Bear with me for two minutes. Let me make my case. I know you probably haven't heard of Brigham young. So let me tell you why you should care about this story about this episode. So, first of all, it's just a wild story. Let's start with the numbers. Brigham young, married 56 times. He had 57 children by 16 

Born into abject poverty. He amassed a fortune of more than $15 million before his death. He did this by establishing not only a dozen business enterprises, but more than 200 cities, towns, and colonies, and even a couple of universities. 

He did this by leading 60,000 people. Most of them virtually penniless across the continental United States on foot and in wagons. He was a governor. Uh, founder and apostle, a leader, a businessman, a visionary, and a prophet. He has been called the American Moses. And I think it's an app description. He was a religious and secular leader who moved his people through a dangerous wilderness. 

And established a way of life in a new land. 

 He was the second prophet or leader. I have the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints, frequently known as the Mormon church. He was an important religious leader with an interesting philosophical and religious perspective. 

But he's perhaps better known as a settler and a colonizer who built cities, churches, schools, canals, roads, and railroads. To me. I think the reason I'm drawn to Brigham young is this. When I was growing up, I loved SIM That was a computer game where you could design your own city complete with housing, business district, municipal, building sewers, roads, railroads, canals, theme parks, everything you could design every little aspect of a city. 

And as I talked to other people, especially men, I find that [00:02:00] many of us had this exact same hobby of basically playing SIM city in our head. , and this is especially true. I think of like teenagers , and men who are just coming into adulthood. We like to draw up little utopias in our head that we'd like to think about the castles and the walls and the flags on the city layout, the roads, the houses, the laws, and the government. 

, like SIM city on steroids. We like to imagine these little utopias. And how we would organize things if we were in charge. 

Some of us even put pen to paper and drop little plants. And I think one of the reasons I'm drawn to the story of Brigham young is he's one of the very few people that I can think of who got to live this out in real He established a civilization from scratch. He helped determine all these little things, the roads, the churches, the industries, the homes, the religion, the flags, even the alphabet. 

But even if that doesn't sound appealing The magnitude and the audacity and even the weirdness of what he accomplished, I think is really interesting. It can help you think bigger and look at the world differently. 

. So even if the name Brigham young doesn't mean anything to Even if you've never heard of him either, if you're not interested in necessarily an 18 hundreds religious history of the United States or anything like that. 

I think this is gonna be an interesting story. So, um, yeah, give it a listen. Stick with it, at least a at least listened to part one and a, and let me know what you think. 

One more thing before we dive in, I have to lay all my cards on the table. And, uh, so I have to admit I'm a big fan of Brigham young. Not only do I belong to the church that he helped to found, but he's also my great, great, great grandpa. My brother's named Brigham. I very well might name a child. Brigham. I liked the guy. I feel incredibly connected to him. He established a lot of the things that shaped my life, including my family. 

 I obviously have nevertheless tried to be unbiased about his strengths, weaknesses, and his shortcomings. As I have with everyone else I've covered on this podcast. but I do acknowledge that I'm not completely a neutral observer on this one. So, I don't think that impacts the episode too much, but, uh, it's probably worth disclosing. So with all that said, let's jump in, but first a word from our sponsors. 

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Brigham young was born on June 1st, 1801. He was the eighth of 11 children. America had won its independence less than 20 years previously. And he really was a child of the revolution. 

What you might call the most American generation. His father had been a boy during the revolutionary war in both of his grandfathers had been soldiers in it. He was born in Whittingham Vermont, which if you know where Vermont is, , that is over kind of by the coast. It's over by Massachusetts , at the time Vermont was actually the American frontier. 

It's less than a hundred miles from Boston on the Atlantic coast, but that was America at the time. Almost the entire population was crowded on the very edge of the east coast. So especially in the north. That is where the frontier of America was. And so he was born on that frontier into a very poor family. 

, it was already a poor place, the frontier, but even considering the time and [00:06:00] place the Youngs were particularly poor, like I said, his grandfather had fought in the revolutionary war. And he was a drinker and a gambler. His vices, impoverished his family and sent him to an early grave. And as a consequence, Brigham's father John. 

Was essentially a slave. I mean, that was a comparison to others made. He was rented out as a servant at age six. Okay. Six, six years old. He was sent full-time to live with another family and tasked with running errands and performing odd jobs. And, uh, he was frequently beaten if he didn't perform them adequately. 

Despite his rough upbringing, John Young married very well. He married a smart girl from a well-to-do family named Nabby. How navvies father objected to the marriage because, well, he said, For he thought it rather beneath him that his daughter should choose a servant boy brought up in the kitchen with a black servants. 

 But, uh, I guess John Young could be charming and persuasive. So he, manages to charm his way into a marriage that is probably above his station, despite her father's misgivings. But what he did not manage to do was give his children a much better upbringing than the one he had. The Youngs were still very 

Brigham would later say quote, in my youthful days, instead of going to school, I had to chop logs to sow, to plant and to plow in the midst of roots, barefooted. And if I had on a pair of pants that would cover I did pretty well. 

To add to this already difficult situation. Brigham's mother Nabby contracted tuberculosis when he was very young . And she was bedridden for most of his youth. His upbringing was also strict and religious. They read from the Bible frequently. His father was a disciplinarian and frequently hit his children though. Not necessarily more frequently than was common for the time. Brigham would later say, quote. I had not a chance to dance when I was young. 

And never heard the enchanting tones of the violin until I was 11 years of age. And even then, I thought I was on the highway to hell. If I suffered myself to linger and listen to it.

So he's growing up, poor, working hard. Uh, with an absent mother. And then when he was 15 years old, Uh, so this is 1816, his mother finally succumbs to her long [00:08:00] battle with tuberculosis ,

So at this time only the three youngest children are still living with their parents. So Brigham's older sister is sent off to live with family and he and his younger brother, Lorenzo Dow remain with their father. There is one memorable incident when Brigham's father had to leave for a few days to go to town, to do some business. So he leaves Brigham and Lorenzo home with what he thinks is enough food for a few days, but business keeps him longer than he thought. And the two boys run out 

So Brigham takes the family musket and goes out and shoots a Robin. And they boil it and eat it. And that's what he and Lorenzo had to eat for the last days before their dad came And that just gives you a flavor for the kind of poverty that he grew up in, but also sort of the rough frontier make, do figure things out, sort of nature of the environment that he grew up in. 

So then, , it's good that he's figuring out how to make his own way, because just a year later, when Brigham is 16 years old, his father remarries to a new younger woman. So now John Young has this new young wife he's kind of ready to restart his life with this woman. But it's a little awkward because he's got this teenager in the house. 

So he takes, bring them aside and tells him. You can have your time now go and provide for yourself. In other words, Get W what's going on here, man. You're 16 years old already. How come you haven't left the house yet? You're a deadbeat. 

Go, uh, go figure things out for yourself already. And so he does bring them Lee's home and goes even further west to Auburn, New York, which was a frontier BoomTown at the time and stays with an uncle and Auburn and starts to learn carpentry and furniture making over the coming years, he would also become a joiner, painter and Glazier. 

So he's a, he's a builder and a handyman. He can build almost And he was quite successful in these trades. He always had plenty of business. And even now, if you go You can find a lot of old homes where the owners will claim that their mantle was made by Brigham young. 

I think one of the impressive things about this time period in life is that he was an amateur tinkerer. He damned a river and built a mill, which turned to lave for one of his [00:10:00] shops. And he came up with a very clever contraption for manufacturing paint. That used water power from this mill to raise and lower a Cannonball to crush the chalk needed to make a pigment to make paint. 

. So I think that's pretty cool. 

But what's interesting to me is that. Um, no one wrote about this. No one was talking about this inventor, Brigham young. He was known as, uh, an inventor or anything. And to me that says something about the enterprising and innovative nature of early America, that this sort of tinkering was commonplace. And so when you think about it that way, I guess it's not surprising that, , early America of this time period, we produce Eli Whitney and would produce Thomas Edison and all of these great, , inventors, because like that was the culture that they grew up in. Uh the kind of culture where you just. 

Make your own mill. And in that mill, you invent your own process for crushing chalk to make paint.

. It was an amazing time for America. Uh, in terms of physical description, Brigham was short and barrel chested with an impressively, large head and a good amount of dusty reddish hair. In some early photographs of him, he gets a rather dashing figure, but most accounts describe him as neither handsome, nor 

He was hardworking, funny, charming, humble, and talented. But not noted for his intellect. Not surprisingly for someone who goes on to become a great religious leader, Brigham was naturally skeptical of organized religion. This was the time of the second great awakening in the United States, which was a great religious revival that occurred mostly in these frontier areas. 

And it was mostly the product of Methodist preachers. Uh, a number of Methodist sex came through teaching and having these great big outdoor camp meetings where you would have these famous preachers who would give these rollicking sermons. I've got one account here from 1799 from preacher in Kentucky named John McGee. 

He writes, 

Such a power came over me that I sat down on the floor of the pulpit, not knowing what I did. Of power that caused me to tremble was upon me. There was a solemn weeping all over [00:12:00] at length. I rose up and told the people I was appointed to preach, but there was a greater than I preaching. I exhorted them to let the Lord God omnipotent reign in their hearts and to submit to him and their souls 

Many broke silence, a woman shouted tremendously. I left the pulpit to go to her. The power of God was strong upon me. I turned and losing sight of the fear of man. I went through the house, shouting and exhorting with all possible energy and ecstasy, and the floor was soon covered with the slain, their screams for mercy Pierce to the heavens and mercy came , 

from the same account. We later read of some as still as death in the coma of trance. Others overcome by involuntary hysteria and calling for relief. Many prostrate with convulsive writings or standing upright and swaying their bodies and limbs to and fro in violent contortions. And this is just a taste, depending on the meeting. There could also be seeing there could be prophesying. There could be speaking in an unknown tongue where a person essentially shouts jibberish. I mean, these revivals were a party, say whatever you want about them, but they certainly were not boring. 

And why were these meetings like this? Well, you've got all these settlers out on the frontier, away from their old churches away from their families, their old communities. And this creates like a land grab for all these unclaimed souls. So you got all these churches competing for congregants. And one of the ways that they are competing is by having. 

The most entertaining meetings possible. And this must have been high entertainment. . I mean, if you are in Albany, New York or you're in Vermont and you're away from the theaters and the pubs and the bars and the sports and all the entertainment that you might have found in a big Eastern city, like Boston or New York. 

Then this is the best ticket in town. 

So Brigham and his family are going to these various camp revivals and Brigham is a very independent minded person. As I said, he goes to a lot of these camp meetings. And for a time he meets with different Methodists churches. But he jealously guards, his independence. He doesn't want to feel too closely tied to any one church or congregation. 

You get the feeling that it made him feel claustrophobic or like , [00:14:00] like he didn't want to be committed to something that he didn't think he could fully follow through with, in another example of his stubborn independence, he demanded to be baptized by immersion by being dumped all the way under the water, which was not the practice for Methodists at 

But he read in the Bible that that was how Jesus did it. So he thought that was right and he wanted to do it that He's independent in other ways, too, he stays away from politics. He refuses to drink, but also refuses to sign a temperance pledge since he felt like it would bind him, uh, to not being able to drink anymore. 

He's an independent businessman who relies on his own skills and hard work to make his way. And he moves from city to city every few years. Never putting down too deep of roots in any single place. So you get the impression that Brigham young is a very impressive person and people are impressed by him. They're drawn to him. 

But he's not really taking any leadership roles anywhere. Because he's got this like, , independent streak, , 

He kind of enjoys being on the fringes of society and, uh, not having ties or burdens or obligations. 

So, how does he go from this from someone who doesn't want to be tied down? Doesn't want to have these. , Ty's obligations to someone who is at. The social economic and religious life of a major world religion. Uh, with tens and eventually hundreds of thousands of followers. , well, it starts in 1824 when he's 23, he meets a woman by the name of Miriam Angelina works and they hit it off and get married. 

They have two daughters, Elizabeth and violet, and he settles into typical domestic life of a man on the American frontier in the 1820s. But it's during this time that he begins to hear rumblings of a new religious movement, they are being called the Mormons. 

Joseph Smith, the founder of this new religion. I was a man with a very similar background to Brigham young. He was from a poor frontier family that had moved from Vermont to upstate New York. He too had attended many camp revivals and like Brigham young had been inclined to associate with various [00:16:00] Methodist churches, but without fully committing to any one of 

Then in 1820, when Joseph was only 14 years old, he claimed to have had a miraculous vision

in which he saw God and Jesus Christ in subsequent years, he said he was visited by an angel named Moroni. Who led him to, , these golden plates and ancient record of the people who had inhabited America, hundreds of years previously, but they had been genocidally destroyed by a rival tribe. 

 They had written their history and their religious teachings on these golden plates and buried them in the ground before they were all killed. By the power of Joseph Smith was led to find them. He translated them by the power of God. And the result was a religious book called the book of Mormon. 

And the book claim that these people hundreds of years ago, , had been practicing Christians had in fact, been visited by Jesus Christ. After his resurrection. 

And had known about the God of Israel had known about Christianity long before European settlers brought Christianity to the continent. Of course, the religion was no longer around when Columbus and the other explorers arrived because, as, as I said earlier, uh, they were genocidally, uh, destroyed by a rival 

So in all of these. , visions and apparitions and Rackless experiences just Smith, not only translated the book of Mormon, but he was called to be a new prophet. He was told by God that the original Christian Church established by Jesus had become corrupted that no Christian denomination any longer had the full truth of Christ teachings. 

 But that all of those troops would be restored through him through Joseph Smith. . And he claimed to receive a number of revelations directly from God. After that these revelations settled matters of religious doctrine and gave practical instruction for this new church and how they should conduct their affairs. 

So, this is obviously a new, exciting, it's all happening again in upstate New York. Very close to where Brigham young lives. And it's creating a big stir. Some people are drawn to these exciting new teachings and join this church and others, of course dismiss it as a wild fabrication. 

One of Brigham Young's older brothers, Phineas is the [00:18:00] first in the family to hear about it and he converts and then another older brother converts and his whole family starts to join the Mormon faith. But Brigham true to character is independent minded and doesn't want to join for a year. He's one of the most skeptical members of the family. 

And he really wants to investigate. Look around, figure out this church, figure out what they're really all about. 

So he's hearing about it. His whole family is joining. And he's not joining. And then finally, after more than a year, one day, he's having a discussion about Mormonism with his dad, his brother, Joseph, and his best friend, Heber Kimball, when suddenly, and I'll quote from an account here, he says the glory of God shown upon us and caused such great joy to spring up in our bosoms, that we were hardly able to contain ourselves. 

And we did shout aloud Hosanna to God and the lamb. 

 So after this conversion experience, Brigham young was quickly baptized on April 9th, 1832 to officially become a member of the church. , the water was still nearly freezing in the river when he was baptized, but he was not the type of person to wait. Once he had made a decision, he liked to act quickly. 

And by the way, I just use the phrase, the church. , the official name of the church today is the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. , but it wouldn't adopt that name for a number of It went through a few different iterations of what it was called. So I won't go through all the iterations for now. And for most of this episode, I'll continue to use the informal terms, Mormon, Mormonism, and Mormon church. Uh, or sometimes as I did here, I'll just refer to as the church. , or sometimes I might refer to the, to the members of the church as saints, since that's the way they called themselves. . 

If you're wondering why I'm not using the language that. The church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints, currently requests people It's for that reason at this time, it was not called that. Anyway. So that's just terminology we'll refer to as Mormons Mormon church or the church and saints, all those things mean the same thing 

a month later, his wife, Miriam is also [00:20:00] baptized and shortly thereafter contracts a disease that was all too familiar to tuberculosis. And so just as his mother had been bedridden, His wife now is as well. 

And with two young daughters, it is left to Brigham to take care of the girls. He wakes every day at the crack of Makes breakfast dresses, his daughters. Then picks up his wife, carries her and puts her in a chair by the fire for the day. Then goes out. , and does backbreaking labor as a carpenter. 

Then at the end of the day, comes back, cooks dinner, cleans, takes care of the girls, puts them to bed and then carries his wife back to bed. 

He's mom and dad for the sadly, and it must have been rudely hard work at the time. Um, but the situation only lasts for six months before his wife passes away on September 8th, 1832. And so this creates a sort of break in his life. Brigham young as 32 years old. He's been a fairly successful independent businessman, but not remarkably. So, nothing about his life would tell you that this was someone who was going to have an impact on history. 

For 32 years, Brigham lived a more or less normal. Frontier life. 

But from here on out. That was going to be different. And that's mainly because he would be fanatically committed to Mormonism. , he had already had a powerful conversion experience. He was already committed to his new found religion. But when his wife dies, , I think. That must have been very depressing and difficult for him. He loved her very much. 

And it was very difficult to carry for his daughters without her. So he's got this kind of depressing life on the one hand. 

And on the other hand, he's got this one shining good thing, which is this new religion. So he decides to fully commit his life to Go all in, all in. Uh, in a way that most people wouldn't even have thought of. I mentioned earlier, his best friend Heber Kimball we'll bring them was very close with Heber and with his wife, violet. 

You notice. Brigham second daughter was named violet is after Hebrew's wife because he BR Brigham and his wife were very close with [00:22:00] Hebrew and his wife. And so after Brigham's wife dies, he essentially hands his daughters off to Hebrew and violet and says, Can you raise these girls?

I'm going to go off and preach the restored gospel. I'm going to go preach Mormonism. 

So he does, he completely abandoned his business. He leaves his daughters with his friends and he becomes an itinerant He went from town to town, asking around if anyone would house him and offer him food. And he would also get a few meager donations, just enough to cover his travel costs. And he'd go town to town. 

Preaching. And telling people about Mormonism, basically being a missionary. He isn't doing this for long before. He decides that he needs to meet the man whose religion has Sobey witched him. , so he, along with his brother, Joseph and his friend, Heber Kimball, traveled to Kirtland, Which is where the headquarters of the Mormon church was at the time to meet Joseph Smith. 

What Brigham young finds and Joseph Smith must have surprised them. I think. I think he expects well. He doesn't say what he expects, but I can tell you what I would expect. , which is some sort of guru, right? Some sort of holy man, apart from the world, , maybe thin, eccentric, different other worldly cryptic. 

Uh, strange speaking in riddles instead, what he finds is. Uh, physically robust young man, four years younger than him, but very much like him in customs and manners. And when he finds him, Joseph Smith is chopping wood. He puts down his acts for a moment, introduces himself, shakes their hands and then asks if they want to help him finish chopping this wood. And they do so they haul, uh, chop wood together. The first time that Brigham young meets Joseph Smith. 

, one of the things that brave young is impressed by is just how much would Joe Smith can chop. He is he's buff. Like he's, he's very strong and, uh, he can sure. Chop a lot of wood. And that's a interesting way to, uh, ascertain whether someone is a prophet, but Brigham kind of things, man, a guy who can shop that much, would he must be blessed by God. 

He's also impressed by his frankness and his straightforward [00:24:00] manner. , he said, quote, when I saw Joseph Smith, he took heaven and brought it down to earth. That's a good description. He was a prophet having all these amazing visions, seeing God. But at the same time, he was a very practical person who wasn't afraid to chop wood on his own. 

