In a letter to Mary Ann a year earlier, Brigham had expressed his hopes upon returning home. First, he wanted to live in Nauvoo—not in Montrose on the Iowa side of the Mississippi River or in a nearby community, but in Nauvoo, close to Joseph Smith. Though his calling did not necessarily require him to be at the headquarters, he wrote Mary Ann: “when I com hom I shall want to be with the Brethren [of] the first Presedency.” He did not expect long to have the leisure of relaxing, nor did he expect a lengthy period of peace. Nonetheless, he looked forward to the joy of a “se[a]son . . . with my famely ocaisonly.”1
Joseph Smith called to visit Brigham Young at his home a few days after his return to Nauvoo. While there, he delivered the word of the Lord to him:
Dear and well-beloved brother, Brigham Young, verily thus saith the Lord unto you, My servant Brigham, it is no more required at your hand to leave your family as in times past, for your offering is acceptable to me; I have seen your labor and toil in journeyings for my name. I therefore command you to send my work abroad, and take especial care of your family from this time, henceforth, and forever: Amen.2
Mary Ann and Brigham could take comfort in knowing that their labor had been recognized and their sacrifice was acceptable—and that they would now enjoy that season of peace together as a family.
If available documents accurately reflect activities at this time, Young’s interlude with his family may have lasted a little more than a month. Between his return in early July and [499] August when Joseph Smith requested Young and his colleagues to return to their labors, reference appears to only one important council meeting. Monday, 19 July, the five apostles then in Nauvoo assembled at Young’s home, joined for a time by Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon, to meet with former apostle Lyman E. Johnson. Without a record of the proceedings, we can only conjecture, but there is reason to believe that Johnson felt remorse about some of his actions and had come to seek resolution.3
The next several weeks Young apparently labored on home and farm as he had intended. These were not weeks of leisure, for there was much to be done, but the change of pace rested and renewed him. When Joseph Smith came in August with demanding new assignments, Young was ready. As Smith had multiplied his involvements in building up Nauvoo, the breadth of responsibility and weight of details had become increasingly burdensome. Especially if he were to have time for other aspects of his calling, such as translating and teaching, he had to have assistance.4 Given the long-time loyalty to Smith of most of those now in the Twelve and the recent record of the Quorum in England, it was natural that he should look to Brigham Young and the Twelve to provide that assistance.
With the aid of their English mission, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles had come of age at the very time that Joseph Smith had pressing need for their services. Under Young’s direction they had pulled together in England and achieved a success unprecedented in the short history of the Church. Besides the proselyting success, in England the Twelve had functioned, for the [500] first time, as an effective agency of ecclesiastical administration. Joseph Smith needed these skills and was ready to take advantage of their new maturity.
It seems probable, too, that the Nauvoo Saints had come to look upon the apostles with more respect since their English mission. No doubt the extensive news that circulated in Nauvoo of their labors and missionary success increased in the minds of the people their stature as leading elders in the Church. Many more people would have looked upon them in 1841 as effective and trustworthy men than would have thought so in previous years. Nor did it hurt their reputation among the Saints to be preceded by several hundred English converts loyal to them and singing their praises.
On 10 August, Joseph Smith, in council with the Twelve, charged the apostles to supervise “the business of the church in Nauvoo,” marking the first time that the Quorum of the Twelve had formal responsibility within a fully organized and functioning stake of Zion.5 In Missouri several of the apostles, including Brigham Young, had served temporarily as a local presidency when the former stake officials proved disloyal. During the exodus from Missouri, with the Presidency in prison and church organization in shambles, the Presidency formally directed the Twelve to supervise temporarily the Church. But the stake officials here were not disloyal, nor was there any exigency comparable to the Missouri disorder. This assignment marked an important departure from the earlier division of responsibility between standing high councils and the Twelve or Traveling High Council.6 [501] Now the apostles would have church-wide responsibilities that they would administer under Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, just as they had among the branches abroad. To explain this significant change to the Saints, Smith appointed a special conference for 16 August.
With the dawn arrival of Willard Richards by riverboat, six of the Twelve assembled with the Saints for the August conference.7 Because his youngest child had just died, Joseph Smith was not present to conduct the conference. Brigham Young called the meeting to order and was then voted to the chair. He stated that the Prophet had appointed the conference to transact business that should not wait until the October conference, specifically calling missionaries and providing for emigrants. Conscious that the direction of these matters had not been associated previously with his office, Young paused to explain that he and the Twelve had not stepped forward in this matter because of personal aspirations. “Nothing could be further from his wishes, and those of his Quorum,” he assured his listeners, “than to interfere with church affairs at Zion and her stakes.” So long had he been in the vineyard, he went on, that he was now attached to foreign missions and nothing could induce him to leave that field to attend to church affairs at home but duty, the requirement of heaven, or revelation “to which he would always submit, be the consequences what it might.” “Amen,” responded the brethren of his quorum who must have been seated near him.8 Young then read a list of prospective missionaries and another list of cities needing elders, and “by nomination” the conference began to designate who would go [502] where. At this point Bishop Vinson Knight suggested, and the conference agreed, that to expedite the meeting the Twelve should make the assignments and simply present them to the conference. That meant, in effect, that the Twelve would conduct the business “as a quorum” rather than by the conference, just as they had done in their last conference in England.
