Young was not complicit in planning or executing the massacre. Young, Brigham Born June 1, 1801 Whitingham, Vermont Died August 29, 1877 Salt Lake City, Utah Religious leader Mormon leader Brigham Young led his followers on a trek across the American plains to the Great Salt Lake Valley in present-day Utah. Brigham Young neither ordered nor approved of the Mountain Meadows Massacre beforehand, but his unwillingness to cooperate with federal officials precipitated the crisis, and his subsequent actions and rhetoric inflamed tensions rather than calming them. As the emigrants began to leave, Lee and the militia butchered the men, women, and most of the children. Polygamy was far worse for the women of Utah in the mid- to late 1800s than even the staunchest of feminists would likely guess. Even though Young blessed it as a place to begin anew,his fears of continued religious persecution may have caused him to order a massacre. 19. Brigham Young urged every Mormon to resist the American military. They primarily belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or LDS, which is headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah, and has more than 16 read more, When Brigham Young and his band of Mormon settlers marched into Utah in 1847, they saw a vast expanse of land they envisioned as a sanctuary. For instance, Joseph Smith was once attacked by an apostate from the Church, William Law, who "attempted to kill Joseph and fired a pistol at him six times at close range. The attack occurred on April 6. Brigham Young had six sisters and four brothers. Hiding Rockwells role in expressing Eleanor to Utah from my late friend Hal was evidence that had been carefully suppressed. Young, himself, was subjected to house arrest for several weeks in 1872 and jailed briefly in March 1875. There is a logic to this. The facts are these: Young spoke out against revenge killings. On Sept. 11, 1857, a Mormon militia in southern Utah . How did the widow Pratt cross 1,500 dusty miles in a mere 21 days? Not theories. In early September, they stopped to rest at Mountain Meadows. There were several times when Brigham Young's life was spared or his health inexplicably restored, according to BYU professor of Mormon History Donald Q. Cannon ("Brigham Young on Life and Death"). Because of this and the expulsion from Missouri, the Mormons at the time felt very strong prejudice against people from those two states. Theres one answer to all these questions: Brigham Young ordered the murders as a righteous act of vengeance. DJ Ferguson, who . No other group of people [comes] close.. Was brigham young stabbed by a son named Phineas? On Sept. 11, 1857, a group of California-bound pioneers camping in southern Utah were murdered by a Mormon militia and its Indian allies. His translation retells some Biblical stories as well as adding to the lore of the father of Judaism and Islam, and the translation was eventually canonized as scripture. But Matt Easton, 24, political science valedictorian at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah said the timing was right to tell 10,000 people he was gay. Rockwell never directly denied the crime, even when he was tried for it, insisting, Ive never shot at anybody. Reading the September 2000 True West article by Glenn Shirley, titled, A Tireless Energy & Nerves of Steel, I was fascinated by Caroline Bonneville. The evidence has been so corruptedsuppressed, destroyed, and fabricatedits hard to determine the date the murders took place, let alone trace all the ins and outs of the conspiracy behind the crime. A teacher walks into the Classroom and says If only Yesterday was Tomorrow Today would have been a Saturday Which Day did the Teacher make this Statement? Brigham Young led one of the largest group migrations in American historyover 12,000 peopleto Salt Lake City, Utah. Finally, it is also a matter of historical record that none of the Indian leaders at the Salt Lake council were later at Mountain Meadows, except the Southern Ute leader, Ammon, who tried to prevent the massacre. A disgraced former Geography professor at Mormon-founded Brigham Young University in Utah who was charged with sexually abusing a female students after allegedly telling her she needed to straddle . Conditions Governing Access Open for public research. In short, Youngs letter must be taken at face value: It was a determined, almost frantic, attempt to stop the massacre. The Mountain Meadows Massacre was a horrible atrocity, and the conduct of some Mormons involved in it was deplorable: strong words from the Tabernacle pulpit, Saints seeking vengeance because of their past persecution, Youngs risky Native American alliance, senseless acts by some local Mormon leaders, Utahs troubling episodes of extralegal violence and most awful, the terrible killing at Mountain Meadows. . They are also fascinated by stories of murder and especially murder on a grand scale. Rather than provide them with what they wanted, Lee chose to die like a man then [than] to live a villain.. A US hospital has rejected a patient for a heart transplant at least in part because he is not vaccinated against Covid-19. Niggas Sooooo Good 06. Why didnt he use his powers as territorial governor to hunt down the men who committed this despicable crime? The massacre lasted less than five minutes, but when it was. Its no coincidence, then, that pulp fiction and Hollywood have used these ingredientsmystery, conspiracy and mass murderfor years. Jamie founded Listverse due to an insatiable desire to share fascinating, obscure, and bizarre facts. Here's the account in his own words: Brigham Young wasn't the only latter-day prophet to have such close experiences with death. DJ Ferguson's family say he was first on the list to receive the transplant