1830s and demonstrates the impact that tension had on the Church and on the development of Young’s views.

A partial explanation for the emergence among nineteenth-century Mormons of a pronounced sacral perspective can be found in the identity they felt with the ancient Hebrews. To some degree that identity was related to the Mormon temple. But even before the first Mormon temple was constructed, the Mormons had a tie conceptually—and they believed literally—with ancient Israel.

Jan Shipps has argued that conceptually Mormonism had roots going back at least to Abraham and to the covenant people and symbols of the Old Testament Hebrews. After examining the relationships in outlook between nineteenth-century Mormons and ancient Hebrews, Melodie Moench Charles likewise concluded that “in their actions and beliefs, the early Mormons demonstrated a strong resemblance to those Israelites whose spiritual descendants they were,” and found it surprising given the completely different historical, social, and geographical situations that they shared so many concerns. Among other things, they shared a view that

God acted in history, concerning himself with the temporal prosperity and preservation of a special people. This people had a mission of service for their God which had worldwide implications. Each group saw itself as the Chosen People, a family with God at its head. He would assist them in doing ^[12] his work if they obeyed the ritual and ethical demands of his law.¹⁷

Edwin Gaustad has noted that these connections with ancient history have relevance for the Mormon psyche that go beyond more surface resemblances. They imply, he concluded, that “the heritage of all human history is a legitimate and relevant part of the Mormon heritage,” and that properly apprehended, the Mormon past “is an ancient and inclusive past.”¹⁸ For Mormons their Hebrew connection provided an antidote to centuries of desacralization.

In some respects, then, the Mormon sacred cosmos can be viewed as they viewed it—a “restoration” of an ancient way of looking at the world. Few were more deeply influenced by this ancient connection than Brigham Young. For example, he stressed to followers in the 1840s that “Christ & Baal never can be amalgamated.” Rather than try, he urged they follow his example. When he walked into taverns, traveled with profane men of the world, or dealt in business with the ungodly, “I go wrapt up in the mantle of truth—& wont mingle with any Str[anger] that is not of the L[or]d.”¹⁹ Not only did he consciously apply to the Mormon exodus the symbols of ancient Israel, his way of looking at the world, his approach to leadership, and his interpretation of events were all influenced by his Hebraic understanding of God’s hand in history.

For Ernst Benz three aspects of Mormon thought best explain the persistence of a Mormon sacral perspective in a secular world.²⁰ First there is the concept of an Everlasting Gospel. In Benz’s analysis this meant that for Mormons “the basic promise, the primitive power, the original spirit and force of the gospel of ^[13] Jesus Christ is not exposed to decay, to corruption or to depravation in any sense of the word,” that continuity, permanence and universality—including a universal world-wide mission as a permanent responsibility—is an integral part of the Mormon Weltanschauung. Second, he found beneficial Mormonism’s insistence on the permanent presence of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Expecting to experience and use these gifts in their lives and understanding their history as one “guided by the presence of the Holy Spirit in the form of prophecy, of advice, of confirmation, of warning, and—let us use an otherwise unfashionable word—of miracles” helps Mormons, thought Benz, approach the secular world with confidence.²¹

Finally, wrote Benz, the Mormon concept that pre-existing spirits [in the premortal existence]—literally children of God, a Mormon would add—enter human bodies in order to prove themselves in earth life and be prepared and worthy for further advancement in the grand scale of eternal beings gives earth life and things “secular” a different legitimacy. It means that the hardships of temporal life, including death, were accepted beforehand by free choice. For Benz this concept prevents Mormons from losing a sense of the transcendent origin and aim of man: “Denying his heavenly origin, man would deny himself, would deny the sense of his life, the meaning of the community of man in which he lives, the sense of the universe in which he dwells.” Benz concluded that all of these things work together to give secular life meaning and to keep Mormons involved in trying to work out God’s will in society and the world.^{22 [14]}