Joseph was a boyish prophet. He was quick to joke and to laugh and he enjoyed games, especially ones where he could show off the strength like wrestling and stick pole. So after Brigham young meets Joseph Smith, if anything, he's more enthusiastic about his new found religion and continues to work as 

, and he's quite successful at this on his first circuit. He baptizes 14 converts and on his second circuit, he baptizes dozens. He was not at all educated. He basically couldn't spell for his entire life. And for that reason that he wasn't the best at offering great logical or reasoned theological defenses of Mormonism, but he was a very good people person.

He was great at making relationships. He's also practical, quick-witted fiery folksy. , and he spoke with spiritual sincerity, which attracted a lot of people. After one of his preaching tours, Joseph Smith tells Brigham that he needs to move from New York and come live in Kirtland where the church has gathering place was. 

, you see the Mormon church, wasn't just a church, but it was supposed to be the kingdom of God and people didn't just convert, but they were also to help build up this physical community. This, this kingdom, the city of God, like Jerusalem was for the Israelites. So Brigham moves to Kirtland to start his life there and to help build this new city. 

 In Kirtland, Brigham young meets a young woman named Mary Ann Angele who really enjoys the style of Brigham's preaching. Shall we say? And they quickly get married. Brigham's daughters come back to live with them and they quickly have a son of their own in 1834. 

In Kirtland, Brigham helps to build the city literally as well as figuratively. 

The saints in Kirtland are working on a large building that they call the Kirtland temple. Uh, and since they believe that they are the one true church restored by God himself, this is a big deal for them. This is the equivalent of [00:26:00] Solomon's temple in Jerusalem. It's a great undertaking. Taking that great expense by people who did not have much. And Brigham young is integral in building that Kirtland temple because of the skills that he has. He's the primary Glazier who puts in all the windows and he helps with the carpentry, the painting, and other tasks in the construction. 

Of this wonderful new building and you can still see it today. Kirtland, Ohio is close to Cleveland and the Kirtland temple is still there. It's worth a visit. If you're in the area or at least go Google it to see what I'm talking about. 

In 1834, Kirtland, Ohio was a strong growing BoomTown. Where many saints were moving, but there was another gathering place for the church as well in Jackson county, Missouri. And it was not doing well at all. Joseph Smith had received a revelation from God that his new Jerusalem was supposed to be built. 

In Missouri in Jackson county, not in Kirtland, there's still, you know, working in and building Kirtland, building this temple, but apparently Kirtland was just supposed to be sort of an ancillary capital. Second city. The Chicago to Missouri's New York. So many saints are moving to Kirtland, but many are also moving to Jackson county. 

And in Jackson county. This is proving to be a big problem. The non-Mormon settlers are not happy about being replaced as the majority in the In particular, most of the non-Mormons 

we're from the south and favorite slavery. And most of the Mormons were from the north and So the native Missourians were afraid that they would be out voted on slavery and not just slavery, but other issues as well, more than anything, they were afraid that the Mormons would take over all the political life. 

Uh, and dominate. All of the elected offices in Jackson county. 

W which is, you know, honestly a valid concern, they would probably write. So that's the consequences. Mormons in Missouri were being attacked and having their property destroyed and sometimes seized. They petitioned the state government of Missouri, but that comes to nothing. And so Joseph Smith organizes something called Zion's camp. 

And this is essentially a militia. It had 200 armed men from Kirtland organized to go to Missouri, defend the Mormons there and help them reclaim their property. 

[00:28:00] Brigham young joined Zion's camp and it does not go particularly well from the jump that are arguments in the camp. The journey is grueling. The conditions were bad. If you've ever been to the Midwest in the summer, it gets really hot and muggy. The veterans Zions camp talked about having to strain their water through their teeth when they drank from rivers and streams, in order to filter out the mosquito eggs.

So with those unsanitary conditions, when Zion camp makes it to Missouri, there's an outbreak of cholera and 14 people die. Also when they get to Missouri, they find that the non-Mormon Missourians are outraged by their presence. You can imagine how it might look to have a militia of Yankee religious zealots, armed with guns, marching into town.

So Missourian start pouring in for miles around to form a counter militia. Soon Zion's camp is outnumbered, and so they decline to. They meet with the saints in Missouri. Tell them, sorry. There's nothing more we can do for you have some church meetings and then March back to Curtland with their tails between their legs.

And this is a make or break moment for many of those who marched in Zion's camp. Many become disenchanted with Joseph Smith and leave the faith upon their return. But others become even more loyal to Joseph Smith after this. Sacrifice tends to solidify commitment and create buy-in. And so those that sacrifice a lot, if they don't become bitter are often the most committed followers.

And this is certainly true of Brigham young. He viewed Zion's camp as an opportunity to learn from and grow closer to his hero. Joseph Smith, when he returned one person asked, well, what did you gain on this useless journey to Missouri with Joseph Smith? 

Brigham replied all we went for. I would not exchange the experience I gained in that expedition for all the wealth of Curtland. I watched everything that Joseph Smith did and the spirit he did it in and Brigham young wasn't alone in that those who went through Zion's camp and stayed loyal to Joseph Smith would serve as the backbone of the church for the next 60 years.

So shortly thereafter, Joseph Smith forms the quorum of the 12 apostles. A quorum is just a group of people. And the 12 apostles is a reference to the time of Jesus. His inner circle was made of 12 of his closest friends and associates. And these 12 men were known as the 12 [00:30:00] apostles. These were people you might have heard of like Peter James, John, Matthew, and Thomas.

And the whole idea of the Mormon church was that it was supposed to be the same church that Jesus established it supposedly have been lost now is being brought back or restored. So to be put in the core of the 12 apostles is to be compared to people like St. Peter, and it's a huge compliment and a big deal.

. So in 1836 at the age of 35, Brigham has made an apostle it's a big year for him. He oversees the finishing of the Curtland temple, um, and things are going well for him and for the church as a whole Curtland is booming.

Economically. The saints are United spiritually. Any lingering conflicts from Zion's camp are forgotten and the church is quickly gaining new converts. There are now more than 2000 people living in cur. so in 1837, Brigham young and the other apostles left to the Eastern United States to go preach and get even more converts.

That was the primary mission of the quorum of the 12 apostles preach. Get new converts. Brigham young is successful in the effort. One of the reasons why is that he's able to create these powerful, spiritual manifestations. Some people have this idea in their mind that Brigham young was a purely secular leader in the church that whereas Joseph Smith was this visionary spiritual leader.

Brigham young was a purely organizational mind. And I think you'll see later why people think that. But it isn't true. Brigham was actually the person to introduce speaking in tongues to the latter day Saint movement. This is a thing where someone reaches such a heightened level of spiritual ecstasy that they start saying things that no one can understand.

Uh, they're speaking gibberish basically. And this is something that is mentioned in the Bible and it was considered a strong, , spiritual experience. And it's something that impresses people in this era in the time of the second great awakening, , and people like it, people like that and expect that sort of thing from great preacher.

so the fact that, , Brigham is someone who can do this, who can speak in tongues , is impressive and, uh, helps him to be a more effective missionary. While Brigham is an apostle, the senior member of the apostles, the president of the group, the leader, his name is Thomas Marsh. And Brigham does not like Mr.

Marsh. He [00:32:00] considers him cantankerous, useless and prickly, and he was not alone in that assessment. There are lots of conflicts within the quorum of the 12 Aus. And conflicts between the apostles and Joseph Smith while Thomas Marsh is leading them. Some of these conflicts rub Brigham the wrong way. Uh, you know, Joseph Smith is having these run-ins with Thomas Marsh, but he's not taking it out on Thomas Marsh alone.

He's taking it out on the other apostles. After one, particularly harsh talking to from Joseph Smith, Brigham wrote, we are apostles and it's an insult for us to be treated. But even when Joseph Smith was railing against him, Brigham young never said a bad word against him or against Thomas Marsh or against any of the other leaders that he had conflicts with.

He kept his grievances private. He said, quote, how much fault have I found with Thomas B. Marsh, Joseph Smith or Sidney RMAN? I never opened my mouth. Even when they landed on me. A lot of this conflict comes from the fact that Joseph Smith is creating all these cool sounding offices and organizations without clearly delineating who is in charge of.

You have the 12 apostles. You also have the high council, the first presidency, the presiding Bishop, Rick, the presiding patriarch, and the church is brand new. And they're trying to figure out what all these things mean and who is in charge of who. So there is some jockeying for power. 

So as 1835 was a great time for the church. , 1836. Turns into a really rough time. Joseph Smith and other leaders of the church had tried forming a bank called the Curtland safety society. And at first this seems like a great idea. It creates a flood of economic activity and Curtland is booming.

Everyone is getting rich and happy, but then there is a national recession. It's actually more of like a depression. Uh, at the time, the word they used was a panic. And in this panic, the Curtland safety society fails. Uh, it basically collapses and everyone loses all their money.

 This is at a time the United States did not really have a central currency. So you had to get, different types of money from different banks. And so the Curtland safety society had been issuing their [00:34:00] own notes, their own. And, uh, when the bank fails, it all basically becomes funny money. It might as well be monopoly money.

It's not worth anything. And so this creates economic devastation and a lot of hurt feelings and a lot of conflict in the community when Brigham sees Joseph bank fails. So spectacularly, he has a moment of doubt, though not about his spiritual leadership. He says, quote, it was not about his revelations, but it was in relation to his finance.

But he quickly decides quote, if I was to Harbor a thought in my heart that Joseph could be wrong in anything, I'd begin to lose confidence in him until it last, I would have the same lack of confidence in his being the mouthpiece of the almighty. So once again, Brigham chooses absolute loyalty to Joseph Smith, even though at times he's being berated by Joseph Smith.

And even though he loses a lot of money in this financial crisis, he's still.

And that's a lesson to me. If you decide to commit to something or someone be willing to be just absolutely insanely loyal, no matter what or don't commit, that was the Brigham young approach don't commit to almost anything. But when you do commit, be all in, understandably, most people do not take that attitude. And a lot of people leave the church at this time. They take their stuff and leave Curtland and abandon the faith.

There is a lot of acrimony and a lot of divisions of the community at the time. One example is Brigham young get sued by a guy named Jacob bump. Brigham bought a property off him for $500 in Curtland safety society notes. And now those notes are worthless. So from BU's perspective, he's like, Hey, you swindled me. But from Brigham's perspective, it's like, well, what do you want me to do? People paid me in Kurtland safety society notes. Everyone has been paying everyone with these things. We can't just unwind all the economic activity of the last year.

 In fact bump had been one of the first people to buy and sell in Curtland notes. Anyway, they, they settled this conflict peacefully. But it's just kind of emblematic of the type of legal and interpersonal fights that were happening in Kirkland at the time.

In the end, Brigham young Joseph Smith and [00:36:00] other senior leadership of the church are forced to leave. Curtland in order to avoid creditors, apostates, and dissenters, who were increasingly angry , and making violent threats, there were immediate, incredible threats of violence. So they flee to the other gathering place of the saints in Missouri.

 Since Zion's camp, the Missouri saints had suffered even more persecution and violence from Missourian, but they had not been involved with the banking scheme in Curtland. And so there wasn't the same sort of anger towards the church and its senior leader.

From the membership. So Missouri was a safe space for them in one way, in that they had loyal friends members of the church there, but it was obviously not a safe space in that the non-Mormons there were particularly hostile. So they've already lost the temple and most of what they struggled so hard to build in Curtland and things would only get worse in Missouri at the time, Joseph Smith's right hand, man was a guy named Sidney Rigdon and he preaches something called the salt sermon.

He suggests that unfaithful members need to be purged out of the church. It's seen as very provocative, not only to wavering members, but also to non-members in the area who are always worried about violent reprisals, especially since Zion's camp in a follow up sermon, he says, quote, if that mob comes on us to disturb us, it shall be between us and them.

A war of extermination for, we will follow them till the last drop of their blood is. okay. Whoops. , , it's not hard to see why non-Mormons in the area would find that very provocative, basically a declaration of war. And I think with more, more Mormons migrating to the area, Sydney Riggin had maybe overestimated their relative strength, but they were still nowhere near as numerous as their non-Mormon.

And so unsurprisingly, this quickly turns from a war of words, into actual violence. There's a brawl, uh, and then Mormon reprisals as they burn some of the homes of suspected mobs. The Mormons are actually winning initially in this conflict, they're giving as good as they're getting at this point, but then there is a battle, the battle of crooked river it's between a Mormon militia and a non-Mormon militia.

It's really more of a skirmish than a battle. Only four people die in total. But what it does is draw attention to the governor of Missouri [00:38:00] Lilburn bogs, governor bogs hears that there has been a battle in his state. And previously he had been somewhat favorably disposed towards the Mormons.

He had at least wanted to keep a lid on things and had wanted to help where he could in mitigating attacks on Mormon settle. But when he hears that a battle happened in his state, he's now worried about this whole thing, spiraling out into an actual civil war. And so he wants the whole problem gone. Uh, so he issues a very famous executive order that is most commonly known as the extermination order or the Mormon extermination order in the most famous part of it.

It reads, I have received information of the most appalling character, which entirely changes the face of things and places the Mormons in the attitude of an open and a vowed defiance of the laws. And of having made war upon the people of this state, the Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state if necessary for the public peace.

All right. Well, it's usually not a good thing when your government declares that you and your people must be exterminated. So it becomes clear that, , the saints have to go are gonna have to find a new place again. , when it becomes clear, the saints are going to have to leave the mobs around them.

Start to smell blood. They form up and begin to attack rape, kill steal, you name it. They burn houses, farms and fields. 

, the most famous incident is the massacre at Hans mill, where a settlement is attacked. And so a bunch of people retreat and take refuge in a mill and the non-Mormon mob come and put their guns through any cracks and holes in the mill and start blindly firing inside.

They kill 17 people and decap it all off a 10 year old Mormon boy escapes and hides during the attack. And a member of the mob finds him and says, knits will make lice. If he had lived, he would've become a Mormon and puts his gun to the boy's head and blows it off. So, , you know, after, , these kinds of massacres, , there's no going back.

There's no making peace. Violence is escalating. And these various non-Mormon mobs and militia are starting to gather into a makeshift army. And it's looking like, , there might be, [00:40:00] you know, like some real ethnic cleansing. , so justice Smith realizes that he has no chance of defeating this army and he sends them a peace negoti.

But he makes a huge mistake. , he's afraid that if he sends trusted advisors like Brigham young, that they'll be kidnapped and held as bargaining chips. So he sends over defectors people who are known to not be loyal to him. Now, Joseph Smith was a master profit. Some of his religious insights are breath.

Thinkingly beautiful and insightful, but some of his non-religious leadership decisions were baffling. Brigham young later said . Joseph Smith's policy and temporal things was different from my idea of the way to manage them.

And coming from Brigham young, who adore Joseph Smith practically worshiped him. That's like a crushing indictment. Uh, in fact, I think it's probably the most negative thing I've ever seen him say about Joseph Smith. , but this is one of those incidents that really makes you question his non-religious leadership.

Like what you thought it was a good idea to send known defectors. To negotiate for you in this high stakes conflict. Well, unsurprisingly, these representatives of Joe Smith, double cross him as he should have suspected they would do so they come back and say, oh yeah, the Missourians are totally willing to negotiate with you.

, go see him tomorrow. So the top four primary leaders of the church go to negotiate with the Missouri army and are promptly arrested and hauled off to a jail in Liberty, Missouri, those four leaders are Joseph Smith, his brother Heru Smith, Sid Rigdon and Parley. with the leadership decapitated and the imbalance of forces.

Now overwhelming the Mormon militia surrenders, and are disarmed the Missourians. Start running through Mormon settlements, taking all their stuff that's worth anything and burning all the rest general Clark who leads the Missouri militia tells the Mormons. I would advise you to scatter abroad and become as other citizens.

In other words shows over here, folks abandon your religion. Stop trying to build this cool new city. It's over. It's. So things are dire. This is all happening in the fall of 1836. Winter is approaching and the Mormons have now been dispossessed to their property and cannot stay long [00:42:00] term under threat of violence and death.

They need to find somewhere new to go quickly before winter settles in. So Joseph Smith writes from Liberty jail to Brigham young and his friend Heber Kimble that the 12 apostles are now in charge. And specifically whoever's the oldest apostle should take charge and be the. He doesn't know who that is, but he says select whoever is oldest is president and he'll manage the 12 in managing the church while I'm in jail.

Brigham young had been the third oldest apostle, but one of the apostles senior to him had left the church and another one had been killed at the battle of crooked river. So by pure chance, Brigham young is now in charge and Joseph Smith. Isn't able to give him details. Instructions. He basically just.

Can you please figure this whole thing out. And obviously it couldn't be in worse circumstances. Where do you even start? You have thousands of people, nowhere to go and no resources to pay, to move them anywhere. I do think the average person, if they were put in this circumstance, the decision they would probably make is to put out a statement and basically say, Hey everyone, try to figure something out.

 But you all have to leave. Good luck. , but that's not what Brigham does. The first thing he does is go outside of Missouri, go to wealthier members of the church in other areas. And he secures funding from them. He says, look, the situation is dire. Why would you not help your fellow saints? So they all agree.

And he very effectively and very quickly raises a lot of funds. He also begins helping the saints in Missouri, sell their property at heavily discounted price. , it had to be heavily discounted because the buyers knew they were desperate. And, um, most of them, you know, had been participating in mob violence against them.

So they were not friendly, but still it's something he's getting some money for all their property. And as he's doing this other problems start solving themselves. The governor of Illinois offers refuge to the Mormons if they move there. So now he's got a place he's got the funds in mid-February 1839.

Brigham goes to commerce, Illinois. And with the meager funds that he has, he buys some tracks of land in the nearby. He organizes the saints and puts them in companies organizes their transportation, food, temporary housing, and all the logistics with the movement of thousands of people [00:44:00] from dozens of settlements to a new area in Illinois.

And it goes really well. , there's very little loss of life. , people are fed, people are housed, and this is the first time we truly get to see Brigham young as a genius of leadership and organization and logistics, which he, he truly was. This is genius level organization in, exceptionally difficult circumstances.

I think there's not one in a million people who could have pulled off this movement from Missouri to Illinois in those circumstances with essentially no loss of life and maintaining such a high level of organization, , despite constant harassment and violent attacks, the non-spiritual organization of the more movement had always been.

Not not good. People were having incredible ecstatic, spiritual experiences under the leadership of Joseph Smith, but logistically things, uh, were not functioning smoothly, but then Brigham young takes the reins just for a little bit and immediately everything works great. Despite terrible circumstances.

Having said that when Joseph Smith, escapes from jail, just a couple months later in April, he tells Brigham to stand down and he does no questions asked is now extremely obvious talent for leadership had not dented his loyalty to Joseph Smith in the slightest. 

And while Joseph Smith doesn't let Brigham young continue to run the church. He does give him an exciting new assignment. He sends a Brigham to England along with most of the other To oversee missionary work there. This is a great adventure for Brigham young, who had basically been on the frontier of America for his entire life. 