at Brigham and Women's Hospital but he is no longer eligible because of his vaccination status, CBS Boston reported. Prosecutors in New York City are investigating an incident in which a jazz musician said his 14-year-old son was attacked by a woman who falsely accused him of taking her iPhone. But now, a new book, which has been a bestseller in Utah since it appeared last summer, claims the massacre was ordered by Mormon Prophet Brigham Young. DJ Ferguson, 31, is in dire need of a new heart, but Brigham and. Fiery yet full of doubt, frequently ill yet strong when it . Kauna unahang parabula na inilimbag sa bhutan? After a 500 mile round trip journey, militiamen received this response on Sept 13, two days too late to prevent the massacre. S. Dilworth Young. Why did he shield the murderers and allow the churchs newspaper to blame the crime on the Paiutes for a dozen years after Jacob Hamblin told him Mormons were involved? College volleyball's opening weekend ended with a fan banned from Brigham Young University's athletic facilities and statements expressing regret from two universities and the governor of Utah. Apparently I succeeded, since critics in the employ of the LDS Church claim I dont prove Brigham Young ordered the murders. When I learned that Orrin Porter Rockwell, the notorious Mormon lawman and Danite, had rushed Mrs. Pratt across the plains in record time, I knew what happened at Mountain Meadows. As any attorney knows, the problem with a guilty client is he acts guilty, and after the massacre Brigham Young never behaved like an innocent man. Read a news summary of this talk. 1940. Wild Bill Hickman, a famed gunslinger and friend of the Mormon leader, actually claimed that Young had ordered him to commit some of those murders. After the death of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, the mantle of leader of the church was up for grabs. [3], In 1840, Young moved to Scott County, Illinois when the Latter Day Saints were expelled from Missouri. "use strict";(function(){var insertion=document.getElementById("citation-access-date");var date=new Date().toLocaleDateString(undefined,{month:"long",day:"numeric",year:"numeric"});insertion.parentElement.replaceChild(document.createTextNode(date),insertion)})(); FACT CHECK: We strive for accuracy and fairness. However, church president Joseph Smith insisted that his brother William Smith be selected in place of Young. His son, also named Alma, rebelled against everything he was taught. Matthew Bowman, The Mormon People: The Making of an American Faith (Random House, 2012). On the 7th, Lee attacked with militia men and some Paiute Indians he had recruited. Pissy Hastens 02. Young settled in Salt Lake City. Phineas Howe Young (also found as Phinehas) (February 16, 1799 October 10, 1879) was a prominent early convert in the Latter Day Saint movement and was later a Mormon pioneer and a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). And the suppressing of evidence, Andrew Hamilton said in 1735, ought always be taken for the best evidence.. How do you put shoes on a cloven-footed ox? As Compton explains of Joseph F. Smith's ordination, which would later have a significant impact on Church history: Though John Willard "was publicly sustained as an assistant counselor to Brigham," he focused most of his time on business endeavors and lived most of his life in New York, according to Compton. Justice John F. Kinney was appointed in 1854, and quickly fought with Young over statutes designed to protect polygamists. With Congress repeatedly rejecting proposals for Utah statehood, Young firmly resisted the territorys involvement in the Civil War, especially after passage of the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act in 1862, which effectively outlawed plural marriage in U.S. territories. October 11, 1973. On the other hand, Mormons have insisted that the massacre was perpetrated by local members acting without sanction from headquarters. Conditions Governing Use https://www.history.com/topics/religion/brigham-young. FactSnippet No. Young considered all of the United States culpable for the death of Joseph Smith, and added an oath of vengeance to the Mormon temple endowment: You and each of you do covenant and promise that you will pray and never cease to pray to Almighty God to avenge the blood of the prophets upon this nation, and that you will teach the same to your children and to your childrens children unto the third and fourth generation.. Young returned east to lead a second company of Mormons to the region in late 1847, and in 1848 was officially selected as the churchs new president. Speaking of lineage, I should like to explain to you that whatever your great-grandparents or forebears did cannot be grafted into your own life. After this attack, Smiths successor, Brigham Young, led the Mormons West. show. When I reflect on how I found the gospel, I realize that my familys experiences informed two important pieces of my testimony. There are two ways to interpret the evidence about who ordered the brutal murder of 120 men, women and children at a remote Utah oasis on the road to California on September 11, 1857. Just six years after the murder of Joseph Smith and five after the Mormon exodus from Nauvoo, Young was in no mood to accommodate outside interference with governing the Saints as he saw fit. He declared that: "I will fight them and I will fight all hell!" The Church had been tense against the federal government ever since the murder of their founder and Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith, at the hands of an Illinois lynch mob in 1844. While not on missions, Young lived with the Latter Day Saints in Kirtland, Ohio and Far West, Missouri. The non-Mormons who were present at Rigdons sermon were