To Benz’s analysis might be added several other concepts that functioned similarly, especially the belief that God requires man’s labor, not faith alone, and that it is the responsibility of man to work hand-in-hand with God to prepare this world for His coming kingdom. These concepts operated in the lives of Young and his associates. The sense of the active power of the original gospel; the experience of “spiritual gifts” and the expectation of miracles—God’s intervention in history; the sense of earthlife as a vital but transitory time; the sense of duty to work actively with God in history: these were integral parts of the sacred cosmos we discover in a detailed examination of Young’s first encounter with Mormonism, his relationship to the Mormon Prophet, and his first emergence as an effective Mormon leader. These things motivated him, influenced his thought and action, set him to labor on difficult enterprises and gave him the strength to go on in spite of imposing obstacles and setbacks. In Brigham Young we have a case study of how one man responded to his world because of these and other sacral concepts that comprised his social world.

Brigham Young, then, was a “sacral man” and a “sacral leader.” Based on a theology he found concrete and relevant to daily life, his sacred cosmos gave his life meaning and structure, influencing his perceptions and his actions. His goals and motivations were “religious” and his methods and actions can best be understood in light of the religious principles that nourished them. As he saw it, Mormonism provided the most rational explanation of his world and his experiences in the world reinforced or confirmed his faith. This writer believes that his was an ^[15] integrated, cohesive, pervasive mental universe and social world. He could easily shift from politics to business to preaching to priesthood ordinances because the shifts did not involve a realignment of goals or principles. His approach to life was integrated, not compartmentalized, and he was not a different man as a preacher or prophet than as a governor or businessman.

It was perhaps in molding the new society of frontier Utah as both governor and church president that the sacral nature of Young’s leadership is most inescapable. Eric Hoffer has noted that successful nation building may require the art of “religiofication” or the art of “turning practical purposes into holy causes.”²³ But for Young it involved no art, since the approach had been an integral part of his sacred cosmos since the 1830s. Mormonism, he taught his people, was a way of living and thinking, not a “Sunday religion” divorced from everyday life. For those who labored to do God’s will in the world, all time was the Lord’s and all labor that contributed to building the kingdom was sacred.

Young preached this essential unity of all earthly labors throughout his life. Just months before his death he stressed again,

I know nothing about seperating and divideing, & calling one a spiritual kingdom and the other a temporal kingdom; I know no diference between them. . . . this is all one kingdom, whether we are working in our gardens or vineyards or building houses, or getting words, or sowing or reaping, or building up cities and towns, it is the work of the Lord, and no man has any right to step out of his religion to do his work, if he does, he will go to the Devil.²⁴

Nearly twenty years earlier as part of his Christmas message to his extended family he explained another aspect of this world view. Even in social chat and recreational dance “the kingdom is uppermost ^[16] in my mind all the time,” said Young. Chopping wood, hauling with his team, “with me every engagement is the same as the ordinances of the house of God, my feelings are all the time the same with reference to the kingdom of God.” No matter his occupation, “my prayer is to have the mind of the Lord that I might know just what to do, and I consider myself in the line of my duty in one thing as in another.” The whole world is the Lord’s, he concluded, and he intended to act as a servant of God in every situation.²⁵

This is the reason Young could move comfortably and unapologetically from one phase of his leadership to another. A council meeting to choose a new apostle might end with the discussion of legislative matters, while a legislative session was not viewed as an inappropriate forum for a doctrinal address. A Sabbath meeting could accommodate a political caucus for, as Young made explicit, “it is all embraced in our religion.” Were he the President of the United States it could be no different, he insisted: “everything in my office would be subject to my religion.”²⁶ Summing up his years of service at the request of New York newspaperman James Gordon Bennett, Young telegraphed in 1873:

All my transactions and labors have been carried on in accordance with my calling as a servant of God. I know no difference between spiritual and temporal labors. God has seen fit to bless me with means and as a faithful steward I use it to benefit my fellow men, to promote their happiness in this world and in preparing them for the greater hereafter. My whole life is devoted to this service.²⁷