Now he gets to go to England and see the world, see castles and palaces and circuses and cathedrals for the first time It's a multi-month journey. And Brigham is horribly sick for most of it. And when he shows up in England, his first impression is to be shocked by the poverty of the English working class. 

 Now, remember this is someone who rarely had shoes or pants without holes when he was growing up. Sometimes eating dinner meant going out and shooting a Robyn. And yet he was just [00:46:00] gobsmacked by the poverty of the urban poor in England. And I think that tells you something about how horrible the conditions really were. The air was choked with smoke. People slept packed in tiny apartments, late sardines food was meager. Women were forced to work in factories alongside their husbands. Babies were so malnourished and cried so much. 

The opium use among babies was common to keep them I don't want to exaggerate. Because it wasn't all bad. Industrialization brought a lot of new luxuries and increased living standards for many, but for many others, it created truly hellish living conditions. Perhaps, because of how horrible these conditions where Brigham and his compatriots have a lot of success in England 

and they weren't just baptizing these people, but they're sending them back to the United States by the boatload. And you can imagine the appeal you're stuck doing factory work in Manchester or wherever, and suddenly a missionary comes and tells you that they're building the city of God in America. It's being led by a prophet and oh, by the way, if you convert, you can have a plot of land and plenty of materials to start a farm. 

The air and water are clean and the people are friendly. That's especially going to appeal to talented and enterprising Englishman who are nevertheless poor. 

I don't mean to downplay the importance of the religious message that they were sharing. And that was definitely at the core of why most people converted, but the economic factors certainly didn't hurt. 

So in England, Brigham young is having a lot of success with his message. He wrote to Joseph Smith quote. 

The people are very different in this country to what the Americans are. They do not seem to understand argument. Simple testimony is enough for them. They beg and plead for the book of Mormon. There is a great call for preaching in this region of the country. 

And that's great for Who, as you'll recall is not well-educated and doesn't Excel at complex arguments, but does Excel at connecting with people and forming friendships. But what he's really good at is leading the 12 apostles and organizing the church. Whereas there had been a lot of contention and infighting under some of his predecessors. 

Brigham was very good at massaging personalities, managing conflict and getting everyone on the same page and getting them to work together. The other thing he excels at is practical organization. He's overseeing the [00:48:00] acquisition of land, , the printing of church materials, . 

Including books of scripture and song and even a church newspaper. He's organizing congregations and organizing large scale migrations of people to the United States. 

In Brigham's time in England, which was in 1840 and 1841, he oversees the baptisms of nearly 8,000 converts. He was also able to completely clear up any lingering acrimony between Joe Smith and the apostles by doing pretty simple stuff like regularly checking in and soliciting Joseph's advice. In one letter back to Joseph, he wrote quote, if you see anything in or about the whole affair, that is not right. I ask in the name of the Lord. Jesus Christ. 

That you would make known to us the mind of the Lord and his will concerning us. 

And that sort of thing is working. It's just reassuring to Joseph Smith to know that these apostles. Aren't trying to jockey for position or authority or power that, you know, Brigham young really wants to know what he thinks and he's being solicitous and wanting to know his advice and his thoughts. 

It helps him feel comfortable with what they're doing. 

In fact in April, 1841. Brigham as well as the other apostles are called back home to Illinois, to a city that had now been renamed Nauvoo and this was the new gathering place for the church. Once again, in Brigham's absence, the church had run into some issues. 

So you're not going to believe this, but just like in Kirtland, just like in Missouri, people in Illinois were not crazy about becoming minorities in their own state, especially since the Mormons tended to vote as a block. So the neighbors are upset again. And once again, there are also divisions within the church. 

One reason is that the church is building a new, beautiful temple in Nauvoo. You should Google At temple. Uh, but it's costing a lot of money and the church is deep And the other reason is that Joseph Smith has privately started to teach some pretty radical ideas. Mormonism at the beginning. Had not been much of a departure from mainstream Protestant Christianity with the exception of the book of 

But it's basic. Cosmology the basic way that it looks at and understands the universe, God, and our relationship to him, the purpose of life, all of [00:50:00] that. It was not immediately obvious that Mormonism was very different from most Christian sets and most Christian thought. But in Nauvoo that was rapidly changing. 

So, um, here's some of the doctrines, some of the ideas that were really radical that Joseph Smith was starting to teach privately and were really upsetting people when they found out about him. The first is the idea that men and women truly are the children of God. , like the same species as God with the ability to become like him to become gods themselves. 

This doctrine has been paraphrased as the belief that as man now is God, once was, as God now is man may be. This wasn't fully preached until 1844, but, , it gives you an idea of the way things 

as part of that, there was this idea that God, the father, Jesus Christ in the holy ghost were three separate beings and not United in one as most mainstream Christianity believed. Mormon doctrine also asserts that God has a body of flesh and bones. Again, a very radical departure from what most Christians believe, who they, they conceive of God as a spirit being, uh, who has no body and no physical location. 

As you think about this logically, that means that there are many gods and goddesses out You know, if, if God, once was as man now is. That that logically leads you to believe that other people were also with him. And if we can become, as God is now, then that means. People are becoming like God all the time. 

Uh, so Mormons are still generally considered monotheists because we believe that there is only one God who we have anything to do with only one God who we pray to and worship. But technically speaking, Joseph Smith had begun to teach doctrine that suggested. That there were many gods out there. Uh, and that would have been very upsetting to a lot of people. 

Another radical doctrine was the idea of eternal marriage. Most Christians believed that in heaven, the righteous are like angels who eternally worship Joseph Smith asserted that under proper authority, husbands and wives could be sealed together in a union [00:52:00] that would last not only for time, but also after death and into 

And that brings us to the most controversial teaching of all that of plural marriage. Also known as polygamy. Joseph Smith asserted that God had commanded him to re-institute the practice of men taking more than one wife, just like David Moses and Abraham had in the old Testament, in the Bible. 

And, uh, of course just Smith is the first one to start taking plural wise. And so he, um, yeah, he's got more than one wife in Knoxville. And this, as you might imagine, was extremely controversial. Joseph Smith of course knew that this would not be popular and did not preach plural marriage openly, but performed plural marriages in secret and only taught the doctrine to a very few in his inner circle. 

In fact, uh, he never publicly acknowledged teaching plural marriage. And unsurprisingly, uh, it's still controversial to this day. Some people see in plural marriage, a thin excuse for Joseph Smith to have extra marital affairs while others view it as an attempt to live a religious commandment, 

despite intense societal disapproval. 

Whichever way you view it. It was not popular in many people when they found out about plural marriage, not only left the church, but became intense and ardent opponents of 

When Brigham young gets back from England, he's talking about plural marriage by Joseph Smith. He is of course taken aback by it. He later said, quote, At the time Joseph revealed the doctrine. I was not desirous of shrinking from my duty nor a failing in the least to do as I was commanded. But it was the first time in my life that I had desired the grave. 

And I could hardly get over it for a long time. And when I saw a funeral, I felt the envy, the corpse at situation. I think as he's taught plural marriage, he understands whoa. 

 But people are not going to let this rest, like this is going to create conflict for the rest of my life. But, you know, Brigham, he accepted every word that came out of the mouth of Joseph Smith, including these ones. So within a couple of weeks, he comes around and an 1842 Brigham young married his first plural wife and he takes him more in 1843. 

The fact that Brigham young was one of the first men talk about plural. Marriage shows that when he came back from England, he was for the first time truly in Joseph Smith's inner [00:54:00] circle.

In another sign of Brigham young and the apostles new place in Joseph's inner circle, they were some of the first people to be shown the new temple rituals that Joseph Smith was developing. , these were new, highly ritualistic ceremonies, more similar to a Catholic mass or a Masonic ceremony than a traditional Protestant church meeting. And they were to be carried out in the Nauvoo temple once completed. 

So, because of all this, the church is swirling with controversy, but Navu is actually thriving as a city. It's swelling with converts from all over the United States and from Britain, it's actually rivaling Chicago as the biggest city in Illinois, with more than 12,000 people in it. It's got this beautiful, nearly complete temple at its center, lovely homes, thriving industry, a flourishing civil society, entertainment, art. 

It's got it all and bring them as right at the heart of all of this. As a master Cassman, he's helping to build the temple as an apostle. He's helping to organize. Tonies and instruct the people. He is a part of justice Smith, inner governing council called the council of 50. And he's also on the city council. So civic, religious, economic 

He's at the middle of it all. 

But it's at this pinnacle of achievement, that things start to unravel. Several disaffected members of the church, start a newspaper called the Nauvoo expositor and publish an expo essay on Joseph Smith, plural marriages, and some of his more radical teachings. In retaliation, Joseph Smith has the Nauvoo city council put the paper on trial, declared a nuisance in order its destruction. 

Uh, posy of several hundred men stormed the building of the expositor and destroy their printing press. This really set off alarm bells for surrounding non-Mormons, who viewed this as a flagrant violation of the freedom of the press. And they viewed it as symbolic of Mormon disregard for civil . 

You know, They thought you got these bureaucratic wackos running around with their own political system over there. , this is the United States. This is supposed to be a secular Republic. , meanwhile, you've got this prophet. Running this town and he thinks that he is, you know, the judge, jury, and executioner. He is the beginning and the end of the law. And look, they weren't totally wrong. 

 For all intents and purposes, Navi was a [00:56:00] theocracy. , 

So it's not terribly surprising. Uh, that that made people uncomfortable. But so what you have is a repeat of Missouri. People are outraged. They petitioned the state governor who, uh, who hears about this printing press being destroyed and feels compelled to act. And eventually Joseph Smith is arrested 

but unlike in Missouri this time, there would be no escape. There'd be no release. A mob of men, their face painted to disguise their identities. Stormed Joseph Smith jail cell and killed him and his brother Hiram on June 27th, 1844. 

At the time of Joseph's death, brigham had recently arrived in Boston, Massachusetts. He had just recently been sent there on a mission by Joseph Smith. And when he first heard the news, he was totally despondent and momentarily entered a deep depression. 

He said he didn't cry, but the main physical expression of his pain was a crushing headache. Like he had never felt before. He wondered if the great project of his adult life was now finished, he had committed his whole soul to following Joseph Smith and now Joseph was dead. And bring them wondered if the church would go to the grave with him. 

But then he was seized with a sudden emotion that he took to be a revelation from God. That know the power and authority to carry the work forward, remained with the apostles and remained with him specifically. 

He was filled with a conviction that he and the apostles needed to take control of the church and keep the work going. Keep the church moving forward. 

He hurried back to Nauvoo while also writing to other apostles and encouraging them to come back as quickly as possible. Back in Nauvoo people were wondering what would happen. Now, the church was directionless. Everything had revolved around Joseph Smith and there was no clear air apparent. The most likely candidate to lead the church now was a man by the name of Sidney Rigdon. I mentioned him a couple of times. 

The highest governing body of the church was the first presidency. Originally that was a council made up of three people. Joseph Smith was the president, and then he had two counselors in the first presidency to advise and assist them. Sidney Rigdon was the first counselor in the first presidency. And so he had a very strong claim that he was the highest position in the church [00:58:00] other than Joseph Smith and was there for the proper heir to the throne. So to speak. 

But there was a few problems with Sidney Rigdon. One was that he was bipolar and went through huge mood swings. He also had about with malaria. And was frequently not healthy. The result was someone who was seen as unsteady and unreliable. The other issue was that Sidney Rigdon was not on board with all the new and radical doctrines that Joseph Smith had started teaching toward the end of his 

while he never formally left or turned against the church. He had been removed from Joseph's inner circle. They maintained a friendly relationship up until the very end. And in fact, Joseph never even removed him as first counselor. But Joseph never showed Sydney. The temple rituals didn't teach him the newest doctrines. And as time went on, he didn't include him in the most important meetings. 

So Sidney Rigdon did have a great claim, but he wasn't a slam dunk. There were a number of other potential leaders of the church and rumors, gossip and speculation were flying around. Naville it's interesting to read accounts from the time. It's a little bit like, uh, the beginnings of a presidential cycle here in the United States, right. Everyone is, , kind of placing their bets in this horse 

And people are bringing up different people that it could be. They're speculating. And it's interesting to read because if Brigham's name is mentioned at all in these early accounts, he's usually only mentioned like fourth or people did not consider him to be a strong contender to take over the church. 

So Sidney Rigdon had been in Pittsburgh when Joseph Smith died. So he was closer to Nauvoo and he shows up weeks before Brigham young does, and he starts openly campaigning to be Joseph Smith successor. There were a few apostles who were in Nauvoo and they were trying to slow him down a little bit because there's this division between the apostles who wanted to follow Joseph Smith's bold new vision, these new doctrines, new teachings. 

And Sidney Rigdon and others who wanted to follow the old steady kind of safer more traditionally Christian path.

So there are very different competing visions for the church. And everyone knows that it's ultimately going to come down to who the people choose to follow. So Sidney [01:00:00] Rigdon, schedule's a big event for August 8th. He's going to pitch the church on his leadership and ask them to vote on him as the new leader of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. 

But the apostles start complaining that, Hey, you can't do this without everyone here. So he makes some concessions says, okay, well, this August 8th meeting is actually just going to be a prayer meeting. And then he vacillates back and forth. So as well, maybe we'll vote on who the new leader will be. Uh, maybe it'll just be a prayer meeting, I guess. 

Um, so this meeting is going to happen on August 8th and it's ambiguous. What is going to Brigham young arrives in the Nick of time. He gets to Nauvoo on the night of August 6th. So just a day and a half before this meeting. And he's actually not invited. The apostles are sort of boycotting this meeting. 

And they don't want to give it. Uh, official sanction, basically. Um, and no one has a prized Brigham young, no one has told him that this was going Luckily for him on the morning of August 8th, he happens to be walking by when he sees. This giant meeting happening. All of these people streaming. To this one area where Sidney Rigdon is, uh, is preaching. So he stops in and listens as Sidney Rigdon makes his case. 

And his case is essentially that no one can take Joseph's misplace that there won't be another prophet like Joseph Smith. But that he, Sidney Rigdon would like to serve as guardian of the church. Okay. So, uh, You know, the days of, of Joseph and the prophecy you're over, but. I will be your guardian. 

Uh, he was generally a very persuasive preacher and many thought that he was about to carry the day with this speech. He was making a compelling case. And he's about to close and ask for a vote on the matter. When Brigham young steps out onto the stage. This sends waves through the crowd. Most people didn't even know that he had returned from Boston yet. 

And all of a sudden there appears Brigham young. And, uh, I, this to me is like a moment from professional wrestling. Sidney Rigdon is about to win it. The wrath is raising his hand. They're bringing out the championship belt and. W wait a minute. Is that Brigham Young's music. Oh my [01:02:00] gosh. Brigham young gives a short speech, but he says, look. 

I Ms. Joseph Smith. I wish that we were here just to mourn But some people here are power hungry and are forcing this issue of succession to be addressed immediately. So, you know what we will address it immediately. But he, and this is a great move. He really kind of big boys, Sidney Rigdon here. He says, 

Hey. , you're right. Okay. We can decide on this immediately since you're pushing it so much. But this isn't the right type of meeting. The logistics are all wrong. Uh, you don't have the authority to do this as you go through the apostles. In fact, none of this is set up right. For voting. We have a specific process. It was a real to Joseph Smith. 

You need certain people sitting in certain places. But don't worry all conduct a vote according to proper protocol. Why don't we all go home, eat lunch, and then we'll reconvene at 2:00 PM. We'll hear a few more words and then we'll conduct a vote. So, uh, everyone kind of agrees to this. This is really smart because he stops Sidney Riggins. 

Momentum. And he also now is seen as the authority figure of like, Hey, don't worry yet, guys. I got it. I'll organize all of this. So naturally he is now kind of viewed as the one who's in charge. You know, when you're voting on the future of the, of the church, that's a place you want to be. So when they reconvene at 2:00 PM it's Brigham's chance to speak and he gives a thundering speech. He wasn't the, uh, fluid eloquent. 

A well-reasoned logical speaker that Sidney Rigdon was, he didn't, you know, have the clear chain of argument. But he was charming, funny and powerful. 

 Brigham young argued that it was the apostles who carried the authority to leave the church after Joseph's death. In contrast to Sidney Rigdon who wanted to lead the church, as he said, as a guardian. , Brigham suggested that the apostles would become the new first presidency and continue to lead the church with all the same power and authority that Joseph Smith had. 

He's got a biting sense of humor. He's got a great line in there. He makes son of Rigdon for only wanting to be the guardian. He says, quote, do you want the church organized? Or do you [01:04:00] want a spokesman, a cook, a bottle washer. 

 I love that. Like, Um, uh, D do you want a profit or do you want a nanny? Cause that's what he's offering to do is be a nanny for the church. . And now when Brigham young was done, Sidney Rigdon had a chance to respond. 

And Sidney Rigdon, you know, he's looking at Brigham young Brigham, Young's got the, the other 11 apostles behind him. And so it seems like. He's got a lot of support. A lot of people behind him and Sidney Rigdon wants to show that he has support from others as well. It's not just him making this case. 

So, uh, so he doesn't want to give his rebuttal. He calls on a loyal friend and a prominent Mormon named WW Phelps to speak on his behalf. So Phelps gets Called on by Sidney Rigdon, but he was so moved by Brigham's That he spoke in favor of Brigham young taking charge of the church. And this is another wrestling move, right? The guy switches teams midway through the match. Oh my gosh. He's turning on Sidney Rigdon. What's this? He's putting him into a power slam. 

, amazing. Uh, so, I mean, at this point it's over, even the people that Sidney Rigdon is calling on to speak on his behalf. Our, uh, our defecting to Brigham young Brigham young, then calls for a vote and he wins in a landslide. Victory. It's nearly unanimous. It's August 8th, 1844. Brigham young is 43 years old. 

And he has just come from nowhere to become the leader of a movement with more than 25,000 followers. 

He has realized his dreams and taking charge of the only thing that he loves in life, which is, , this church, this message Mormonism. In part two, we will see how he uses his position to build a literal kingdom in the Rocky mountains. But let's step back for a minute and look at how he got Brigham was skeptical and reluctant to commit himself to anything. 

But extremely loyal once he finally did commit. He was spiritually powerful and honed his ability to move people on a religious level. He also had to borrow a phrase from Amazon. A bias for action. So this is the propensity to act decisively. Uh, as Napoleon said, first I attack, then I figure out what to do. Well, this was Brigham young to a [01:06:00] 

If there were two choices and one of them involved, the more study and information gathering . And the other involved direct action. He always preferred direct action. 

And in fact, Brigham young expressed as much in a letter, he wrote back to Joseph Smith from England. He said, quote, Our motto is, go ahead. Go ahead and ahead. We are determined to go till we have conquered every foe. So come life or come death. We'll go ahead. But tell us if we're going wrong. And we will write 

In other words. I'm going to act, I'm going to do stuff. Justice Smith. I'm not trying to upset So if I do anything wrong, I'm going to ask for forgiveness, but I'm not going to ask for permission. So tell me where I'm wrong, but I'm going ahead. And in many ways, I think this is the opposite of what people think of as a religious leader. 