When Joseph Smith arrived for the second session of the conference, he expanded on Elder Young’s cautious remarks about the purpose of the conference. He explained directly
that the twelve should be authorized to assist in managing the affairs of the Kingdom in this place [Nauvoo, church headquarters]. which he said was the duties of their office & c. Motioned seconded and carried that the quorum of the twelve be authorized to act in accordance with the instructions given by president Joseph Smith in regulating and superintending the affairs of the Church.9
For publication, the brief manuscript minutes were fleshed out with additional explanations that seem consistent with Smith’s intent in taking this action. According to the published account, the Prophet said that the time had come
when the Twelve should be called upon to stand in their place next to the First Presidency, and attend to the settling of emigrants and the business of the church at the stakes, and assist to bear off the kingdom victorious to the nations.10
Authorized by Joseph Smith and the sustaining vote of the Saints in special conference, the Twelve now had the mandate to conduct church affairs in the stakes of Zion as elsewhere. A motion that the conference accept the missionary assignments made by the Twelve allowed Smith to further clarify the implications of this. According to published minutes, he told the conference that as they had already sanctioned the doings of the Twelve, [503] further vote was unnecessary, that transacting such business with the approval of the Presidency was, in fact, a part of their office. The manuscript version states without elaboration: “Resolved on Motion of President Joseph Smith . . . that the Twelve be authorised to make the selection of elders independent of the conference and present them to the first Pres here to President Joseph Smith for his approval.”11 The Twelve had authority to administer the affairs of the Church wherever and whenever Joseph Smith directed. Willard Richards adequately summed up in a brief diary entry their new position: “Conference—Business of the Church given to the 12.”12
For Brigham and Mary Ann Young, the impact was immediate. After attending to the needs of his family for only a month, Brigham again had demanding responsibilities that directed his energies to the affairs of the kingdom. “In accordance with the word of the Lord and the counsel of the Prophet Joseph,” he later wrote of this time, he remained that summer, fall, and winter in and around Nauvoo assisting Smith “in company with my brethren of the Twelve” in locating stakes of Zion, preaching, setting the churches in order, writing epistles to the Saints abroad, and settling new emigrants. Beginning in September he also served for a year on the Nauvoo City Council. What time he had left he devoted to finishing and improving his family’s small log cabin, draining the swampy land it stood on, fencing and cultivating a portion of his land, building a shed for his cow and a storage structure for his produce.13 According to his long-standing custom, when he was not in the field preaching, Young kept no regular diary. [504] Except for two lines in early January, the only entry he made in 1842 was on 18 January: “this evening I am with my wife a lone by my fire side for the first time for years we injoi it and feel to prase the Lord.”14
For the Twelve, the brief period of rest was over. Increasingly Joseph Smith would rely on them to manage the day-to-day affairs of the Church. From this time they began to serve as his assistants and, increasingly, as his private advisors. It is because of this realignment in the role and position of the Twelve—and the processes that accompanied it—that the Twelve were in place and prepared for a relatively smooth succession when Smith was killed in 1844.15 In all of these things Brigham Young stood at the head of his quorum. His appeal to the Saints at the death of Joseph Smith was less a personal one of “follow me” than a plea that the Church recognize the legitimate authority and rightful station of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles as the only ones empowered and designated to lead them. Without the developments set in motion with this basic shift of assignment in August 1841, his claims on behalf of the apostles would not have been credible.
Joseph Smith’s August 1841 action placed the Twelve for the first time next to him in practice as well as in theology. In this new role the apostles were able to build upon their successes of 1839– 1841, continuing to work together as a quorum as they expanded their functions and abilities. Step-by-step they became increasingly visible and influential as Smith’s defenders and his [505] administrative arm. Their prominence and increased sphere of influence gradually accustomed the Saints to view the apostles as their leaders.16
At the same time the Twelve undertook these visible assignments, they were also closely involved with Joseph Smith privately. He began to meet with them as a quorum and to invite them to meet with him in important councils. From this time forward some of the Prophet’s closest personal associates were of the Twelve, including Brigham Young and Smith’s personal assistant from late 1842 until his death, Willard Richards. From Liberty Jail, Joseph Smith had written that he had never had the opportunity to give to the Saints all the plan that God had revealed to him.17 From the perspective of Smith and the Twelve, private instructions in Nauvoo completed the presentation of those plans.