In part this study explores the roots of those views—the creation of Young’s sacred cosmos and the beginnings of the Mormon social world he came to direct. Penetrating a “foreign mental ^[18] universe” is never easy, less so a “sacred cosmos” in this age of secularization. The recent availability of additional historical materials, particularly the arrangement of Young’s papers along with “new” holograph letters from his early years that had been in private hands, makes the task easier and the results more complete than would have been true before. Because we are interested in perceptions, feelings, and beliefs, this study includes perhaps more quotations from the primary materials upon which it is grounded than would otherwise be the case. There is no other way to understand a foreign mental universe, argued Mircea Eliade, “than to place oneself inside it, at its very center, in order to progress from there to all the values that it possesses.”²⁸ Perhaps relevant quotations from primary sources best demonstrate the religious constructs that infused their thinking. Where paraphrasing would be less precise or significantly alter the tone of expression, the actors are allowed to speak for themselves. The study also includes more extensive quotations and more detailed treatment of some experiences where it seems necessary to not only understand the event but demonstrate its impact on participants.

While the perspective and part of the approach of this study has to do with the sacred cosmos of Young and his colleagues, we are interested in that social world not as an end in itself but as one of the tools to better understand Young and his time. Examining in detail those historical experiences that proved formative—those that they felt were significant, instructive, confirming or which had a great impact on their thinking—helps us understand their sacred cosmos. But equally important is the reverse: ^[18] understanding the social world of the participants helps us understand better the events themselves. In part, then, this study uses an understanding of the social world to help interpret this period of Mormon history. Re-examining Young and his time from the perspective of this shared social world provides an approach to this period that sheds light on some of the otherwise obscure yet important events of the Mormon past. To paraphrase John Gager,²⁹ the final test of this approach (which takes seriously the sacral perspective and probes the social world) will be whether or not it permits understanding Young and this period of the development of Mormonism in ways that have hitherto been impossible.

Many studies in Mormon history rely in part on Journal of Discourses reminiscences by Brigham Young and others, generally responsibly so, and perhaps the practice needs no justification. However, because reminiscences form an integral part of this study, especially for the earlier chapters, reliance upon them does need explanation.

Brigham Young’s reminiscences are important both as biographical sources and also because they illuminate some of the obscure events of the Mormon past. Young was a verbal man, an incessant preacher and teacher who generally spoke his mind in a frank and straightforward manner. In addition to revealing his mind, hundreds of sermons (over four hundred printed in the Journal of Discourses alone) preserve literally thousands of reminiscences about earlier years. These shed important light on the 1830s, a period not as well documented as later Mormon history and a period where significant questions remain partly because of the paucity of ^[19] sources. To flesh out the story, this study weaves together reminiscences (Young’s and others) with, wherever possible, contemporary documentation. Some reminiscences describe important incidents for which we knew the setting but not the details of experience; others clarify, explain or interpret events. Contemporary sources anchor, provide circumstantial context of, and test the reminiscences.

The question of reliability is very important, of course. Many of Young’s reminiscences have an internal consistency that increases confidence in their use. Although he discussed not just once but repeatedly themes and incidents he found important, retellings separated by years or even decades demonstrate remarkable consistency. This unity and consistency over time suggest that he gave an honest and generally reliable review of his actions and experiences as he remembered them.

But how accurately did he remember? In addition to the internal test—one reminiscence of a particular event against another—many of Young’s reminiscences are corroborated by other reminiscences and by circumstantial and occasionally explicit contemporary evidence. Reminiscences of Young’s brothers and of his fellow apostles lend credence to and complement Young’s own. In a few cases, particularly in the second chapter where contemporary documentation is more rare, reminiscent accounts by non-Mormons corroborate Young’s memory of the past. Even more important, some contemporary evidence firmly and explicitly supports the reminiscences while none denies their validity. Some of the reminiscences can be tied back to concrete historical setting and ^[20] tested against established facts. These accounts dovetail tightly with contemporary evidence and help explain an event or its impact while the rest at least provide information or an interpretation of events that is not inconsistent with other documentation. Enough can be corroborated or “tested” to give a general confidence in those for which we have no other evidence. Where contemporary or other reminiscent accounts present an alternate view of events, that is acknowledged and, where important, included.