rightfully alarmed. Also in 1854, President Franklin Pierce attempted to replace Young as territory governor, but nominee Edward Steptoe declined, explaining that he could not perform his duties in the face of fanaticism in the mass of the people and a religious oligarchy., By 1857, with Youngs approval, the territorial assembly sent a blunt warning to incoming U.S. president James Buchanan. [7], After Joseph Smith was killed in 1844, Young joined the majority of Latter Day Saints in accepting the leadership of Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In regard to emigration trains passing through our settlements, we must not interfere with them until they are first notified to keep away. Brigham Young (pictured) is revered by Mormons as the second prophet of modern times. What are the 4 major sources of law in Zimbabwe? What is are the functions of diverse organisms? At first, it blamed Indians; later, it claimed a rogue church official was responsibleand after two trials, Mormon militia leader John Lee was hanged in 1877 for the killings. True West asked the authors of both books to lay out their claims. The incident occurred late Saturday afternoon at . Young died in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory at the age of 80. the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Phineas_Young&oldid=1133790119, This page was last edited on 15 January 2023, at 14:54. In an address he gave at General Conference (a semi-annual meeting of the Latter-day Saints), he announced, Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? Seventeen children who were too young to remember the attack were spared. Particularly telling is the testimony of those who did the killing at the Meadows. Five bank robbers convicted of, Tensions over Chinese immigrant labor came to a head in Rock Springs, Wyoming on September, The Fall Creek Massacre was all too typicalseven whites murdering nine Indians in Indiana in. The Center for Family History and Genealogy was established at Brigham Young University in order to utilize BYU resources to simplify the process of finding of ancestors and the discovery of the world in which they lived. "Settlers burned and vandalized at least 200 buildings in four Palestinian villages," according to The New York Times. However, President Snow announced apostolic seniority should be gauged by the entry date into the Quorum of the Twelve, making Joseph Fielding Smith the next prophet. This week, as America mourned those lost in the terrorist attacks of 9/11, some Mormons quietly remembered another tragedy that took place on the same day 144 years earlier: the Mountain Meadows Massacre, in which a group of Mormons militia members killed about 120 men, women, and children in cold blood. Young read the Bible verse the soldiers had inscribed on a cedar cross atop the monument: Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord., It should read, he said, Vengeance is mine, and I have taken a little. Young then directed the desecration of the grave. March 28, 1884: Or was it March 8? In regard to emigrating trains arriving and passing through our settlements, he wrote in a letter designed to restore calm in Southern Utah, We must not interfere with them. These clear and difficult-to-misread words were rushed to Cedar City after Young received an express from local setters there telling him of pending trouble. Even though Bennets claims were never directly supported by others, they were implicitly supported by William Law, the man who was Joseph Smiths right-hand man at the time. After Cowdery was excommunicated from the church in 1838, Young wrote him several letters pleading with him to come back into the church. When the United States claimed sovereignty over the area in 1848, Mormons petitioned Congress for recognition, and in 1850 the United States organized Utah Territory. Seeking a place where they could avoid the persecution that had driven them from Ohio and Missouri, Young and the other apostles planned a westward exodus of thousands of Mormons from the settlement in Nauvoo, Illinois to the Great Salt Lake Valley, then part of Mexico. The events at Mountain Meadows do not suggest a conspiracy, and certainly none involving Young. In this inspiring look at near-death experiences, authors Brent and Wendy Top illustrate how numerous recorded accounts of near-death experiences relate to Latter-day Saint teachings. Brigham Young ( / brm /; June 1, 1801 - August 29, 1877) was an American leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and a settler of the Western United States. From 1864 through 1871 Young served as the bishop of the Salt Lake City 2nd Ward. In 1832, he was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the religion founded by Joseph Smith in 1830 based on the Book of Mormon, a scripture that Smith claimed to have translated from gold plates given to him by an angel named Moroni. His sisters were: Nancy Young Kent Fanny Young Murray Rhoda Young Green Nabby Young (who died young) Susannah Young Little Louisa. Throughout the revolution, Ted's son and Rupert were more prominently involved in Season 1 but weren't seen much the following season. There are no other trains going south that I know of. The great historian Harold Schindler spent 40 years learning everything there was to know about Orrin Porter Rockwell, Man of God/Son of Thunder (the title of his definitive biography). Because the historical past will always be opaque, historians must seek the weight of evidence, and in this case, the preponderance suggests Youngs innocence. Women in Utah were treated like a commodity, with Church apostle Heber C. Kimball once observing, I would think nothing more of taking a wife than of buying a cow. Men married additional women to show their status as righteous men who were devoted to their faith and would often marry more women than they could afford to support, keeping the less-liked wives in other towns and forcing them to earn their own living. Ann Eliza Webb, after she decided to divorce Young in 1873, published an expos entitled Wife No. That admonition includes charging Brigham Young with crimes that he did not commit. Anonymous. 