I mean, what is it that makes religious leaders different in most people's minds? It's that they don't do things right. They don't do bad things. They don't do drugs. They don't lie. They don't steal. They don't make mistakes. That's what defines a Saint, right? They're perfect. They don't make any mistakes. 

But that was the opposite of Brigham young. He was action oriented and he would rather make mistakes. Then do nothing. 

So, for example, when Brigham young comes in and is put in charge of the Missouri Exodus, He doesn't start convening meetings, building consensus, or asking Joseph Smith for more and more details on exactly what he should do. He just starts gathering funds, selling property and moving people right away. He acts, when he stumbles on Sidney Riggins meeting, he doesn't say, Hey, this is happening too fast. 

Let's talk about this some more and vote on it later. He says, No. Hey, the other possibles need to be here. So let's have another meeting at 2:00 PM, but let's get this taken care of right away. So I try and remember that. I really liked that motto from Brigham young. Go ahead. And he always acted decisively. 

It's one of my big takeaways from how he had so much success. Go ahead. Okay. Uh, that's it. I hope you enjoyed part one tune in soon to hear part two on the life of Brigham young.

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Hello, and welcome to how to take over the world. This has been Wilson. This is part two on a series of the life of Brigham young, the prophet and president of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. First governor of the state of Utah and colonizer of the American west.  Just to remind you kind of where we left kind of the story off.

, in 1844, Joe Smith is murdered and it's not immediately clear. What's going to happen to the church that he founded and left behind. It's not clear who, if anyone will leave the church. But Brigham young returns from a mission out east says that the authority to lead the church is what the apostles and that he, as the senior, most impossible.

Um, has the authority in particular to be the leader? There's a big standoff with another church leader named Sidney Rigdon and, uh, uh, the church votes basically unanimously for Brigham young to lead them. And so he becomes the new leader of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints.

We're in the city of Nauvoo Illinois, which Joe Smith had established. And Brigham young has just taken control. He is 43 years old. Today, we're going to go through the rest of the life. Brigham young,  how he led thousands of people across the continental United States to establish a new state in the American west with a new people and a new way of life.

And, you know, you know, one of the reasons that I got into this story is because.  I think that is so interesting that he was able to do this, to build new cities, um, kind of kind of a new kingdom as is really probably the best way to think about it. And I think that's an opportunity that is more open and available than it has been since the time of Brigham young with the rise of remote work.

There has been a big increase in the number of people who are thinking about this and trying to do things in this arena of building new cities. Um, Um, or new states, new countries, new, new, new ways of living.  

And I'm friends with two of those people. Um, and so I guess I will dedicate this episode to them.  Uh,  Uh, Dryden and Kevin, I hope two of you are able to take inspiration from the way Brigham young was able to do things in, in his quest to establish this.  This new thing. Uh,  Uh, so let's get into it, but first a word from our sponsors. 📍  📍  

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 The first thing that Brigham young had to do was unify the church. So he becomes the leader and Sidney Rigdon, this rival leader who lost says, okay, well, forget this. I'm going to take the people who will follow me. And I'm leading, I'm starting my own thing. So he goes back to Pittsburgh. And starts his own church.  

And not that many people follow him, but if you do. And in the coming months, Brigham young would face other splinter groups as well as even more people who don't necessarily join splinter groups, but just sort of sort of wander away. Many of them would go to St. Louis, which was a BoomTown at the time and not very far away.  

So Brigham Young's first immediate goal is all right. Let's stop the bleeding. Uh, let's stop hemorrhaging people because at this point, the whole church, the whole movement is at risk of breaking up and falling apart.  This was made more difficult by the fact that just like in Ohio and Missouri, moms of non-Mormons were threatening to burn their houses and drive them out of the state.

Brigham is absolutely committed that this will not happen again. They've been driven out of Ohio and Missouri. But he does not want the same thing to happen in Illinois and he especially doesn't want it to happen right now. That would be too much change all at once. Right. You imagine you're a convert. Right. In England who has just converted to Mormonism and here Joseph Smith is dead.  Okay. If you also hear Nauvoo is destroyed and everyone is scattering, you probably start to think, okay. Party's over, maybe this was a bad idea. And, um, um, those types of situations can snowball and before, you know, it. you know, The whole thing is over.  

So for now, his priority is to keep everyone together. Don't get driven out. So the Navu Legion, which is their militia stays on high alert through 1844. Brigham young himself has armed guards, 24 hours a day. That's the state of heightened fear that Brigham young in particular and the church as a whole we're in, at the time.  

But throughout 1844, they're sort of able to keep the situation more or less stable. sort of  Uh, and in large part, I think that's because. Um, the people who had killed Joseph Smith.  Fi, but this would be the end of the movement. And so they're not super concerned with keeping the pressure up on the sort of persecution.

They think things are going to unravel now. Um, But it becomes clear throughout using 44. Uh, as Brigham young takes control that, oh, the Mormons are not breaking apart and leaving. So more needs to be done. Um, Um, so then something big happens in January of 1845. The charter of the city of Nauvoo is revoked  by the legislature of the state of Illinois. And that charter, which was essentially the constitution of the city of Nauvoo had been very generous. It allowed Navu to have their own mayor, their own city council established their own courts, have their own militia.

And someone has revoked. All of that becomes illegal. Essentially. They're not allowed to have their own courts. They're not allowed to have their own militia to defend themselves. They don't have their own government. And this is bad for a number of reasons. Number one is probably the physical protection from mobs.

Without the militia, you're not going to be able to protect yourselves. And, um, But another big thing is harassing lawsuits. So you got a bunch of people suing senior church leaders for damages and property. And you've got a lot of people trying to serve indictments or criminal charges. And without their own court system.

Even if Brigham young is never convicted of anything, his enemies are going to be able to ruin his life with dozens of lawsuits and criminal charges.

So starting in 1845. Uh, Brigham young in particular is vulnerable to arrest and the saints as a whole are  vulnerable to violent attacks, whether military or vigilante.  But for the time being what Brigham does in 1845 is essentially ignore this development. He keeps the Nauvoo Legion armed and ready, even though that's technically illegal now. And he ignores a lot of the subpoenas and lawsuits  

and just refuses to appear in court

In one particular case, some officials come and serve him and arrest warrant. And, uh, uh, he sends out a man, a friend dressed in his coat and top hat  who they then take the prison.  Uh, thinking that is Brigham young and they free him later that day, when they realized that they had been duped.

So, you know, So, you know, this is how close the calls are that he's literally having to send out. Uh, Uh, body doubles in order to avoid arrest.

So under this sort of siege environment, Brigham introduces some extra security measures. One of these is something called the whistling and whittling brigade. This is initiative to drive dissenters, apostates, criminals, and antagonists out of Naville. Um,

They're already kind of in hot water with the Illinois government. So they can't just kick out people and say, we kicked them out because they were critical of our religion. Um, So it has to be a little more clever about it. So what he does. Used to get these young men. To follow around these undesirables and they whistle.

Uh, and which is supposed to be obnoxious and annoying. And at the same time, they're whistling. They widdle. Uh, so they take out their knives and they carve some wood. And this is meant to be vaguely threatening. Right? You've got Right? people following you around whistling to annoy you and withdrawn knives.

While also maintaining plausible deniability. They're just whittling. We're just carving wood. I was not threatening him. Officer, uh, I don't know what he's talking about, right. Um, and this kind of initiative, um, works.  I mean, it sounds kind of sinister, but um, I mean, kind of it's, it's a pretty smart approach. It does intimidate these people. Many of them leave.

Um,  Um, You have these types of initiatives, because at this time, Brigham young, his leadership style changes 180 degrees. From what we saw in last episode, he had been very collaborative and inclusive and he got that leadership style from Jeff Smith. Joseph had been collaborative, inclusive, empowering, and very forgiving of other people.

But I think for Brigham Young's attitude. Now he says, well, well, look what they're at. Got him. They got him killed. So Brigham commits to act differently from now on, he's going to be authoritarian and come down hard on descent in order to ensure that you don't have these kinds of incidents in the future, you don't have the danger of.

Assassinations.  This works to keep the situation stable.

And, you know, you know, we'll see throughout this episode. Uh, this change has various consequences, some good, some bad.  

Um, Um, but all these initiatives that Brigham young introduces work to keep the situation stable through the first half of 1845. And then in August anti-Mormon mobs begin burning outlying settlements outside.  And then in the late summer, so August and September of 1845 Mormon start retaliating and they start burning the homes and crops of non-Mormons who were suspected mobbers. So what you're seeing is almost an exact one for one replay of what happened to the saints in Missouri.  So the governor of Illinois, his name is governor Ford. He's really committed to not letting a civil war break out. So he sends a state militia it's led by Steven Douglas, the famous statesman who would go on to have famous debates with Abraham Lincoln later in his life.

Uh, Uh, he comes to Nauvoo and he sits down with Brigham young and negotiates an agreement. And the agreement is that in the spring of 1846, The Mormons are going to leave. Nauvoo.  And what they get for that is Stephen Douglas basically says we will ensure your safety until then. So we'll make sure the mobs stay off your backs. If you will leave. As soon as spring comes.

And Brigham young grease to this.  As I said, he really wanted to keep everyone together. Um, but he knew that they were going to have to move on. Eventually. He just wants to be able to move on. Of their own accord. Uh, he wanted to be able to walk out and not be driven out. Uh, Uh, that was really important to him.  

One of the reasons that he wanted a little bit more time was to complete the Nauvoo temple. Now, this seems like kind of kind of an odd priority. You know, You know, you're about to leave the city. So why are you trying so hard to build this? Large decadent, beautiful building that you're not going to be able to use for very long.

But the latter day saints are very excited about these new rituals that we're going to be revealed in the temple. So they want to complete the temple and participate in these rituals before they have to leave, because who knows how long it's going to be before they complete another temple and are able to receive, uh, these rituals.

Also, they'd put a lot of blood, sweat and tears into constructing the step bolt. So I think when you've worked so hard on something, you just want to see the thing through, you want to see it completed, even if you're not going to be able to use it for very long.  So through the end of 1845, they're working hard to complete this temple and they do in November and December of 1845 and January of 1846, they're able to use it. There's this huge outpouring of spiritual enthusiasm as Brigham young standardizes and introduces the temple ceremonies that had been taught to him by Joseph Smith before his death.  

So people are literally cramming into the temple.  Day and night. Uh, they're conducting. Ceremonies at night as well. Uh, there's so many people who want to participate in these, in these new ceremonies.  And, um, um, there's a lot of celebrating their singing and dancing inside the temple. And Brigham literally goes and lives in the temple for a while. He's sleeping there. He's staying there day and night. Um,

Both because he wants to officiate these ceremonies for as many people as possible. And because he feels safe there, he's surrounded by friends. And so it's probably safe from assassination attempts or attempted arrests.

But at the same time that there is a spiritual outpouring, unfortunately, stephen Douglas wasn't fully able to follow through on his promises and mobs begin to attack the saints. Once again, in the late winter. Which is a little early, they were, they were supposed to have until spring.

To get out of the city.  So Brigham young realizes that they won't be able to make their plan departure time in the spring. So on February 15th, 1846, while the Mississippi river was still frozen over. Brigham young and the saints begin driving their wagons over the frozen ice. To temporary encampments on the Iowa side of the river.

Um, so Navi was right on the Mississippi. Uh, they're in Illinois, Iowa is just on the other side. So, uh, that was their agreement that they would get out of Illinois. So they crossed the river in February of 1846.  Some Mormons still lingered in Navu, especially those who were poor and maybe didn't have the resources couldn't afford to get a wagon and leave. But over the coming months, they were harassed. They were beaten. They were whipped. They were driven by the mobs and, uh, uh, by September virtually the whole body of the church was gone from Illinois.

The novel era of Mormonism was over.  um,

And this was when the Brigham young era of Mormonism would really begin. He was. Leading a people in the wilderness. Once again.

I should mention the. Not every latter day, Saint left Nauvoo most notably Emma Smith, the widow of Joseph Smith did not leave. She and her children stayed in Nauvoo she and Brigham fought and they fought ugly. They did not like each other at all. Uh, Uh, there's a big falling out. And part of it was that Joseph Smith himself had not had a great relationship with his wife right before he died. She was not happy about plural marriage about polygamy.

Uh, which he had introduced shortly before he was murdered, which I think is understandable. But also there were arguments about property. So just Smith had not really kept his property. Uh, very separate from the property of the church in general, it was unclear what belonged to him personally. And what was church property?

And so of course, when he dies. Emma says. It's all my property as his widow, it all belongs to him and bring him says, no, it all belonged to the church. And. Uh, the church could take custody of it.  

And so they have this falling out and Emma actually doesn't ever follow Brigham west. Uh, Uh, she, along with her children. Stayed in Nauvoo and established something called the reorganized church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. It was supposed to be the same church. Uh, Uh, she just believed that Brigham young had essentially stolen the church and that Joseph Smith intended for his sons to take over the church after he died.

And so in the reorganized church, which was always smaller  uh, than the segment you. Led by Brigham young. Um, Um, Joseph Smith, the third, the son of Joseph Smith became the prophet. Once he came of age, you still a boy at this time, but eventually he would become a prophet. And the reorganized church really? Deemphasized Joseph Smith's leaders teachings.

In fact, most of them. They didn't acknowledge. It just had ever taught. They dismissed them as inventions of Brigham young. Uh, Uh, they said they never happened.

But most historians agree that this is not true. Most historians agree that Joseph Smith did teach these things. Uh, Uh, but the reorganized church rejected plural marriage. They had no temple ceremonies. They didn't believe in plurality of gods or that men could become gods. They didn't believe in gathering to a single city and creating this earthly kingdom.

It was essentially. Uh,  Uh, mainstream Protestant church, the happened to believe in the book of Mormon.  I say it was, but the church still exists. It's now called the community of Christ.  And luckily for them at the time, they didn't get persecuted in the same way that Brigham and his followers did. And that's because they had ejected all the weirdness out of the church.  

And so the question is, um, why didn't bring them follow this path because it seems a lot easier, right?

And the answer is that he was obsessed with Joseph Smith and he was obsessed with following Joseph's vision. And, you know, you know, the primary thing in justice vision was creating a literal kingdom up, uh, people from this church, it wasn't enough to have just a church, right. With congregations all over the place, the experiment required an independent political entity.

And that is what Brigham young would spend the rest of his life fighting for.

And so if they had to endure.  Being on the road and during persecution and fights and all that. And that's what they would do.  

So in order to do that, they needed a new gathering place. Um,

So early in 1846. They're strewn out all over Iowa. Right? The orders were basically get out of Dodge, get out of Illinois. But there isn't a place to go yet. So Brigham young establishes a new meeting place in Nebraska. It's meant to just be temporary before they can find the final spot for their new kingdom.

And so the city is called winter quarters because they were just supposed to quarter there for the winter. Uh, currently it's just outside of Omaha. I think it's basically a suburb of Omaha at this point. Uh, but at the time, it's totally unoccupied.

And so he has all the Mormons go there. And once again, Brigham young is in his element. This was always where he shined. He's organizing people. He's having them move he's averting disaster. He's literally in the mud with people helping them push their wagons.

And I think it's really interesting to see how he's able to do this so effectively. Brigham Young's one written revelation has one message from God that silver found that it gets put in scripture alongside the Bible in the book of Mormon is basically an org chart. Um, Which is really interesting. Okay. So here's what it says. And I'm quoting here.

Let the companies be organized with captains of hundreds, captains of fifties and captains of 10. With a president and two counselors at their head under the direction of the 12 apostles. Let each company provide themselves with all the teams, wagons, provisions, clothing. And other necessities for the journey that they can.

But each company with their captains and presidents decide how many can go next spring. Then choose out a sufficient number of able-bodied and expert men to take teams seeds and farming utensils. To go as pioneers to prepare for putting in spring crops.  

Okay, so basic instructions. You had these captains tens, fifties, hundreds, and then a president in two counselors

Over each wagon train. So, um,  So, um,  It's not rocket science. Right. Right. But what it is is is very simple and it can be implemented very quickly. And very quickly provides just enough structure to help people know what to do, how to move, and also provides a very efficient reporting structure. If there's a problem, you only need, you know, you know, four or five conversations before it makes its way to Brigham young, to the very top.  

And this is great practice. Uh, Uh, the management consulting firm McKinsey put out an analysis in 2020. That the most agile organizations have no more than six layers of management. And that's not just McKinsey. You hear that a lot in consulting circles that the.  The optimal number. Um, for, for management layers is somewhere around 5, 6, 7. Um, it's pretty low actually. Sometimes you'll see a couple more.

Uh, depending on the organization.  

And Brigham young was not someone who was reading McKinsey reports or even the 1840s equivalent of McKinsey reports, but he did have a very intuitive understanding of what worked in effective management, especially in a crisis. So using this very bare bones, efficient organizing structure, he manages to gather the latter day saints to winter quarters.

There they plant crops and prepare to leave for the west in the spring of 1847, the spring next year. And I say the west Brigham young was pretty sure where they're going to go at this point, but a lot of people didn't know yet. There were a lot of potential places that they could go. Some people were thinking California, somewhere thinking Oregon, Vancouver island, Mexico. And of course a Utah where they did end up going.

And Brigham young says he has seen the place in division in he'll know it when he gets there.

Privately he's telling people it's probably the salt lake valley.

But as they're getting settled in winter quarters and getting prepared to take a journey the next year, It's a pretty tough year. Uh, Uh, that they spend in winter quarters. Everyone is just living in these log cabins. Right? Th they know they're not going to stay so they don't make any real efforts to make it nice and comfortable. Um,  it's just a halfway point and it's cold there's disease. Everyone is poor. They just left. Nauvoo under duress.

Understandably people are not in a great mood. So in the face of this difficulty, some people start to resist and challenge the leadership of Brigham young. And they're like, man, you have not got us in a, in a good spot where the Brigham. And what do you do when times get tough like this? I think for many people, probably for myself,

Um, The instinct would be all right. Let's be conciliatory. Let's be nice. Let's people aren't happy. Let's give them something. Um, but it turns out that's what weak leaders do. Strong leaders know that tough times. Or when you challenge your followers, so step it up and do more, do better. And that's what Brigham does here. He goes to the people and says,  

I know we're unhappy. And guess what it's, because you're wicked, you're not obedient enough to me and to God and you need to repent. And he goes on kind of this kind of barnstorming tour through winter quarters. Um, In the  first half of 1846. Um, I was actually just listening to an excellent podcast called the cost of glory, where the host makes the same point about Cyrus, the younger in Anabasis. Um,

Anyway, this old. Book about the Greeks. Uh, when things get tough with his Greek mercenaries. Uh,  Uh, this Cyrus, the younger challenges them, he doesn't make concessions. The toughest times are when you push your followers to do their best work. Not the time to go easy.  And this approach works that people are able to come together, unify, put aside their complaints and corals

and focus on the heart. Of why they're there, which is this spiritual commitment, this, this shared belief that they all have.  And so, um, so, um, once this happens, once people kind of.  You know, repent.  Are obedient or strongly following him. Um, Um, then in the second half of 1846, Brigham takes a much more measured approach.