This is not to say that there are no problems or distortions. As with any later retellings, we can expect some emphases in memory more prominent than in the event as experienced, and some things glossed over or forgotten. Memory itself is selective. And what one tells of the remembered—and how it is told, and why—all influence reminiscences. With Young, because the reason for a retelling is often evident, we can in some measure anticipate the kinds of distortions that might have resulted.

Many of Young’s reminiscences, both public and private, were told to instruct his people. Most of these in some way illustrate his view of God’s hand in the Mormon past. Clearly such retellings tend to emphasize the sacral point of view we have discussed. He had somewhat the same emphasis even in reviewing his past for his own edification. As a prelude to rehearsing some of his earliest experiences in Mormonism, he once acknowledged that such review gave him pleasure “for I can see where God has favored and blessed me.”³⁰ This is not to say that there is intentional manipulation of the facts of history for didactic purposes: he did see God’s hand in his life and in the history of the Church, and not just ^[21] retrospectively; contemporary documents demonstrate that this emphasis was not merely a later overlay to memory. One should be aware, however, that both didactic purpose and his own desire to see God’s hand in his life would tend to emphasize a sacral interpretation—no doubt with some distortion and some oversimplification when compared to all the complexity and variety of human experience. In spite of the sacral emphasis in interpretation, however, Young’s reminiscences seem to have a solid basis in historical experience and honestly portray events from his perspective.

Besides some probably unconscious distortions resulting from didactic purposes, Young’s reminiscences must sometimes be adjusted for a conscious shift in emphasis due to rhetorical hyperbole. Young was skilled in using colorful language, humor, wit, and exaggeration to drive home a point. There are unquestionably conscious overstatements in Young’s sermons. These occurred less frequently when he was rehearsing events of early church history than when he reviewed more recent events for listeners who experienced and were familiar with the history he retold, and who understood clearly his message. In either case the basic historical facts remain generally intact. One does not find Young playing loosely with history the way George A. Smith once did, for instance, in order to make a particular point about the Mormon migration to the Great Basin.³¹ Young was not deceived by his own rhetoric and apparently did not let rhetorical purposes blur his view of historical reality. ^[22]

There are a few problems, including an occasional error or contradiction, that cannot be understood simply as a shift in emphasis to a particular audience or merely a matter of interpretation. For example, in October conference 1844 he told the Saints that by Joseph Smith’s appointment Hyrum Smith would have been his successor had he lived; in October conference 1866 he said that Joseph had never appointed Hyrum his successor. Such instances are rare, however, and some of them vanish on closer examination when we discover that they represent either minor discrepancies, perhaps due to point of view, or genuine ambivalence that can be traced back to the original experience. For instance, some have seen a contradiction in Young’s statements one time that the Saints migrated beyond the Rocky Mountains according to Joseph Smith’s plans and by divine direction, another time that they went because they were driven and had no choice. In fact both elements existed side by side in his thought from 1846, harmonized by the idea that the enemies of the Church unknowingly cooperated with heaven in carrying out God’s will: they were driven right where God wanted them to be.

Some of Young’s reminiscences used here—especially in the first two chapters—are autobiographical. A few of these, it should be noted, probably reveal as much about Young as he came to be as they do about the earlier Young they discuss. When dealing with thoughts, attitudes and emotions, fleeting things not easily documented or recovered at best, we can expect some shifts in emphasis over the years. Some of the emphases would certainly have been different had he recorded the events at the time; clearly his ^[23] intervening years and experiences with Mormonism in some measure influenced his memory of this period. For example, we might expect that the sacral interpretation which became an integral part of his life mainly after his conversion to Mormonism in 1832 influenced to some extent Young’s memory of the conversion process itself as well as certain other earlier events of his life that we examine in chapter two. But even where subtle distortions in memory may have occurred, the experience as remembered represents Young’s view of his world and his memories reinforced his sacred cosmos and influenced his actions. His closest associates, moreover, generally found similar meaning in these experiences and both remembered them and interpreted them much as he did.