1,204,523 People also liked But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! She, her husband Nate and their now 2-month-old son Luke fled their home in East Palestine the night of the train derailment to her mother's house about 14 to 15 miles away. "In regard to emigrating trains arriving and passing through our settlements," he wrote in a letter designed to restore calm in Southern Utah, "We must not interfere with them." Brigham Young University was named in his honor. President Brigham Young ordained his 11-year-old son John Willard Young as an apostle shortly after John received his temple endowment, though John never joined the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. In 1833, after the death of his first wife, Young and his two daughters joined Smith and other Mormons in Kirtland, Ohio. Fears of Mormon aggression, as well as Mormons taking control of the county government, led to anti-Mormon sentiments among the residents of Gallatin, the seat of Daviess County. When they turned up at the Smithsonian Institute in the 1920s, they were returned to the Mormon Church. [Young] is not only the president here but he is the president of the states and kingdoms of this world no matter if they have not elected him. In a very real sense, Brigham Young was the law. It creates a sensation and sells books. David Roberts. Amid the tensions, however, a band of armed Mormons attacked a wagon train of non-Mormons heading west from Arkansas in a valley known as Mountain Meadows in September 1857. After spending the winter of 1846-47 in a camp along the Missouri River between Iowa and Nebraska, Young headed further west with 142 men, including six apostles, three women and two children, in April 1847. After five years researching and writing about this horrific atrocity, I doubted Id ever find a definitive answer to the question, Did Brigham Young order the murders at Mountain Meadows?, To my surprise, I found evidence that convinced me beyond a shadow of a doubt that Brigham Young issued orders (probably verbal) to kill everyone in the Fancher party except those of innocent bloodchildren under eight years of ageto fulfill his sacred vow to avenge the blood of the prophets Joseph and Hyrum Smith, and more specifically, Apostle Parley P. Pratt. This applied to countries as well as individuals. After the extermination order, the Mormons left for Nauvoo, Illinois, but their bad experiences in Missouri would never be forgotten. The other versions are never mentioned, though they are available on a Church-run website. When it was over, men quarreled over responsibility, and many vowed that no one should ever know of their deadly work, including, presumably, Brigham Young. For instance, during his time with Zion's Camp, cholera swept among the men and he watched "other men die like flies, but his own life was spared" ("Brigham Young on Life and Death"). In several speeches given to large gatherings of Latter-day Saints, he proclaimed that the only way a person could be absolved of the sin of leaving Mormonism would be for that person to have his or her blood spilled on the ground. He later became a prominent pioneer in southern Utah, and St. George, Utah, may have been named after him. The Brink of War. Smithsonian Magazine, June 2008. (Right) John D. Lee. He promised they wouldnt stop until the last drop of blood was spilled. Youngs defiant stance toward outside authority meant frequent clashes with the federal government, especially after the churchs public embrace of plural marriage in 1852. On August 29, 1877, Brigham Young died in Salt Lake City at. It is alarming to see how intensely and openly the family is under attack in contemporary society. That question stumped me for years, and like many other Mormon mysteries the clues have been carefully purged from the records of Utahs past. An anti-Mormon mob killed Joseph and Hyrum Smith in Carthage, Illinois. . Brigham Young University. When I began writing about the massacre, I realized trying to prove anything about this appalling crime would prove only that I was an idiot. The council sought to create a Mormon-Indian alliance, and to make such an arrangement attractive to the Indians, Young allegedly told them that he would no longer stop them from stealing emigrant cattle on the California Trail. The winners of the Church History Museums 12th International Art Competition have been announced, and the artwork is breathtaking. The Latter-day Saint community [in Las Vegas is] vibrant across every facetpolitically, public service, charitable. He stated in an 1861 sermon: When I reflect on how I found the gospel, I realize that my familys experiences informed two important pieces of my testimony. What are the Physical devices used to construct memories? Some testimony came in private interviews when there was no motive to lie. Not historical conspiracies created by authors speculating about the past. You must not meddle with them. Recent studies, including my own, have found 55 well-documented marriages. In 1841, Joseph Smith announced a prophesy that Governor Boggs (pictured above) would, within a year, meet a violent demise. Was not referring to his death, just the stabbing. Sharon Smith & Mike Leach Were Friends at Brigham Young University; Mike Used to Visit Her Apartment to Watch Television Sharon Smith and Mike Leach both attended Brigham Young University.