And, um, um, and relaxes a little bit and emphasize a singing and dancing, raising everyone's spirits. In fact, at the time he says one of my favorite quotes. I want my favorite Brigham young quotes. He says the wicked have no right to dance, dancing and music belonged to the saints. Um, Um, I believe that. What do you think of this? I believe that.

Singing dancing or only for, for me and my homies. for,  I, When people, I, I don't like singing dances. It's wrong.  Um, well, Um, well, this time at winter quarters is very important for a number of reasons. Um, one of which is they're preparing to leave. Yes. But also.  It's the Mormon's first opportunity to openly live.

Plural marriage amongst themselves. So Nauvoo, it had always been hush, hush. hush, It always been a secret. Joe Smith was practicing it. He got his apostles and some top leadership of the church to also engage in plural marriage. But no one knew no one felt comfortable discussing it or being open about it generally.  

And in winter quarters that changes Brigham young is walking around with his various wives. He's got a couple of big log cabins that he builds where he's housing, multiple wives together, and these sort of big communal households. And a few other apostles are doing the same.

And it's not just plural marriage, but really Mormons have their first chance to live.  Completely to themselves.  W without having to worry about prying eyes. Right. In Missouri and Illinois, there were other settlements nearby, even though they had their own cities. But here in winter quarters in Nebraska.

They're literally in the middle of nowhere. I mean I mean nowhere. Um, And so they're doing lots of things, um, um, that are kind of different. kind of So bring them institutes, a new doctrine called the law of adoption. So the idea behind this as. Um, Um, okay. You're getting married to various women and taking them as wives.

And in.  Mormon parlance. That's called getting sealed. Okay. So. The ceiling you can think is like welding is another way Joe Smith described it. So getting welded to these women as wives, so that you're connected to them forever. These are eternal marriages. Well Well now Brigham young. Uh, rolls out this thing called the law of adoption, where you can get sealed to various men and take them as surrogate sons.

Uh, another way to connect to yourself. To people  that you, you know that you know and love. Um, But what this also is, is,  is you really seeing a pivot to what you might call old Testament Christianity no longer is the model. For how to live a good Christian life. Within this Mormon community. It's not. You know, You know, it's not Paul Wright who was kind of urbane, educated and celibate, as far as we know.

Um, Um, You get the idea from Paul that to him, maybe the ideal life is one that is detached from earthly cares. Impoverished. And dedicated entirely to prayer and praise and God. But the primary model for Brigham is not that. Um, he's trying to emulate. The patriarchs. Abraham Isaac and Jacob violent men with large households of wives, children, and servants.

um, so with this law of adoption, you know, you know, Brigham, especially Brigham young, but also other senior apostles and leaders in the church, like Heber C Kimball, Parley, Pratt. They're forming these little tribes.

They've got all these, you know, adopted sons. Sometimes those adopted sons have adopted sons. Uh, people try to conduct business within their tribes. Uh, sometimes people even speak in that way. They talk about the tribe of Brigham. Um,  or the tribe of Heber, right. Are they trying to do favors for those that they've adopted?

They're basically establishing patronage networks.

And it's interesting to see, you know, in some ways Brigham young you know, is in the same circumstances as Moses. He's leading a people in the wilderness, taking them to a promised land, trying to ensure their survival and their obedience to God. And he responds to the similar circumstances by developing an old Testament theology.

And an old Testament way of life. Um, Um, so maybe it really is as simple as, so circumstances kind of kind of dictate. Uh, the beliefs and practices of many religions.

You know,  You know, that law of adoption is wouldn't survive for very long. It's not practiced anymore. And Mormonism. Um, and it wasn't practiced for very long. But I think it's interesting. That the precedent is there in Mormon history and doctrine. And it's interesting to me to see. Brigham young.

Trying to branch out into something that was truly.  Unique, truly very different and weird. Uh, compared to what American Christians were used to.

And by the way, you know, how does this work? Can only a few people be Abraham's. Uh, Brigham young has a good quote where he lays out kind of the. The fractal nature of how this was supposed to work. He says, and I'm quoting here, say that I'm ruling over 10 sons or subjects. And soon each one of them would have 10 men sealed to them.

And then would be ruler over them. That would make me ruler over 10 presidents or Kings.  So in other words, these people had been worried like, okay, so I want to be a president or a king. So, So, if I'm sealed to you as your son, Brigham, does that mean I can't be one anymore? And he says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

This kind of works like an endless network, right? It's like a, it's a pyramid scheme.  The Mormon love for pyramid schemes runs a really deep right. Hundreds of years old. Um, but kind of  that's kind of his theology. Um, That, that would be the main thing that Brigham young tried to preach over the course of his career was this theology of increase that we're here.

Um, To improve the world and to increase in knowledge in learning. In power in, in family.  um,

No we're supposed to. Improve and increase our property and our towns and our communities. Um,

And, you know, It makes sense. That is a really great theology. For people who are about to be. In the middle of a wilderness and trying to build a new kingdom. Out of scratch. So, um,  So he's teaching all this. And then in 1847, the first company leaves from winter quarters and they now know basically where they're going. Although interestingly, Brigham young is still not saying exactly where they're going.

But more or less, they're headed for Utah. And bringing me on leads, the first company. It's made up almost entirely of healthy young and middle-aged men. This is not supposed to be a normal migration. Like the ones that would come later. This was a trailblazing expedition they're supposed to not only go to Utah and set up camp, kind but also kind of make the map, find the trail set up. Markers established ferries, Fords, and mountain passes, measure distances.

Uh, stuff like that stuff that will make the journey easier for those who come after.  And so this is set up with military precision. Everyone gets up at 5:00 AM. They walk until 8:30 PM and are in bed by 9:00 PM. They have very regular prayer meetings. Uh, Uh, the average 15 to 20 miles a day, which is pretty good.

Uh,  And last episode, I talked a little bit about this very unique American environment that Brigham young came from where kind of this entrepreneurial spirit. This ingenuity was really widespread. And you can see that on display in this journey. One of the things I found most fascinating is there's a camp scribe, a guy by the name of William Clayton, and he collaborated with an apostle named Orson Pratt who had a little bit of mathematical training.

And they got a carpenter in the camp to create a primitive odometer that designed it up and got them to build it. And this little thing could attach to one of the wagon wheels and it would click and it would track. Uh, the number of, of wheel turns throughout the day. And they use this odometer to get a measurement of how far they had traveled each day.

And it was pretty good. It was pretty accurate actually. Uh, people have looked their measurements and.  It was pretty accurate. So, I mean, to me, that's just So, I mean, amazing. Uh, that they were able to. To do that. You know, kind of with. A little bit of wood and some duct tape. Metaphorically speaking, um, um, with very little materials.

I was just very impressed by the ingenuity. So they're headed out and they make it most of the way there. Uh, they're in Wyoming when they're met by a man named a Sam Brannan. Sam was a leader of a group of Mormons who had been , uh, on the east coast basically. And rather than trying to cross the Plains, they had made the voyage by ship.  

They boarded a boat called the Brooklyn and sailed all the way around Cape horn, up to San Francisco.

And they land in San Francisco and their leader. Sam Brandon looks around and thinks well, We don't need to go any further. We have found paradise. This is where we should be.

And if you've ever been to San Francisco, You know, You know, why, you know, you know, even take out all the buildings. Everything that's been built is just some of the best land on earth. It's beautiful. It's got terrific weather, a natural Harbor, good farm land. I mean, If you're a settler. That's where you want to land. So Sam comes out to Wyoming and basically says, Brigham. Um, Um, I'm hearing all this nonsense about Utah. You gotta be kidding me, man. This California place. San Francisco. It's amazing. Can't stop a new.you got to keep going. And Brigham says, no, we're going to Utah. And it's interesting to hear why he chose Utah specifically instead of California, Oregon, listen to this quote about Utah. He says,  

There are no locations, less desirable than this for any other purpose than the one for which we have selected it. Not for its intrinsic value in a pecuniary point of view. But in order that we might enjoy our religion in peace, preserve our youth in virtue and be freed from the insults abuses and persecution of our enemies.  

So in other words,  Sam. I hear you, California. It sounds amazing. But we are intentionally going to the middle of nowhere.  um, And that, so that no one will bother us so that we have a chance to live out this religious experiment in peace. And look, Utah is actually a pretty nice place. Um, Um, but it is the desert and is very remote and very undesirable compared to California and Oregon. And some of the other places that they could have settled.

Uh, there's another good quote from Brigham young, where, uh, this pastor comes to Utah after it's been settled. And, uh, it says. uh,  Three of them and knowing the Brigham has a religious man, he says, uh, Brigham, it's amazing. What you and God have been able to do.  uh, With, uh, with this valley.  And a Brigham gets a little smile and says,  

Yeah, well, well, you should have seen it when just God was in charge of it. Um, Um,  And it's true. Like Like Utah's nice. But it's the desert and it is very undesirable. Especially compared to California and Oregon.  So from Wyoming, Brigham ignores Sam Brandon's please. And they set out again for Utah. It's relatively uneventful. There are no adverse events, except for at the very end, Brigham gets something that they call mountain fever. It's probably a tick-borne disease, nothing too serious, but basically he has the flu for the very end of the journey. So when they get there to the salt lake valley,  uh,

He's laid up in the back of a wagon. And, um, um, they pull up, they show Brigham the valley. And Brigham says that he's had this vision of the exact place where they need to end up. So he looks out over the salt lake valley and says, this is the right place. Drive on.  

So, this is a very famous moment. In Mormon lore in Utah history in the retelling it's often shortened to this is the place. He actually said, this is the right place, but okay. That's fine. This is the place. And there's a park at the spot called this is the place park actually used to live right by it.

And it's in the state song. This is the place. So that's a famous moment from, from Brigham young life. This is the place. So they pull into the salt lake valley and for a month, Brigham young recovers from this illness and helped lay out the roads divides the area into plots of land helps build some cabins. They raise a flag.

And then he doesn't stay. He goes back across the trail. They just blazed to winter quarters. And for the next two years, he keeps going back and forth. So throughout 18 47, 18 48, he leads various wagon trains from winter quarters  to salt lake city. Um, Again, this is really where he shined, organizing these mass movements of people.

Uh,  Uh, this is probably Brigham young at his peak.  Migration is incredibly successful in the face of a lot of dangers and difficulties. The vast majority of saints made it safely. You know, they had to worry about wild animals, about bad water. Uh, finding food. Uh, Uh, native Americans that were often not friendly.

Um,  Crossing rivers and streams. Adverse weather events. Um, Um, but the sign, all this, according to one book I read, I think it was Brigham young and the expansion of the Mormon faith by Thomas Alexander. The death rate for Mormons on the Mormon trail was actually lower than the death rate for the United States as a whole.

Uh, in other words, you were safer following Brigham young on the Mormon trail than you were just, you know, Being a Jack or Jill out in New York. And that says a lot about how successfully Brigham young manages this migration.  Now this whole time, Brigham young has been leading the church as the senior apostle of the quorum of the 12 apostles.

But it's around this time that Brigham young decides that this isn't working.

It's not working for him to just be another apostle. I'll be at the senior most one, but not really differentiated that much. Uh, Uh, Parley Pratt and John Taylor are two apostles who come out in the first Vanguard company. In the Brigham Young's absence, they have been directing affairs in salt lake city.

Which is fine. They're good leaders, but it's not long before some minor conflicts arise, differences of opinion, slightly different visions. And it just becomes clear to Brigham young that look not just with me. We're going to have all sorts of, of these. You can't have 12. People all equal.  Running an operation like that just doesn't work. You got to have one person who is in control.

So.

So in the winter of 1847, he decides to reorganize the first presidency. Which was this, uh, institution at the very top of the church, even above the apostles, you know, you know, Joseph Smith was the president in the first presidency. He was a prophet. And he had two counselors.  And so Brigham young wants to bring this back with himself as president. And at first this is a post by the apostles, especially the brothers Parley, Pratt, Orson Pratt.

And, um, um, you had to be approved by the apostles in order to happen. So it's not looking good.  So he embarked on this campaign to persuade them, to reorganize the first presidency and declare him prophet of the church.  And this is where you see how much Brigham young has changed since Joseph Smith's death.

you know, Previously, you know, when he was in charge of the apostles in England, he was known for resolving conflicts, very peacefully for managing to accomplish things without ruffling feathers. But here. He takes the complete opposite approach. He basically brow beats the apostles into reestablishing. The first presidency.

When Pratt tells him all the apostles are equal. Brigham says wrong. I am the mouthpiece. You are the belly. That's an actual coat. I'm mouthier the belly. Nice. Um, and about Parley Pratt and John Taylor, he says, I shall make Parley Pratt and John Taylor bow down. And confess that they are not Brigham young.  

He and probably have a big falling out over this. And when Parley finally relents and asks for forgiveness, Brigham responds, I forgive you. But I swear to you, I shall whip you and make you stick to me.  So his leadership style has changed significantly to say the least, but it works. I mean, I mean, he. He becomes president. He become, you know, he gets through first presidency, just like you wanted.

And, um, um, I do think on some level, this goes to show that you can't replace talent.  If you're one of those great leaders are gonna figure it out, how to get it done one way or another. And with a man like Brigham young,

uh, Uh, he'd get it done both the nice way and the ruthless way, whatever it took.  So, So, uh, uh, yeah, winter of 1847, Brigham young becomes president of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints. Um,

And out in, uh, uh, And what we now know is Utah. They very quickly establish a government. They call it Deseret, which is a book of Mormon word. That means honeybee. And petition the federal government to become a state. They quickly realized that that won't happen. So they send a new petition to become a territory And they are granted territorial status though. The us government rejects the Mormon name of Deseret that was like, oh, little funky, a little weird. Uh, Uh, so instead they named the territory, Utah after the, uh, native American tribe that was most prominent in the area, the Utes, and they appoint Brigham young as territorial governor.  

The first thing they're bringing me on has to worry about. He's getting people established. Economically. No. I say economically, we think of economics. We think of money. Um, But it's not so much about money is it is about like, not starving. Uh, they need food right now. So, you know, So, you know, even though Brigham young is primarily a religious leader, supposedly he's not very focused on religion for the first few years, he's focused on farming on building sustainable communities.

Um, and for a few years, you know, people are living. Britt and close to the starvation line. Um,

. So this is not, you know, you know, something with low stakes. This is high stakes. Um,  they're, So they're, they're digging canals. They're planting crops. They're. Uh, Uh, doing everything that it takes to, to survive.

Now one problem with, uh, becoming a territory, not a state, is that territories? At the time and I think still are administered by the federal government in Washington. So that means they don't have any local government.  So Brigham young is the territorial governor because he's appointed. The territorial governor by the president.

But they don't have a locally elected government. And that means that in addition to Brigham young,  There are people who are appointed to the government as judges and officials. And they're not Mormons third east coasters. They're Americans. They're non-Mormons.  

So in 1851, there's this judge,

His name is  And he comes out and at first he's open to Mormons. He thinks they got a raw deal in Missouri and Illinois, and he comes and, you know, you know, he's trying to be open minded and.  Of course, you know, you know, if you're going to come be a judge, uh, you like to get along with the people that you're supposed to be living amongst.  

But he gets out to Utah and he can see. They're practicing polygamy, which the Mormons were not open about yet.  And he can also see that it's a very theocratic state and their allegiance is more to each other, to the church and to Brigham young than it is to the United States of America.

So he's got these two things in mind. Polygamy  and this religious allegiance.  So he gives a speech and in the speech, he says, you know, let's all work together to make this place better. And before, you know, it, you know, you all are going to be patriotic and law abiding and your women will be virtuous.  And that was the wrong thing to say. The Mormons interpreted it as him saying that as a stands, your men are traders and your women are whores, but I can fix all that. So after a speech, Brigham young stands up and gives a fiery rebuttal.

And he says that This is either profoundly ignorant or corruptly wicked. We love the government and the constitution, but we do not love the damned Rascals who administer the government.  And then he says, You know, He's talking about bronchus and he says, Uh, look. I'm going to keep my comments pretty mild right now.

Uh, I'm not going to say anything that could lead to the pulling of hair or cutting of throats.  Okay. So officially he's trying to.  Temper his words, lower the temperature of the room.  He doesn't want these things to happen, but it has the opposite of the intended effect. Bronchus hears this and thinks, wait, I'm sorry. Cutting throats is on the table.

This is not what I signed up for. So he thinks his life is in danger. And so he and the other judges flea, Utah, and go back to the, to the states. Uh, those officials who flee come to be known as the runaway judges. And Brigham young and others write to the government Um, Let's try and get ahead of the story. They know this Brock has guys can go back and say,

Brigham young threatened my life and I had to get out of Dodge. So they say, look, this guy was no good. Um, They didn't understand us. We didn't like them. Can you please send us some new friendlier judges. And miraculously, this works. Uh, it's not worth the government's time to fight these people, honestly, from the us government's perspective.

This was like not great land. They thought it was gonna be hard to get people to settle there. So the fact that these Mormons are doing the hard work for them of settling you doc. They're happy to let them do it. So, um, So they send them new judges. Uh, those judges fleet and bring them in the Mormons, get some friendlier judges in their place.

And so, um, so, um, The 1850s, uh, early 1850s are.  Are pretty good. Uh,

st. Starting to get established. There are fledgling towns with public buildings that are starting to pop up. And so Brigham young decides that this is the time. To announce polygamy to the world and, uh, uh, and let them know what they're doing. So in 1852, the church publicly. Announces that yes, we practice plural marriage.  

And I don't know that there is any great way to make that kind of announcement. Um, but if there is. They did not figure it out. Uh, Uh, this announcement does not go particularly well. A lot of people leave the church and missionary work basically grinds to a halt. Previously people had been able to dismiss polygamy as nothing more than a rumor.

But now that they know it's real. Most people think that is very weird. They find it very odd.

And so, so, uh, uh, yes, they're able to live how they wanted to live now fully, publicly, openly, but it comes at a high cost.  

Um,

So Brigham young is teaching plural marriage, finally offering kind of theological defenses of plural marriage mites. Why it's necessary. And at this time, Brigham young is introducing other doctrinal innovations. One of these is called the Adam God theory.

So, So, this is a theory that is. Uh, quite difficult to understand. Brigham young was not a theologian.

So the Adam God theory was. Frankly, never totally coherent, but the gist of it was this.  

Adam the first man. Is God.  The, he was God, our father and took human form in Adam much in the same way that Jesus was also God in human form. But, and this is where it gets complicated. Uh, he grants, the Adam is not Jesus. These are separate people, nor is he. God, the father, as, as people. Typically think of God, the father.

Uh, in one passage, he describes it as God. The father, Jesus, the son and Adam, the grandson. Uh, so kind of like a third God. Lower. Um,  So, you know, mind you, this is in the framework of.   Uh, theology where anyone could become a God. So, uh, people are gods in embryo. Like, there's not the same distance between God and man that most religions put there.