The difficulties with Young’s reminiscences seem overshadowed by the consistency and apparent accuracy. While some reminiscences must be adjusted for hyperbole or other distortion, the problems are not severe. As discussions in this study illustrate, Young’s review of events adequately fits—and often helps explain or clarify—known historical settings.

Several historical themes provide unity and focus as we examine Brigham Young and his colleagues in the 1830s. This is, in part, a biographical study of Young during the first decade of his encounter with Mormonism and he, of course, provides a central focus. Rather than treating equally all aspects of his life, the study focuses primarily on those relevant to understanding his perspective and his leadership. It traces, as well, Young’s involvements in the events of this inadequately understood decade of the Mormon experience and the impact they had on him. As has ^[24] already been suggested, this provides a re-examination of key events that profoundly influenced Young and the course of Mormon development.

The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles provides another unifying thread. It was as a young apostle that Brigham Young experienced most of the decade and both individual apostles and the quorum as an institution influenced him greatly. This study provides an institutional history of the Twelve from its organization in 1835, with Young as an original member and the Twelve restricted in responsibility and sphere of influence, to the eventual rise of the Twelve to prominence under Young’s leadership. We shall see that it was Young as president of the Twelve who succeeded in unifying the Twelve and molding it into the effective leadership cadre that received increasing responsibility for general church affairs. It was through the Twelve, of course, that Young and his colleagues came to head the Mormon community. Perhaps this study can best be described as an investigation of Young and his fellow apostles in the 1830s as they gradually became an effective quorum and moved toward eventual ascendancy.

The Quorum of the Twelve in its first period under Thomas B. Marsh was a markedly different organization than the Twelve under Brigham Young. While some of the difficulties that plagued the Twelve under Marsh can be traced to his personality and style and to the fact there were no precedents for the new quorum to follow, they were also related to basic differences of world view. Joseph Smith intended to create on earth a new society after a heavenly pattern, a kingdom or community radically different from the ^[25] societies of this world. In chapter three we find Young converted to that vision of a literal Zion on earth, a community of the righteous with its own religiously based social mores, economy and government. Not all shared Young’s enthusiasm for a new order, however, and profound differences in perspective eventually divided the Ohio-Missouri Saints and almost destroyed the Twelve. Young and others who came to share the sacred cosmos perspective remained faithful to Smith. Those who could not accept the establishment of a religiously directed “kingdom” on earth fought those who did. Later chapters trace the resistance and then rebellion of those not committed to Smith’s social vision. If under Marsh the Twelve were deeply divided partly because of this divergence in world views, under Young the Twelve were unified partly because the remaining original apostles and new ones brought into the Quorum shared a deep commitment to the sacred cosmos perspective.

This study, then, also traces the early history of this sacral perspective that Joseph Smith taught, that Young and others accepted and that, under Young and the Twelve, became the basis for the Mormon commonwealth in the Great Basin. It was only after Young and the Twelve fully accepted the social world and all it implied—and their commitment to it had been tested—that Smith placed them in a position to serve as his primary assistants in beginning to implement this vision in Nauvoo in the 1840s. It was this social world that was behind some of the otherwise seemingly “strange” developments in Nauvoo that formed the backdrop for dissension and difficulty with Mormon neighbors and that eventually culminated in Smith’s death in 1844. Committed publicly and ^[26] privately to “carry out all Joseph’s plans,” Young and the Twelve then labored for more than a generation to make the Mormon kingdom a reflection of the social world they had internalized under Joseph Smith.