The apostles repeatedly affirmed later that their private tutoring included the bestowal of additional priesthood keys—the fullness of the priesthood they sometimes called it—completing their authority to preside. Part of this was associated with additional temple rites. Because the Nauvoo Temple was not yet complete, the Prophet taught these in other private settings.18 Although a number of men and women were in the circle that received these ordinances and accompanying doctrinal instruction from Joseph Smith, the Twelve, especially those nine apostles who had performed their foreign missions and who met for the first time as a quorum in England in April 1841, formed the core of the group. Under their direction the same ordinances were presented to others of the Church in the Nauvoo Temple following Smith’s death. [506]
In Nauvoo, as in Kirtland earlier, diverse perspectives about Joseph Smith and his vision of a theocratic kingdom led to division and tension. Smith’s continuing to unfold new teachings, both publicly and privately, and his emphasis on building Nauvoo temporally under tight ecclesiastical control, prompted tensions to resurface that had never been fully resolved since Kirtland. As before, Young and Kimball and many others accepted Smith’s expanding kingdom and saw it as not only appropriate but necessary. This time, after the Kirtland crucible winnowed out dissenters of a different perspective, the apostles as a quorum also supported the Prophet.19 In this context, the Twelve became Smith’s successors not only organizationally, but also as heirs to the Prophet’s sacral perspective and his vision of an all-encompassing theocracy. Most of the apostles already shared this perspective at the beginning of this period. Smith’s private tutoring, however, added to their understanding of the perspective and its implications in Smith’s thinking. The Twelve received and internalized Smith’s sacral teachings, ultimately preserving them as part of their vision of the kingdom.
A few months after Joseph Smith’s death, apostle Parley P. Pratt in a published proclamation to the Church described the Prophet’s vision of a theocratic kingdom and his preparation of the Twelve to build it on the foundation he had begun. Before his death, Pratt explained, Joseph had called the Twelve together “from time to time” in order to “instruct them in all things pertaining to the kingdom, ordinances and government of God.” Once he had committed to the Twelve “all things for the building [507] of the kingdom according to the heavenly vision, and the pattern shown [him] from heaven,” according to Pratt, Smith told the apostles that he had finished his work and the labor was theirs. His charge to them to do all things according to that pattern prompted Pratt to write:
The chaos of materials prepared by him must now be placed in order in the building. The laws revealed by him must now be administered in all their strictness and beauty. The measures commenced by him must now be carried into successful operation.20
These things Brigham Young alluded to in his address to the Saints 8 August 1844, before they voted to sustain the Twelve. Explaining to the congregation what he called “the order of the church and the Power of the Preasthood,”21 Young affirmed that the Prophet Joseph had given to the Twelve all the keys and powers that he held, and that now, for the first time, “can we begin to see the necessity of the apostleship.”
For the first time in my life, for the first time in your lives, for the first time in the kingdom of God do I step forth to act in my capacity in connexion with the quorum of the Twelve as Apostles of Jesus Christ unto the People and to bear of[f] the keys of the Kingdom of God in all the world.
The Prophet Joseph had left the plans and laid the foundation for a great work, Young assured the Saints that day, “and we will build upon it.”22 From that day forward the Twelve dedicated themselves to carry out all of Joseph Smith’s plans. Their migration to the West they saw as part of the plan, and what they did in the West was based on the sacral perspective and program for building a theocratic kingdom of God on earth that they had learned from Joseph Smith. The apostles would lead the Church as Joseph would have, [508] Young reported to his daughter following the vote of the Saints to sustain the apostles, “which is our indespenc[s]able duty to due.”23
By 1844 Brigham Young had played a part in molding the Twelve to this vision. For more than thirty years thereafter, he and the apostles labored together to translate the vision into reality among the Saints. [509]
1. Brigham Young to Mary Ann Young, 12 June 1840, Blair Collection, Marriott Library, University of Utah.
2. “History of Brigham Young,” Deseret News, 27 January–24 March 1858, p. 2; and Doctrine and Covenants, rev. ed. (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1923), Section 126 (9 July 1841).
3. “History of Brigham Young,” p. 2; and “History of George Albert Smith By Himself,” ms, George A. Smith Papers, Church Archives, Historical Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, hereafter cited asChurch Archives; and Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, 7 vols., 2nd ed. rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1951), 4:389. In company with former apostle John F. Boynton, Johnson had traveled to Nauvoo earlier while the Twelve were still in England. See the Heber C. Kimball Diary, 28 January 1841, Heber C. Kimball Papers, Church Archives, where Kimball wrote after receiving an 8 December 1840 letter from his wife: “the tidings was good. and we felt to rejoice much to hear that John Boyington and Lymon [no doubt Lyman Johnson] and menny other pressious things.” The entry is imperfect and the letter giving more details has not been located. Presumably these discussions helped heal feelings, although Lyman, unlike his brother Luke, never returned to the Church.