So there's room for gods all over the place, I guess. I guess. But it's still unclear to most Mormons who are used to the classical Trinity, the Godhead.  They're used to the father, the son, and the holy ghost. And now you're telling us that there's the father, the son and Adam, you know, it's weird. And the apostles were not totally comfortable with it. Some of them never get on board. Most notably Orson Pratt who goes around and says, I don't know what Brigham's talking about. This essentially not true. And that leads to some, some, some pretty big conflicts between Orson Pratt and Brigham young.

And finally in 1857, Brigham. Kind of Kind of admits the feet on the Adam God theory. He says, quote, whether Adam is the person that we should consider our heavenly father or not is considerable of a mystery to a good many.  And, uh, that's as good as an apology as you ever get from Brigham young. uh, It's basically his way of saying, all right. right.

I'm going to leave this alone. Um,  It's a, it's a tough doctrine.  He also teaches a new doctrine called blood atonement.  Which is this idea that there are certain sins that are so grave, that the only way that you can ever be forgiven for them is by having your blood shed. So the example that would probably make most sense to the most people is murder. If you murder someone, the only way to get forgiveness for that is to yourself be killed.

And so, you know, lots of people believe in capital punishment for murder, so, okay. Fine. People can buy into that. But he also says that blood atonement might be necessary for sins like apostasy or adultery. And.  I know very few people who think that if you, if you cheat on your wife, you should be killed.

Well,  Well, actually, now that I say it out loud anyway, there are very few, if any examples of people abusing this and murdering adulterers in Utah, but what you do have is people who may be. Use it as an excuse when they already want to do someone harm.

Anyway. Uh, much like Adam, God theory, blood atonement would not survive long. Brigham young was great at building institutions, building towns and cities and building businesses, but he was not great at. Building doctrines at. Establishing new ideas in a religious context.  So the church, Jesus Christ of latter day saints has officially repudiated blood atonement. They did so all the way back in the 19th century. And then once again, in the 20th century. So.  So.  

Um, those, but those, those are the two major attempts he makes it, uh, Doctrinal innovation.  Uh,

Throughout the early 1850s Brigham's family is rapidly expanding by 1858. He has a 47 children. Living across a number of houses throughout salt lake city and beyond actually a couple in Provo. I think.

And he needs novel arrangements in order to manage a family of that size as you as you can, imagine. Right. I mean, I mean, that's a question I'll have, you will have is when you have that many wives in that many children, just like, how do you do life? So one way is that he builds two houses called the beehive house and the lion house.

And these are very big houses. They still stand. Uh, Uh, they're still there in salt lake city. You can go take a tour of them and see what, what it was like. Uh, I recommend it. If you're in salt lake city, go to the lighthouse at school. And so he had, you know, some families, the wife of Brigham young would say, I can't live with all these women. And so he would say, okay, we'll figure out a situation for you. And they would get set up in an individual house for that wife, with her children.  

But other women, uh, found that lonely, right? To live.  In a house, basically a single mother with no husband there.  And so they liked this communal living arrangement of these big houses. And so they had two big houses where you would have up to 12 wives with their children living there.

Family life is very complicated with that many wives. And, uh, uh, there were politics, conflicting personalities, jealousies, and all sorts of difficulties. Um, Um, one of the ways that Brigham managed it was.  With this sort of military discipline, right? So there was family prayer at a very certain time.

And he would send out the call and everyone had to be there. And, um, um, you know, you know, when you have that many children, you kind of have to be very. Efficient about things. You have to run things like an assembly line. And he would set budgets for each of his wives. It is, you know, you know, I guess I can't get too deep into it here, but it is interesting to read about.

Um, How you manage that type of household. And the short answer is kind of you kind of manage it like a business. That's kind of how I kind think of it. Um, so it's complicated, but to be honest, It mostly works. And

despite these complications, domestic life is mostly a source of joy for Brigham in his life. In the 1850s.  

At this time he establishes a company called the Brigham young express and carry company. It was often shortened to the Y X company, young express by X and it transports mail, freight and passengers from Missouri to California. Um, and obviously it makes a stop in Utah.

So basically Mormon converts. Who were baptized either in the us or in England or other places in Europe. Uh, Uh, they had to make this journey. So in order to get there, They needed to be resupplied along the way. And they needed wagons and, and all this stuff. And so Brigham young things. I don't love that when these people are coming out to Utah.

They're getting all this stuff. They're getting all these supplies from non-Mormons. I'd like to keep it all in the family. So to speak, like to be working, giving our money to each other. And helping build things up. So he builds this Y X company to transport people from Missouri to Utah. And help supply them so that.

You know, You know, they're buying supplies from, from from, from Mormons. Instead of non-Mormons the company also gets a government contract to transport mail and deliveries, and the Y X company, um, um, was quite successful. At least initially it was profitable. Did well for Brigham and did well for the saints, help them, uh, get across the Plains. uh, But so he's got all this stuff going on. And while his mind was so concerned with transporting people to Utah and getting them set up in these new towns and cities and, and getting them to, to live in economically viable towns, the religious aspects of life had really come to be neglected.

So Brigham looks around and finds out that some of these towns are not even having church meetings. No church meetings in this explicitly religious kingdom, right? This, this community they're trying to set up. Uh, the people are, are so concerned with. Um, building their farms and getting food that they're literally not even having church.  

So Brigham is afraid that they're going to lose their way, lose sight of their unique mission. So he kicks off something called the Mormon reformation. Essentially Brigham young and as counselors and some of the apostles. Go round and they start giving these fiery sermons. They're calling people to, to repent.

Uh, He's telling them you forgotten God. He encourages people not to drink alcohol, not to smoke tobacco. Uh, they encourage people to get rebaptized and recommit themselves to God. That's how bad things have gotten, you know, you're, you're you know, you're, baptized to wash away your sins. Well Well guess what. It's not going great.

So you need to be baptized again. Uh, along with rebaptism they're encouraging plural marriage And the number of plural marriage is skyrockets at this time, at the time of the Mormon reformation.  And this is beginning really in the fall of 1856, cause 1856 in 1857.

And this is timely. It's good that he fortified the people's faith because he was about to deal with the most serious crisis of his tenure in Utah. War was about to come to his doorstep.

The buildup to the Utah war starts early. They have the runaway judges of 1852, which we talked about, then they basically have friendly judges that are acquiescent and everything goes smoothly from 1853 to 1855. But 1955, there's a judge named William Drummond. Who's appointed to be the chief judge in Utah.

uh, And, uh, he was not a good choice. He leaves his wife back east and he comes out to Utah.  With a prostitute as his companion.  Now, uh, you can probably imagine how this goes over with a highly religious people, uh, who are.  Specifically in this area to be living out their religious commitments. Right.

So Brigham young calls, Drummond, and this is publicly. Uh, quote, as a vein, as a peacock and as ignorant as a jackass. So things get off to a great start. Uh, Uh, then there's an incident where apparently Drummond assaults a man. So, uh, So, uh, the Mormons are threatening to prosecute him in local courts and throw them in jail. So Drummond runs back to Washington, DC and starts telling everyone who will listen about this dangerous theocracy that Brigham young is running out in Utah.  

He's telling everyone that he's the defacto Monarch, he's the king of the territory.  Which sounds scary and is honestly kind of true. kind of Uh, and obviously at this point, he's not the only one telling me stories. There are other runaway judges and there are other officials who had bad experiences in Utah and had access to grind.

So a opinions in Washington and on the east coast are not a. We're not very favorable. So the Mormons at the moment.  And then there's an election in 1856. In an 1857, James Buchanan becomes president of the United States and Brigham young sends him a letter. It sends him a bad letter. He does a bad job.

I think Brigham has managed to run so many judges out of Utah. For so long that he's confident in himself, maybe a little overconfident

She doesn't like, okay.  What are they going to do to me? Right. I'm in control here. So, uh, I'm gonna tell them how it really is. So he sends his letter to James Buchanan. He essentially says, you know, you know, congrats on the election, blah, blah, blah. Um, by the way, can you stop sending these corrupt judges?

Anyone who comes out here who's corrupt will be severely punished and sent back to you. So, um, So, um, let's just cut to the chase and why don't you send us some good judges? And also by the way, can you stop stationing soldiers out here? We don't like these soldiers and I don't think you have the authority to do it. So cut it out.

And so it seems like he's flouting the authority of the federal government and in a way he is. So the beginning administration starts to get concerned from this letter and they start asking around Washington. Like  Like okay.  What's going on with these Mormons. And, uh, uh, well,  well, who are the people who know anything about the Mormons who has been out to Utah?

It's all these runaway judges and officials, and boy, did they have some things to say about Brigham young? So James Buchanan and his administration hear all these things and he convinces himself that Utah is in a state of rebellion.

He gets a bill through Congress that authorizes the creation of an army of two and a half thousand soldiers to go escort a new territorial governor to Utah, to replace Brigham young and enforce federal rule.  When Brigham hears this.  He sends the territory into a state of emergency.  At first he's defiant. He says they kicked us out of Ohio. They kicked us out of Missouri.

They kicked us out of Illinois. They cannot move us from here. We have nowhere left to go. We're going to stay and fight.

And I think you can see his point, right? Like how many times are we gonna have to do this? Like, Like, we can't just kind of keep running every time at a certain point, you kind of gotta draw a line in the sand.

And so they implement some emergency measures. They form a militia start trying to recruit native American allies and cease all commerce with non-Mormons and they make the decision that okay.  We probably can't fight these people. It's literally the U S government. We don't have enough men to fight them.

Uh, standing army to stand the army. Uh, two and a half thousand soldiers, which by the way, would eventually swelled to over 5,000 soldiers. A full third of the entire us army. And, uh, and they can't beat that even if they could have beat that. That would just provoke an even larger response from the us government.

So instead they decide to try to stall and delay this army.  

They're going to burn grasslands so that the Army's horses and oxen don't have anything to eat. They're going to harass their supply trains and destroy their supplies. And if that doesn't work. Brigham commits to the Russia strategy, right? If you remember Napoleon and Russia, Brigham says, and this is a quote. I shall lay this building and ashes.

I shall lay my dwelling houses in ashes. I shall lay my meals and ashes. I shall cut every shrub and tree in the valley, every pole, every inch of board and put it all into ashes. I'll make a Potter's field of every canyon they go into.  

So in other words, he's saying, if you guys come here. There's going to be nothing for you to take control of.

We're going to start by making it impossible for you to come out here with, with all of our harassment and these, these kind of lightening strikes to take out your supply trains.

But if you do make it out here, you're going to take command of a pile of rebel and that's it.

Uh,  Uh, this kicks off of very bad time in terms of relations between Mormons and non-Mormons in Utah. It was mostly Mormons, but there were some non-Mormons  uh, and, uh, in one instance there's a wagon train of people bound for California called the Fancher baker train they're from Arkansas.

And of course, if you're traveling from Arkansas to California, you're expecting to be able to resupply along the way.  And, um, um,  You know,  You know, Utah's been here for a decade now and they're expecting to be able to resupply in Utah. And all of a sudden. You know, You know, they didn't have anything to do with this Utah war.

They are finding that none of these Mormons will trade with them.  I don't give them any supplies.  And so that's. You know, not only bad, but like kind of kind of dangerous for them. And so they start coralling with local Mormons, we start insulting them. And things escalate a few Mormons attack them. Essentially form a little militia and they kill a couple of them.

So the Fancher baker train circles up. In this valley called mountain Meadows and the local Mormons, trying to decide. Okay. What do we do? We attack these people. That's probably rash. Uh, but we killed a few of them. If we let them go, they're going to tell the Californians. And the federal government is going to find out that we attack them and then we killed a few of them.

I'm going to come down even harder on us. Uh, Uh, this army is coming out here. So what do we do?  They write to Brigham young, they ask him what they should do. And before Brigham Young's response can come, they decide. Uh, Uh, to take matters into their own hands. They say, all right, here's what we're going to do.

We're going to mask her, everyone. And we're going to blame it on the Paiute Indians.  And so on September 11th, 1857. Uh, it's known as the mountain Meadows massacre. And I'm awful. They kill over 120 people. Um, coming to a flag of peace and say, Hey, we're going to escort you out of here. And then, uh, on a certain signal, they turn and, uh, all these, uh, all these, all these Mormon guys holding guns, shoot people at point blank range and massacre them.  

Um, Um,

Yeah. So that's the mountain Meadows massacre. It's a, it's one of the ugliest moments in.  Mormon and Utah history.  

Um,  Um, as things like this are happening. Uh, the army is inching closer and closer. The Mormons do manage to slow them down with this policy of attacking supplies and burning grasslands.  uh, and they're making them go slower. But they are going to make it right. Eventually the army is going to make it.

And so Brigham says, okay, his first inclination is to say, we're gonna, we're gonna fight this thing. So he sets a certain line in a canyon near salt lake city. And he gives secret instructions says if the army insists on coming. Once they cross this line. Let guerrilla war commence. You know,  You know, we're going to put men in the canyons and we're gonna start picking off soldiers  uh, from up in these canyons  uh, with snipers.  

But luckily for him. Snow storms start early that year. And in November it forces the army to stop right before they reached that line where hostilities would have commenced.  And frankly, this is horrible management by Brigham. It was a, not a good decision.  If they had started firing.  They started killing soldiers.

The response from the federal government would have been overwhelming. And this kingdom that he had worked so hard to scratch out of the desert.  would have been over in short order, right? The army would have had no trouble snuffing them out. But luckily  uh, he's, uh, he's saved by God or fate or good luck because the us army stops right in time.

And so they decided to winter just outside of salt lake city. And basically say in the spring, we're coming for you, we're coming into salt lake city. kind of a So it was kind of a showdown over the winter. Everyone's just holding their breath to see what's going to happen.  And despite all this, despite the overwhelming show of force, right on his doorstep, Brigham young is still not backing down.

You know, You know, people talk about. Vision and the importance of vision. I've talked about it. I made the point in the Steve jobs episode that we were able to see apple. With Steve Wazniak and without Steve jobs. So with, you know, you know, a technical genius and without the visionary. And then we were able to see apple with Steve jobs without Steve Wozniak, with the visionary.

And without the technical genius. And the apple, Steve jobs was much more successful. And the lesson to me was vision is the most important thing.  

How can it be that valuable? Right. I mean, it's the easiest thing in the world to have a vision.  You know, how easy is it to say we're going to build insanely great products. Um, and then how difficult is it to actually build those insanely great products? Right. Right. Uh, Uh, so it seems like. like.

Vision is.  Much easier than engineering.  So how's it that valuable? Well, Well, Th these visionaries are insanely committed to the principles that undergird their vision. They refuse to compromise when any sane person would compromise. You see this all the time with Steve jobs and you see it here with Brigham young.

Any sane person. What did you sacrifice? Some of you taught us independence and submitted to the federal troops. But not Brigham young  uh, who was. You know, Crazy about this vision of an independent kingdom of God.

But once you're going to do. Um,

There are no, it seems like there's no good decisions left.  But at this point, he gets another lucky break. This man named Thomas Cain, who was not a Mormon, but had always been very friendly to the Mormons kind of  kind of a And made kind of a career out of being a diplomat, being their go between who, who, who could, you know, you know, go between Mormons and non-Mormons and negotiate whenever they had conflicts.  So he hears about this and he's a reputable, upstanding non-Mormon. So he goes to president Buchanan

And says, Hey, you know, Let me, uh, let me go negotiate for you. Let me, let me go resolve this conflict. And I guess the other thing to mention is that as they winter they're in Utah, just outside of salt lake city, this army, all of a sudden becomes very unpopular in, in the United States because there's a giant depression.

Whereas there's a big economic recession in the United States. And so all of a sudden, you know, you know, what had been popular like, because everyone's like, sure, go, go kick around the Mormons. No one likes them. Polygamy they're weirdos. Uh,  Uh, none of us liked them, but all of a sudden it's like, okay,  When times were good, we were fine sending out this army, but now.  

That there's economic hardship. We're spending a lot of money. To send out this army and for what. The Mormons.  That they're supposedly in rebellion. Like no one really believes that. kind of And so it's kind of embarrassing. Um,

that began. It has this army all the way out in Utah doing who knows what. So he's looking for a way out.  uh, And, uh, so this guy, Thomas Cain shows up and says, Hey, I can negotiate a peace. I know these guys give me a letter from you from the president saying that I'm coming out to negotiate and that I have your full faith and confidence. So president Buchanan says, sure.

Here's your letter. You have my full confidence. Good luck. So Thomas King takes his letter, goes to the Mormons. Goes to the army and starts trying to negotiate with everyone.

And he comes up with this very, very clever ruse, which is he decides to divide the army. Because the army, remember they're escorting the governor. To take command of Utah right now, the governor. He's really keen to take over an important governorship, right?

He wants an economically healthy and prosperous Utah to come into and be governor of like, like, who wants to be governor of the desert, where nothing's going on.  So that's his priority, but the general of the army is really looking to score a military victory. So he doesn't care. He He he'd rather invade salt lake city and shoot some Mormons and send them scattering, you know?

That would be a disaster for the governor, but for the general, that's a great outcome.

So Thomas Cain starts to pick up on these differences and he starts to exploit them. Um,

And he does this by. Uh, first creating a fake division within the Mormons. He says, Hey guys, I need you to play along with this ruse. I'm going to create a Hawk camp and a dove camp. I'm going to say that there actually were some Mormons who were really hawkish, who wanted war with the government, but actually there was also an internal peace party. In fact, Brigham young.

He's the head of the peace party.  Okay, and this is completely opposite of the truth. Brigham young was the most belligerent one who was pushing for and giving instructions to escalate the war. But it's a clever ruse. And so while the army is still wintering in the Fort outside of salt lake city, Um, he sets up these, these fake camps.  

And then he tells the governor. You know, You know, you really just gotta come into salt lake city and meet this Brigham young guy. He's the head of the peace party. He's always wanted peace. He's always been okay with you taking over as governor.  Just come meet him. See how it goes.  And so the guy comes into salt lake city.

Bringing it on meets him and realizes this guy's really nice and not very bright. , uh, and that's kind of an ideal combination for Brigham young. He realizes I can control this guy. Uh, Uh, he can be my surrogate governor. This is going to be fine. If this guy becomes governor. Mm.

And so of course he winds him, Dines him, you know, charms him, says, you know, this is all a big misunderstanding. We can't wait for you to be governor. It's going to be fine. And this guy, his name is governor coming. Uh, totally buys the ruse. He can't wait to work with Brigham young. Who he totally believes.

And, uh, uh, he actually writes back.  Some Mormons hate Brigham young in consequence, perhaps of his Pacific measures. Are these like,  He's writing back to the federal government. Like, Like, can you believe this man? Brigham young. He's so great to work with. He he's He he's he's so in favor of peace that some Mormons are mad at him for you to be so peaceful, they can't stand them.  

So, uh, So, uh, this governor coming is like, like,  this is great Brigham young. I love you. It turns around to the army guys. I don't really need you.  I'm fine. And, uh, the general in the army is furious. He still vows to come into salt lake city. And, uh, as a consequence on April 1st, Mormon start evacuating salt lake city and moving just south to Provo, which is like 40 miles south of where I live now, basically.

And this isn't the scorched earth policy that Brigham young had threatened. But it's kinda, you know, It's him putting his finger on the trigger saying, I'll do it. Look I'm serious. I'll do it. I'm moving people already. I know we're just down the road, but we're starting to move. And this is enough to panic coming and incentivize everyone to come to an agreement.