Joseph Smith, especially his relationship to Brigham Young and the Twelve, provides the final thread woven throughout this study. Not only was he a primary architect of the sacral perspective, it was through shared experiences in which Smith was a central participant that the perspective was internalized. The interactions, relationship and growing bond between Young and Smith during this important decade are carefully traced here.

Because of these several threads, and because of the nature both of the extant documentation and the historical experiences, emphasis shifts somewhat from chapter to chapter. Chapters two and three center on Brigham Young, portraying first the man as he was when he encountered Mormonism, then the man as he was when called to be one of the apostles. Chapter four deals with the corporate experience of the Twelve during its important first two years. Here Young was neither prominent nor especially influential and the Quorum probably had more impact on him than he did on it. While his experiences and developing views are presented as documentation permits, the focus is on events the Twelve shared, events that were vital to Young’s development as a Mormon leader. Chapters five, six, and seven deal with the divisive difficulties of Kirtland and Missouri. Young’s role was important, in a few cases even central, but documentation does not permit a full rehearsal of specifics. In broad outlines these chapters trace his role in events and the ^[27] impact of the events on him. They also attempt to unravel the complex, confusing, and misunderstood context for these events. The principles at issue in these chapters were central to the developing sacred cosmos. In the remaining three chapters Young again moves to center stage, this time as president of the Twelve. The imprisonment of Joseph Smith and the Presidency thrust Young for the first time into prominent leadership as he and fellow apostle Heber C. Kimball effectively direct the 1838–1839 winter exodus from Missouri in their absence. When Smith returned to the Saints, Young worked with him to begin molding the newly reorganized Twelve into an effective unit in preparation for their mission to England. The final chapter analyzes the impact of that mission, performed at great sacrifice as an act of faith, on Young and the Twelve. After that shared experience the Twelve returned home experienced and united, ready to assume an expanded role as Smith’s assistants in the major labors of the Church.

The realignment of presiding quorums that followed the return of the Twelve from England in the summer of 1841 placed the Twelve in a new relationship to the church Presidency and closed the first phase of their preparation for eventual ascendancy. During the 1830s the carpenter and joiner Brigham Young had moved from a reticent disciple to a bold and energetic leader, and the Twelve, which he now led, had developed from disharmony to unity, from obscurity to a position of prominence and power with Mormondom. The present study investigates and documents these developments.

This new relationship of the Twelve to Joseph Smith and the Presidency launched what became, in fact, the final phase of ^[28] the preparation of the Twelve as Joseph Smith’s successors. During the next thirty months the Twelve not only gained extensive administrative experience as they became responsible for much of the day-to-day business of the Church, but they also received intensive private tutoring by Smith in doctrine, ordinances and church government. These final months of preparation made possible the relatively smooth succession of continuity that followed Smith’s violent death a few months later.

It is with this final phase of preparation, along with understanding the early performance of the Twelve as Smith’s successors, 1844–1849, that all the threads of this study can be tightly bound together. Actions during the five years following Smith’s death best demonstrate the profound impact these earlier experiences and years of preparation had on the leadership of Brigham Young and the Twelve—including their immediate and unrelenting efforts to create a new Zion, a sacral community on earth.

It appears to this writer that the formative years under Smith set Young’s agenda for life, and that understanding the social world he lived in during the 1830s and early 1840s provides the key to understanding Young’s leadership thereafter. The goals he accepted and the concepts he internalized guided him and provided a consistency throughout his thirty-year administration in Utah. He devised particular approaches to meet new situations, but his world view, his goals and his emphasis on the principles for establishing a new society on earth remained largely unchanged. To an important extent, Young’s Utah years, essentially 1849–1877, may ^[29] have been a fulfilling, a working out of what he had learned and was prepared to do by 1844, an implementing of his religiously based social vision of the world. Demonstrating that proposition may require additional work, but it is a proposition deserving to be tested. ^[30]