4. Concerning this need see, for example, Smith’s memorial to the High Council, 18 June 1840, Joseph Smith Papers, Church Archives.
5. “History of Brigham Young,” p. 2; and “History of George Albert Smith,” ms, George A. Smith Papers. Although both of these are reminiscent accounts, contemporary minutes for the 16 August meeting corroborate them. [Editor’s note: see James B. Allen, Ronald K. Esplin, and David J. Whittaker, Men with a Mission: the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the British Isles, 1837–1841 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992), 313–317.]
6. Several of their new assignments can be seen as an extension of “traditional” ones. They were to call and appoint missionaries, for example, certainly related to their general charge to preach the message abroad. Similarly, since they had been responsible for teaching the gathering in the East and in England, it was merely an extension to have them also responsible for settling the gathered Saints once they arrived in Nauvoo. Nonetheless, by these new assignments, Smith significantly expanded the scope of their jurisdiction and responsibility.
7. Orson Hyde was on his way to the Holy Land, Parley Pratt presided in England, and John Page, Wilford Woodruff, and William Smith remained in the East. In April Lyman Wight had been selected to fill the vacancy in the Twelve, but there is no mention of his being present this day. Those in Nauvoo were Young, Kimball, Taylor, Smith, Pratt and Richards.
8. History of the Church, 4:402–4; and “History of Brigham Young,” p. 2. This explanation appears only in the published minutes. Times and Seasons 2 (1 September 1841:521–22. Compare with Minutes, 16 August 1841, General Minutes Collection, Church Archives.
9. Minutes, 16 August 1841, General Minutes Collection. This was the order contemplated in the 28 March 1835 revelation to the Twelve, but by assignment not implemented until now. See Doctrine and Covenants, Section 107, especially verses 21–24.
10. “History of Brigham Young,” p. 2. This version continues with Smith’s explanation that the Twelve had been faithful, had born the burden in the heat of the day, and that it was right they be able to provide for their families in Nauvoo “and at the same time relieves him, so that he might attend to the business of translating.” Perhaps it was this August 1841 action that gave him the leisure to complete work on the Book of Abraham, published in the Times and Seasons beginning in March 1842.
11. Minutes, 16 August 1841, General Minutes Collection. Lineouts are here reproduced as they appear in the original.
12. Willard Richards Diary, 16 August 1841, Willard Richards Papers, Church Archives.
13. “History of Brigham Young,” p. 3.
14. Brigham Young Diary, 18 January 1842, Brigham Young Papers.
15. For a brief overview of the enlarged role of the Twelve during this period that preceded their succession see D. Michael Quinn, “The Evolution of the Presiding Quorums of the LDS Church,” Journal of Mormon History 1 (1974):29–31. An overview of these developments from the perspective of the Quorum of the Twelve can be found in Leonard J. Arrington and Ronald K. Esplin, “The Role of the Council of the Twelve during Brigham Young’s Presidency in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Task Papers in LDS History, No. 31 (Salt Lake City: Historical Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1979), pp. 8–14.
16. For a review of the visible involvements of the Twelve in Nauvoo see T. Edgar Lyon, “Nauvoo and the Council of the Twelve,” The Restoration Movement: Essays in Mormon History, ed. F. Mark McKiernan et al. (Lawrence, Kansas: Coronado Press, 1973), pp. 167–205.
17. Joseph Smith to Mrs. Norman Buel [Buell], 15 March 1839, History of the Church, 3:286.
18. For a discussion of some of these see D. Michael Quinn, “Latter-day Saint Prayer Circles,” Brigham Young University Studies 19 (Fall 1978):79–105 and especially pp. 83–96.
19. Robert Bruce Flanders has suggested that those who accepted Smith’s Nauvoo kingdom left with Young and the Twelve to implement that vision in the West, while those who rejected it remained behind. See in the introduction to his Nauvoo: Kingdom on the Mississippi (Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois, 1965); and his summary article “Dream and Nightmare: Nauvoo Revisited,” in McKiernan et al., The Restoration Movement, pp. 141–66.
20. Parley P. Pratt’s “Proclamation. To the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Greeting,” in Millennial Star 5 (March 1845):149–53.
21. Brigham Young Diary, 8 August 1844, Brigham Young Papers.
22. Wilford Woodruff Diary, 8 August 1844, Wilford Woodruff Papers, Church Archives. See also Minutes, 8 August 1844, General Minutes Collection.
23. Brigham Young to Vilate Young, 11 August 1844, photocopy, Church Archives.