And so they send some letters to the federal government, president Buchanan, the grease terms, which are blanket amnesty for everyone. Brigham young is not going to be prosecuted for treason or for polygamy. And neither are any of the other senior Mormon leaders. Um, and in return, the Mormons will accept the new governor, but otherwise life goes on Brigham's kingdom of God will continue forward with no major changes.  

And so this is an interesting outcome because on the one hand, the Utah war is a victory because Brigham Young's not prosecuted. Other church leaders are not prosecuted. Things get to keep going as they were, which is really the main thing that they wanted. Um, but at the same time, it's a defeat because the whole reason for the war was Brigham young said.

You know, we're not going to let this army come out here and just have their way with us and install a new governor. And they did. They came out, they marched into salt lake city and they installed a new governor.

And I think this kind of demonstrates a common pattern with Brigham young. Which is. Uh, a technical failure, you know, technically he loses the Utah war. Uh, And it's just one of many failures. Uh,  mean, Uh, he has a lot, I mean, you look at Adam God doctrine failure. Uh, blood atonement, arguably a failure.  

He tries to establish a bunch of cash crops out in Utah. Uh, tobacco cotton. He tries to do iron mining. All those industries fail. He tries to create a new phonetic alphabet. Uh, for, for immigrants to understand English better, that never takes hold that fails. The Utah war is a failure. Later he tries to create these communitarian organizations called the United order. Those all fail his business. The Y X company fails during the Utah war when the government cancels all of his mail contracts. So it's like failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure.

And yet through all this failure, Utah slowly growing into exactly what he wanted a kingdom obedient to him, organized along the principles of Mormon doctrine. That is largely independent of outside influence.  

There's this great saying by Winston Churchill, which is success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.  And you really see that with Brigham young. like each tactical battle is a failure. And yet, because he's just so tenacious, always trying new things and because he's always so focused on the overall vision, he's achieving strategic success despite.  

Tactical failure after tactical failure.

It reminds me a lot of Walt Disney.  Who had this huge hit with snow white. And then a string of disappointments.

That went on for decades.  Uh, and yet he was achieving magnificent success despite this growing Disney into one of the most valuable companies in the world and eventually building Disneyland. Um, Um, and so you, you see this common pattern where you keep your eyes on the, on the vision. You never compromise it and you persist forward with no loss of enthusiasm.

And you can still succeed, even if it seems like at each step you're, you're encountering these setbacks in these failures.

 um, But, um, but look, obviously it's not all failures, right? So, uh, uh, the 1860s bring  more successes. Um, the Mormon state out of the civil war. Brigham young stays loyal to the union and proclaim support for it, but doesn't send any troops and they completely avoid the devastation destruction affected much of the U S.

And while I talked about a lot of those failures of cash crops. Um,  A lot of Brigham's economic experiments failed. Utah ends up flourishing regardless as a fairly self-sufficient territory. And an area that attracts quite a bit of commerce as a halfway stop between the Eastern us and California.

By 1867 when Brigham young takes a tour of his kingdom. You know,  You know, wherever he goes, people throw big parties, throw a big welcome ceremonies. They get together bands and sing him songs. And when he looks at all this. You know, You know, he sees bands. He sees. Brass instruments. He sees violins. He's got bustling towns.

And good roads.  uh, And town halls and big churches and, you know, you know, despite all odds.  In 20 years, he has established  um,

Just flourishing kingdom, where once there was absolutely nothing, basically.  

This whole time they've been working on the salt lake city temple, uh, which is a huge project and really beautiful and ornate. And it's, you know, like a cathedral. Uh,  Uh, you should see it if you're ever in Utah. And it won't be completed until well after Brigham's death. But to me, one thing that is symbolic is that in 1862,

Just 15 years after they first arrive in the valley. They completed the salt lake feeder and you can go look it up. It's not standing anymore. Um, They tore it down sometime mid 20th century, but it was a good theater. A wouldn't be out of place in like like a smaller European city or something. He had multiple balconies, beautiful columns out front, it seeded 1500 people.  

that's, And that's, that's wild to me that it took 15 years. To go from dust. And, and Trubs. uh, To uh, to decent luxury, Like a right? Like a decently nice leader. And that to me is amazing. To return to my point about, you know, it being a time when people can build cities again, to me, this shows how much you can accomplish in a very short amount of time. You don't have to resign yourself to just planting the seeds that will someday grow into something. Cool. No, within your lifetime, you can build an amazing city.

And this demonstrates that. Uh,  Uh, another example of this is in 1867. They complete the salt lake tabernacle. Uh, Uh, a large religious hall where they could have big meetings. And actually when they complete it in 1867 is the largest assembly hall in the United States.  Okay. It seats 7,000 people.

And that's just amazing for me to think about. Like. They didn't have assembly halls that big in New York, in Boston, in Philadelphia. No. This place that had only been settled.  20 years previously.  Now has the largest assembly hall in the United States. So, um, You know, that  You know, that that shows what you can do.  

Another threat emerged to their independence in 1869. Maybe not as dire as the Utah war, but 1969 is when the transcontinental railroad was completed. Uh, if you don't know the history, they start building the railroad in the east and in the west, and they kind of kind of build towards the middle. And the place where they eventually meet is in Utah, near current day augment just north of salt lake city.

I don't know. 60 miles or something like that.  And the Mormons are integral in helping to build the last portion of the railroad as it draws near completion. So this is an economic boom. Firstly, because Mormons are paid to construct the actual railroad. But secondly, because all of a sudden you have this strong economic link to the rest of the United States.

So it provides an economic boom, but it also means that Mormons are no longer an isolated people. Brigham young would never, after the construction of the railroad. Uh,  Uh, have the level of absolute control that he had before it was completed.

And I don't want to exaggerate this. He was still indisputably, the wealthiest and most powerful man in Utah.  By leaps and bounds. It wasn't close, but he can't demand obedience in the same way anymore. One sign that Brigham young was losing his grasp a little bit from where it was, uh, or perhaps loosening his grasp was, uh, this group of people called the God beets. So this guy, William Gabi and his friend Elias Harrison go to the east coast.

And they discover seances what was called spiritual wisdom. Uh, so like, you know, seances think of a hokey lady with a turban on her head. Uh, you know, Uh, you know, looking into a crystal ball or, you know, saying, oh, I can feel a spirit with us now. Um,

That, uh, and it was very popular at the time in the United States. uh, So you think about it. At this time, all these people had just died in the civil war.  And this meant immense suffering. And a lot of people who missed their, their brothers, their sons, their fathers. And wanted to connect with them somehow. And so you have these seances.

you know, And these people saying, you know, I can receive a message for you from your dead brother. And this sounds ridiculous to us now. Um, you know, you know, seances or I think most people consider them pretty hokey. Uh,

But at the time it was very popular and very kind honestly like kind of high society kind of progressive. It was a little bit like, uh, like yoga is now right. Like, Like, yeah. People rolled their eyes a little bit. kind of It was kind of woo. But at the same time, It was for the educated class. It was seen as, as smart and progressive and something that modern people did.  

And so this guy, God, be.  He comes back. He's a member of the Mormon church. You know, he's a very successful businessman, very wealthy. He discovered spiritual wisdom and he brings it back and starts this church, essentially a new church. They still claim to be Mormons at first. And then, uh, after not very long and they kind of dropped that pretense and they start something called the liberal Institute.

Which was a sort of philosophical society is what you might call it, uh, in, in this place where they can practice. Say Hans's.

And they start a newspaper called the salt lake Tribune. Which, um, um, was an anti-Mormon newspaper was Utah's preeminent primary anti-Mormon newspaper actually still is Utah's primary anti-Mormon newspaper. And, um, the fact that Brigham young. You know, it it doesn't violently drive these people out, lets them start this newspaper.

Um, Kind of shows how much things have changed, you know? you know? For sure. A decade previously, he would have intimidated them. Um, Put pressure on them to leave, to get out of Dodge. And so now you see Brigham adapting a little bit to a new normal. And I think for the first time showing some semblance of compromise. And I think part of that is because.

He now felt very secure. He had accomplished what he wanted to this, this kingdom that he had built was independent. Was religious was following his principles. And so for the first time, he feels a little comfortable loosening the reigns a little bit, and maybe also recognizes that with the railroad.

He just doesn't have the same leeway. To demand obedience that he  had before.  

But this doesn't mean that Brigham has fully given himself over to openness and cooperation. Um, one way that he copes with this new outside influence is to create incentives and opportunities for Mormons interact commercially. So once again, he's saying, Hey. We need to boycott non-Mormon businesses and only do business with each other.

So we established something called  Zion's cooperative mercantile institution. It's basically a cartel of Mormon merchants. And he gets people to buy into this and says, Hey. Um, Mormon citizens. I'm going to ask you to do commerce as much as possible with other Mormons and Maura and merchants. I'm going to ask you to lower your margins a little bit.

But we're going to make it up to you on volume because all these Mormons and Utah's vast majority Mormon at this time, they're all going to be coming to your business to buy their supplies.   uh,

And this is a hugely expensive endeavor for the church. It's a big gamble, but it pays off. So you see my becomes profitable relatively quickly and stays profitable for a long time. It actually only closed its doors in 2002. So, you know, So, you know, 150 years CCMI was going.  And it also achieves his other goal of driving a bunch of non-Mormons out of business and does manage to sort strengthen the church while weakening outside business influences.  

But, you know, this is actually kind of the opposite. What I was talking about before. kind of  This is a tactical victory in what was a larger strategic Titlewave that he couldn't stop.  

Yeah, he drives some merchants out of business in Utah. Uh, Uh, some non-Mormon merchants, but, uh, overall. Uh, economic life was becoming more integrated with the rest of the United States and less self-sufficient than it was before.  

The 1870s are the final decade of Brigham Young's life. He grows a little less active in this decade.  Remember, he was born in 1801. So he's in his seventies. He's lived a hard life. The years have taken their toll on him. He's got kidney issues, urinary issues, digestive issues, hemorrhoids . Rheumatism.

He's getting a little fat. Even, so, you know, even in the so, you know, 1870s, he's still fairly energetic. There's a story that, that I love that I read in one of these books where, uh, his son Brigham Jr. Is on a trip with him. Uh, in 1870. So he's he's 70 years old. Or a 69 years old Uh, he's  and they're visiting a Southern settlement.  

And everyone must've drunk, some bad water or something like that because everyone starts getting sick at the same time.  You know, They're with. Like with 10 or 12 people or so. All these guys are throwing up at the same time.  And Brigham young junior says the same feeling comes upon him. Like he wanted to throw up and he's kinda got his head between his legs.

Uh, but he writes quote, father sat there and shook his fist at me and I managed to choke it down. And then he says that his father, that, quote. Fought off the feeling produced as medicine and was very active in treating the sick.  

So I love that image of, you know, you know, all these people throwing up in Brigham young junior, just wanting to throw up so bad and looking at his father, who's literally shaking his fist at him and saying, no son, you're not going to throw up. Well,  you're gonna choke it down and we are going to help the people who are throwing up.

Throughout the 1870s, more of as time gets taken up, fighting legal battles. Uh, both from people who are trying to prosecute the church for the practice of plural marriage, the practice of polygamy. And also during the 1870s, people try and connect Brigham young to the mountain Meadows massacre. And, uh, so he's, he's having to defend himself from that. uh, he's,  The last major event and bringing me on his life was the dedication of the St. George temple. So you remember they had dedicated at temple, which is like a central meeting place for elevated and advanced ordinances. Advanced ceremonies. Uh, Uh, in Nauvoo and they had started building one in salt lake city.

Um, but Brigham Young's vision for that was, was, was very large, very granted. So it wouldn't be completed for. Uh, Uh, a number of years after he died.  

But he does get to dedicate this temple in St. George, which is in Southern Utah. It's a much smaller city than salt lake city. Um, Um, and they had started construction on a correspondingly smaller temple. So it was finished.

So Brigham goes down and dedicates it in 1877. It's a very happy occasion. Um, People are celebratory and then Brigham young comes in and gives us thundering speech. You know,  Uh,  It says you need to repent. We need to do better. Congrats on finishing the temple, but.  Come on. Step it up. People. Um,

And I think it's interesting to see how much.  Things have changed. Like the St. George temple was celebratory.  But it wasn't this spiritual Pentecost that the dedication of the Navu temple was. And I think that tells you how the emphasis had shifted. From a religion that was primarily focused on. Ecstatic religious experiences.

In a, in Illinois.  To now a religion that was more focused, frankly, on building a physical community, building this kingdom.  the, Th the, the primary experience of Mormonism had changed.

And as you look at it,

things like speaking in tongues, miraculous healings, prophecies. Uh, exorcisms, all the stuff had a, it wasn't gone by any means. Like all this stuff still happened in Utah. But it definitely didn't happen as often as it did when Jill Smith was in charge. So, um, Brigham young was trying to follow that same vision.  

But he did emphasize more the physical building of an actual community. Uh, Uh, then he did these sort of. Uh, Uh, spiritual experiences.

Uh, Uh, this Saint George temple dedication, reinvigorate spring them young. And 1877 is one of his more active years, uh, through the first half of the year. He's feeling great. He's getting around. He's giving talks, uh,  uh, but then suddenly on August 23rd, he falls very, very ill. very, Probably with appendicitis.

And over the next four days, he got more and more delirious as he got sicker and sicker sicker and and eventually slipped out of consciousness.  

It has said that his last coherent words were. Joseph  Joseph Joseph. Josephs.  This is someone who till the very end, loved Joseph Smith and still had him on his mind as he was dying. He was a man of vision I'm, and that vision still possessed him in his final moments. I'm, I'm touched by that. Joseph, Joseph,  The very last things that he said are very well recorded. Uh, he was given a blessing by his son and at the end of the blessing, he muttered. Amen.

And then he, he slipped out of consciousness for awhile. he, Uh, woke up. And said that's all right.  

Shortly thereafter, he fell asleep again. And then a little bit after that stopped breathing.  

And so ended the life of Brigham young. So, um, so what do we learn from him? Uh, the first thing is to be irrational, unreasonable, intractable, intransigent, uh, completely insane. When it comes to your vision. You know,  You know, that describes Steve jobs, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, and it also describes Brigham young. They insisted on perfection.

You know,  You know, you think of Brigham young there with the weight of the U S army on his doorstep, ready to kick him out. And, uh, uh, What does he do?  He resists. He says, You know, when we're going to, You know, we're going to continue as an independent kingdom, no matter what.  And so you have to keep that in mind. If, if you're going to be the visionary, if you're gonna be the leader, you have to be willing to be unreasonable.

In your commitment to your vision and to your values.  

Uh,  you know, Uh, other stuff we can learn from Brigham, you know, all the normal stuff. Uh, he was a man of immense energy. Uh, I think part of that energy came from the fact that he loved what he was doing so much. He loved what he was building. It consumed him, all his thoughts and energy. I mean  He was of course, I mean a focus. He was a man, and this is one thing. I want people to take a man of big vision.  

This theocracy, this kingdom of God. This is a big vision, right? Even if it's not your thing. And I assume for most people who are listening to this, it's not their thing. Um, But, you know, tens of thousands of people, economic development, religious celebration, a new philosophy, a new way of, you know, of, of looking at life and religion. Uh,

Uh, Uh, theology that no one had had thought of the emphasized patriarchy and these, these stately powerful men who were able to command a states and households. Uh, it might not be a vision that you agree with,  Uh, but it's definitely an ambitious vision.  And, um, I think people could learn from that. Could, could hopefully. you know, raise the level of their ambition as well.  And, you know, I guess some last reflections, Brigham young.  Literally kind of carved his likeness into the American landscape.  Um, but both physically with, with how he organized these cities and towns also into the genetics of America. You know, He's kind of the Gangas Kahn of America. He has more than 30,000 people descended from him, including me.  Including Steve young, the great American football player, Orson Scott card, the very famous science fiction author. Uh, and another very successful notable people. Not that I'm very successful notable, but you know what I mean? It's a very impressive legacy to leave.

Genetically he's one of the most successful humans of all time.

And I guess just, um, to end, the last thing I wanna leave you with is just to talk one more time about the size of his vision. Uh, there's a quote I love from the architect, Daniel Burnham. And he said,  Make no small plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably will not themselves be realized. Make big plans, aim high and hope and work. Remembering that a noble logical diagram once recorded will never die belong after we are gone. I will be a living thing asserting itself with ever-growing insistency.  And that's what Brigham young did he, uh, he made no small plans.  He made big plants, so I hope you will do the same.  All right. That's it. Uh, there's a lot. I didn't cover there's a lot. I did cover, I can't believe this went this long. I know this is indulgent.  I'll be honest, you know? This is an important person to me. So, uh,  I was too long, but you know,  If you, if you're listening to this far, thank you for coming with me on this, on this journey. We didn't even touch on his interactions with native Americans, his attitudes and policies towards slavery, and African-Americans his propensity to curse from the pulpit establishment of, of BYU and Deseret university later, the university of Utah. Uh, there's just. There's so much more I could say about him, but.  

So, uh, if you're a sicko like me, who wanted to learn this  📍 much about Brigham young, Uh, thanks for, thanks for coming on this journey with me. So until next time, thank you for tuning in to how to take over the world

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Hello, and welcome to how to take over the world. This has been Wilson. Today's episode is a little bit different. I reached out to John Turner. Who's a biographer of Brigham young and asked him if he'd be willing to come on the show because I thought it would be fun and interesting to get an outside perspective. 

Talk to someone who's really an expert. I can get into some of those details about his life. In this conversation, we talk a lot of big picture about Brigham Young's impact and legacy. 

And of course, we also talk about some of those attributes that made him so special. What made Brigham young, Brigham young, what made him such a great leader and able to hold this group of people together and establish such a interesting. And dynamic legacy. 

So I hope it's interesting to you, to be honest, it's a little bit. Context heavy. If you don't know anything about Brigham young, other than what you've heard in the podcast, it might be a little tough to follow, but I don't know. Maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit. Uh, if you are one of those people who doesn't have a lot of context and you listened to this, 

Let me know what you think and if you're able to follow it. And if this is an enjoyable episode to you, I might do more of this kind of stuff in the future, which is just an episode at the end with a biographer to give a little bit of a summary and an overview and add a little bit of extra color and context. 

This one was a lot of fun for me. And so obviously a big thank you to John Turner for coming on the show. It was, it was very kind of him to give his time so freely and graciously. So, um, Yeah. please enjoy this interview with John Turner. 

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: Great. I'm here with, uh, Dr. John Turner so, uh, I've done this series on Brigham Young you know, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a fan, I'm an enthusiast. I like learning about him, but I thought, uh, it'd be nice to talk to an expert who would set me straight and, uh, really, really tell me what's what and what happened.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: My, my first question is, is about the impact of [00:02:00] Brigham Young, First glance, you think, okay, wow. This is someone who had a massive impact on the world, on the United States. Someone who led tens of thousands of people across the continental United States, settled Intermountain West, you know, Utah, Idaho, many parts of Arizona, Wyoming, into Canada, into Mexico, , you know, religious impact.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: But, but then you start thinking about another way and you say, okay, well, people who were not Mormons didn't have that much trouble settling Colorado, Washington, Oregon. , so my question is really, , let, let's try and do a counterfactual in which Brigham Young doesn't leave the church, maybe Hebrew Kimble does or something like that.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: h how different would things be really?

Ben: That is a great question. So I think the first thing I would say, and it maybe it doesn't point to long-term difference, but at least for a good stretch of time, the Latter Day Saints, the Mormons. They simply had a different approach to settling the West than most other Americans. Most other Americans wanted to move to, you know, somewhere, say the Great Basin, extract resources from it and get out and, or they might have settled on parts of the planes where they would be mini miles from their neighbors, you know, sort of living in isolation.

Ben: The Mormons under Brigham Young's leadership, they just had a totally different model. They built these tight-knit communities in which, you know, people lived near each other and had their lives organized to, to at least some extent around, uh, church activity and then the string of settlements. That sort of, as you suggested in your question, Extended north from, you know, the great Salt Lake up into Idaho, extended south and southwest.

Ben: Uh, as far as San Bernard [00:04:00] Bernardino. So, , I mean, just the, the shape, you know, the, the landscape that you would drive through today would look a lot different if other Americans, , had settled the Great Basin in it. You know, you might not notice that as much today if you're driving through the sprawl around Provo and Orum or up in Salt Lake.

Ben: But just that predictable string of settlements of people coming from the long haul for the long haul of people showing up from places like Wales and Scandinavia. Certainly in the 19th century, the character of these places was really different than it would've been without Brigham Young and his.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: One of the other questions, I guess I have kind of the same question, but from a religious perspective. , when I look at it, , you look essentially at, , Sidney Rigdon and the movement, he led in it fairly quickly. I almost think of it as like gravitational pull, right? And it got pulled, sort of unfolded back into pretty mainstream Protestant Christianity.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: Uh, you look at the. Reformed Church of Jesus Christ of, of latter des, latter des Saints. And the, the process took longer. It was definitely, uh, stayed distinct for longer, but it seems to be undergoing a similar, transformation. , do you think, you know, you know, it's not just Brigham Young who wanted to take this different approach.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: , Parley Pratt, Hebrew, Kimball, the other apostles, very much were on board with this approach. So, is Brigham like a singular personality that is responsible, for the church of Jesus Christ, kind of Latter Day Saints remaining distinct from Protestant Christianity? , or are there others who could have led it down the road?

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: It has gone down.

Ben: That's a great question as well. So first of all, you know, I think a lot of people, if they didn't know the details of the history, they would presume that Brigham Young became Joseph Smith's primary successor. You mentioned some of the other directions that different people went, but his primary successor because of just his [00:06:00] innate qualities as a leader or, um, the nature of his bid for leadership after Joseph Smith's death.

Ben: But a lot of it was happenstance. He was two weeks older than Hebrew c Kimball, which is why he was president of the Quorum of the 12 Apostle. So, you know, it's sort of sheer. Circumstance at our happenstance that to a certain extent that he ends up as the one in charge. I think the fact that Young or Kimball, or Woodruff or Parley Pratt, , that the quorum of the 12 Apostles under Brigham's leadership, under their leadership, that it was they who took the saints, uh, across the plains over the mountains into the Great Basin, certainly had a huge impact on the trajectory of, , the churches and the Utah Territories relationship with the US government over the course of the 19th century, you know, other, potential leaders.

Ben: Certainly Rigdon or, uh, the reorganization that began in the 1860s, they would not have had the same, you know, hostile, mutually hostile relationship with the US government. It's partly because Brigham Young and the other apostles were committed to, , the principle of plural marriage polygamy that had, that had a great deal to do with it, but also the nature of, government in the Utah territory.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: It's always interesting to me , to read your book and, and read some other history of the time, which is, um, on the one hand, the aggressions of, of the US government seem rather ridiculous to me. Um, but on the other hand, , I mean the church was ambivalent. Uh, there was a reason that they were going so far out and it was kind of to get beyond the reach of the US government and, for all [00:08:00] their, uh, for all of the, well, I think is overblown blustering about, uh, the latter of saints, , being violent.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: So, uh, wishing harm on the United States, uh, it was a theocracy in that complaint. , on, on a certain level was accurate. Wasn.

Ben: Abso no. Sure. So there's a lot to unpack there. So this is a relationship that develops over time and before Brigham Young is in charge. So you know, under. Joseph Smith's leadership. The Saints are, uh, expelled from Missouri at the pain of extermination. Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, other church leaders, church members more generally.

Ben: They're really embittered that no one will grant them redress for what they have repeatedly suffered in Missouri. They've lost their property. They've been, beaten up. Their women have been raped, and neither the state government of Missouri or , Congress or the President, nobody's doing anything to help them.

Ben: And then the cycle, you know, not, it's not an exact similarity, but the cycle essentially repeats in Illinois. And Joseph Smith and his brother Hiam are murdered. No one ultimately is brought to justice for those murders. And so, yeah, there's a tremendous amount of estrangement from, uh, the US government and Young is very explicit.

Ben: You know, he wants to lead the church to a place where there aren't other white people and so that they can govern themselves. And so then going forward, of course, there's a lot of mutual hostility and a lot of accusations thrown around on, on both sides. And the US government objects to the fact that, uh, the Utah territory is essentially run as a theocracy.

Ben: And when the US government intervenes young and his, many of [00:10:00] his people are convinced that, uh, other Americans are coming to mob them and kill them. . And so there's just a tremendous amount of, , suspicion, hostility, you know, tension really until, until and a little bit beyond, , the abandonment of plural marriage in Utah.

Ben: Statehood.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: , this is the, this is the last counterfactual I'm gonna ask you, I promise. But you mentioned Hiram. And, and the last kinda counterfactual I wanted to ask you was, Hiram is an interesting character in that he seems, , naturally more conservative, small c conservative. , and yet he did practice plural marriage.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: Uh, Joseph, , kind of brought him into the inner circle, , carefully and after the apostles, but did bring him in. And I, he was the obvious successor if he hadn't died, if Joseph Smith had died and he had not, Do you have a feel for what direction the church would've gone if Hiram had survived?

Ben: So, you know, historians generally don't like counterfactuals, but I'm

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: Sorry. Sorry. I've given you like four

Ben: You know, I, you know, one thing that occurs to me that, you know, I've, I've thought a little bit about Hirum recently because I've been doing some additional. research and thinking about Joseph Smith, and it's noteworthy to me that, you know, in June of 1844 when Joseph convened the Nav City Council to respond to the publication of the nav expository, which is this dissident newspaper just sharply critical of Joseph's leadership, Hiram is super forceful.

Ben: You know, he calls for the press to be scattered and burned in the street. And so he certainly matches, , his brother's sort of fiery forceful response, maybe reckless response at that time. [00:12:00] And so I agree that in a general sense, HIRA might seem like a bit more of a cautious individual. Than, , St.

Ben: Joseph or Brigham. I think both he and Brigham had a bit in common in that, you know, they might be a bit slower to commit to something. So Brigham took his time examining the Book of Mormon before converting and being baptized, and at least took a little bit of time contemplating plural marriage. But both of them, you know, once they're in, they're sort of all in.

Ben: And so I'm sure in the finer points, leadership might have been different, but in terms of broad trajectory, I see, I see a lot of similarity.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: Okay. Done with the counterfactuals, I promise. One of the things that I loved about your book, and maybe I hadn't realized as much, is the depth of the relationship between Brigham Young and Hebrew Kimball, which I found very touching, , I guess he, he's someone who's considered, I guess, more of a minor player, uh, in the, in the early latter days state movement. Uh, although I think, , I, I again was struck reading your book that, he, he definitely played a, a larger role than, than I had previously given him credit for. Is there anyone else like that, that is generally regarded as a minor player, that in your research you have, have discovered that maybe they, uh, are, are a larger character.

Ben: That is a great question. I mean, Heber Kimball is a good example and I think he, you know, he's partly overlooked because he's a bit less of a force by the time they get to Utah and the years pass. I think he doesn't find himself, you know, quite as much in the inner circle, uh eventually, and, you know, maybe feels a little bit adrift, [00:14:00] because of that.

Ben: I guess another figure that I would say, I don't know if overlooked is the right term, but someone else who comes to mind is William Clayton, who's a confidant, scribe, and clerk, for Joseph Smith. And is very close to events as they unfold in 18 43, 18 44 in na vu. And then also really doesn't find himself in Brigham Young's inner circle, , once they leave na vu and, you know, perhaps gets a bit less recognition because of that.

Ben: William W. Phelps is another good example of someone who's very close to Joseph, um, at different points during Joseph Smith's life, , but is also a bit on the outs, partly because of his own, I think some of his own personal shortcomings once, once they reach Utah.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: There. There are this sort of interesting, cadre of people who become disaffected and then come back on their way to Utah. And, um, their relationship is, is very interesting, because, , like WW Phelps, it's people who very much have been in just Smith's inner circle, have been very close to him.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: And, they, they do still hold this, almost like talismanic energy that people find them really important symbolically, but have no actual control once they get to Utah.

Ben: Yeah. Phelps also points to a bit of a difference in personality and leadership between, Joseph and Brigham. So Phelps is disaffected in Missouri, along with Orson Hyde and Joseph Smith, more or less, you know, welcomes them back into the fold. , by the time that Joseph Smith. is running for president in 1844, writing political figures the previous year.

Ben: You know, Phelps is very important. You know, he does a lot of writing for Joseph [00:16:00] Smith. , he's essentially Smith's ghost writer, , much of the time. And, you know, so that, you know, they could really patch things up. I think Brigham, if someone betrayed him, he might let him back into the fold, but he wouldn't let him forget it.

Ben: He was, he was a little bit more, he's just a little bit more careful.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: Yeah, that's right. And, and was kind of careful to keep them out of positions of, of authority, , whereas, Joe Smith did not. Is there anything else that you would say? , there's this good quote that you highlight, where, uh, Brigham Young says, uh, something about Joseph's idea of how to run things in temporal matters was different from how I might do it.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: And it's like the only sentence he ever says that even approaches anything like criticism of, of Joseph Smith. Because he, he adored him so much. , can you speak a little more to the difference in leadership styles between Joseph and Brigham?

Ben: Well, another time where he sort of criticizes Joseph is he says that, you know, Joseph was way too easy on dissent within the church. And you know, he's saying this being scarred by the wake of what has happened in nav, which I think was simply deeply traumatic, uh, for Brigham Young, both Joseph and Hirums murders, but also then living under the.

Ben: Threat of the community's collapse or his own possible assassination. And so he wants to take a much harsher stance against dis dissent, which he sees as a grave danger to the church's survival. So that's also, you know, I think is a bit of a, of a difference in approach. I, I think some, oftentimes [00:18:00] people, you know, other people have of course noticed that and talked about it, but I do think it has to be put in the context of what's happened in Missouri and na vu and Brigham Young is simply determined that's not going to happen.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: You've brought something up. That's an interesting dichotomy to me that I had a little bit of trouble figuring out about Brigham Young, which is, so you start your book, with Brigham at the. St. George Temple dedication, right? And he plows his hickory cane into the, into the pulpit, and it gets stuck there.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: And it's kind of this image of like, even at towards the very end of his life, he's this very powerful. You mentioned that he had no trouble giving the church a tongue lashing, right? And, uh, he could do that in private as well, , could be almost belligerent. At the same token you show him, , you know, probably this is where this comes most powerful to me is, , when he's in England and he has to manage the other apostles, and he's just masterful at, , he's, he's almost a diplomat.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: He's really good at kind of massaging people's personalities. And so it's like, how do you swear these two things, this, the, on the one hand he can be fiercely critical and, uh, almost like a bull in a China shop. And on the other hand, he can be extremely diplomatic and really making sure to accommodate other people's feelings as he goes forward.

Ben: Well, I suppose the simple answer would be that he would do what he thought the particular moment required. Now, I do think sometimes he did simply treat people with cruelty when it totally was not required. But, but, you know, the examples that you bring up are, are good ones. So when he, I think people for forget, because they typically.

Ben: Think of Joseph as the spiritual leader and Brigham as the organizer. That that is too, [00:20:00] stark of a contrast. I mean, Brigham Young would not have been able to successfully lead the church upon Joseph's death if large numbers of the Saints did not have a strong sense of spiritual loyalty to him. A lot of that was due to his leadership, , during the, , mission of the 12, to England, Brigham, what, you know, he certainly was not responsible even for the greatest number of conversions or baptisms there.

Ben: But thousands of those English saints who came to Navu, you know, understood him as a significant spiritual leader in their lives and. You know, I think a lot of those bonds of spiritual loyalty, you know, they, they persisted, over the years. And Brigham sometimes, you know, renewed them through his visits to different, , communities, , in the Utah territory. And, you know, there, there were other times where, like you said, he could simply be, belligerent. You know, there's that time in the 1850s that's become known as the Mormon Reformation, where he concluded that, you know, too many people were not living up to the mark. Too many people were unenthusiastic about plural marriage.

Ben: , in particular, people needed to repent. And I think he, you know, he, he really created a bit of a, you know, a bit of spiritual chaos turmoil. Among his people at that time. So I'm not suggesting he al, he, you know, he, he always did what was right for the moment. But he certainly could use very different styles and techniques of leadership.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: One of [00:22:00] the, uh, it's inter So I, uh, I am a latter to Saint and so my picture of Brigham Young growing up very much came from, , the church and how he was portrayed. And I think very much it is portrayed that way within the church that Jeff Smith was the spiritual leader, and Brigham Young was the temporal leader, in part because I think on some level the church wants to downplay some of his more spiritual contributions, which.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: The church has, has largely, , moved away from I, I guess, and you're not, you know, a, a Mormon studies guy or an expert on the current church of Jesus Christ, the Latterday Saints. But do you think that what I just said, do you think that's a fair assessment, that the church has moved away from many of his doctrinal contributions?

Ben: Well, sure. And I, I, I think that is true. And I also think, I also think that it's has become much easier for Latter Day Saints to, if they're looking at parts of the 19th century that. They might not feel so comfortable about today. It's sort of, in a way, it's easier to blame Brigham Young than it is to bring blame the founding prophet.

Ben: So he's a bit of a safer target, I think for, for criticism. You know, in terms of, yeah, doctrines that the church has moved away from. So Brigham Young identified Adam as humanity's God, the church, the first president explicitly, you know, rejected that viewpoint in the early 19 hundreds. You know, we could look at other examples like blood atonement that Bergham certainly preached.

Ben: I don't necessarily think the, I don't necessarily think the idea originated with him, , but he preached it forcefully. And of course, the, the church utterly repudiates that doctrine today.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: What, you know, along those lines, one other thing that I [00:24:00] was struck by so you talk about plural marriage and o one of the things is this, with plural marriage, is this idea that you get with Brigham Young. , that's sort of doctrinal, but sort of just I guess, um, what he conveys, which is essentially, um, , that this idea of stewardship and that the, the greater your and dominion kind of, and the greater your dominion, uh, that's kind of what exaltation is.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: That's what Godhood is. And so the more wives you have that is sort of increasing your, your family, your dominion, and that that is sort of progressing, uh, towards godhood Now, , the church has obviously moved away from that on a measurement of wives basis, but I think has moved away from it generally this idea that, uh, you're supposed to be a patriarch sort of in the style of an Old Testament patriarch, right?

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: And increasing your, your dominion, and that that is a sign of, of moving forward in the gospel. , did, did I, first of all, did I, do you, do you think that's an accurate summation of, of kind of how he viewed, viewed that?

Ben: So how Brigham Young viewed the connection between plural marriage and exaltation?

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: Yeah. And, and that, that idea of, of dominion generally, that that sort of expanding dominion was, was advancing towards godhood.

Ben: Well, I, I do think that's the case. I tend to think that it's almost certainly the explanation for why Joseph Smith also is sealed to so many women. Because, you know, the mere existence of a command to marry Plurally doesn't explain being sealed to 30. Or so, and you can find that, you know, explicit connection between, , number of wives, size of family and, , you know, size of one's exalted kingdom.

Ben: I think you can, you know, you can find it among some of Brigham's contemporaries as well. I think it might have been [00:26:00] Orson Hyde or John Taylor, I forget who, you know, sort of even published a chart along those lines. So yeah, I, I think that, I think it, I think that that was the case. I think it was, you know, I, I'm not a latter day saint, so of course I think it's problematic theologically, but I think also in practical terms, that was very, , it created a lot of problems in the early Utah territory.

Ben: You know, if, if. , if the idea is to get as many as you can, as one of Joseph Smith's, , scribes put it, that doesn't leave enough to go around.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: Right. And you, and you reached this crisis point where, uh, yes, Wilfred Woodruff moves the church away from plural marriage, for explicitly political reasons. Right? So, but, but also because logistically it wasn't feasible anymore. There just were not enough women. Um,

Ben: absolutely. I mean, I, I, you know, I I tend to see 19th century, uh, plural marriage as mostly, mostly a mess. Um, you know, theologically and practically not that you can't find examples of harmony within certain families among, certain wives within, within a household. and the cherishing of ancestors who lived at this, , principle faithfully.

Ben: But I think at the end of the day, it, it pretty much was a mess.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: I, you know, I, I guess this isn't really a question, it's just my, my personal viewpoint, which is, , on the one hand, as a latter day saint, , I, I can't imagine how life would be if we had tried to preserve. Some of these things, , in the intervening 150 years. On the other hand, as just sort of a fan of interesting things happen in history, it's like this fascinating thing that someone's trying to create an alternate civilizational model.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: And as it sort of falls back into the [00:28:00] gravitational mass of America in the early 20th century, I mourn it a little bit of, oh, that, that's a little bit of a shame to see this unique thing, uh, become like the rest of us.

Ben: Well, and as for as far as. Fodder for historians. It's just fascinating. Of course. And you know, I think also for as much of a mess as it was the, you know, Brigham Young and other latter day St leaders, they made some sharp and accurate critiques of American society at the time. You know, they would often say, well, you know, one of, um, Parley Pratt's wives, she ran away from an alcoholic and abusive husband, uh, who eventually tracked Pratt down and, and killed him.

Ben: , but the, you know, the Saints would say, you know, why should a woman remain trapped in that circumstance when she could instead have a righteous husband? And why are the, there are these thousands of prostitutes in eastern cities. You know, it's not as if, it's not as if. Marriage was necessarily working at, well for everybody else in 19th century America.

Ben: Um, and sometimes the, the Latter Day Saints made some very incisive critiques of the shortcomings of American society more generally.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: Yeah. So, um, yeah, I wanna move a little bit. I started kind of big picture, uh, asking these very head questions. I wanna ask you about a few details. Uh, one i I told you about in advance, which is just, I, I don't know if it's a discrepancy or as much as maybe a difference in tone between you and, , the, the other most famous biographer, probably the most famous biographer of Brigham Young, is a man named Landard Arrington.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: I guess the impression that I got in his book was of a, a relatively successful entrepreneur, Brigham Young, , [00:30:00] coming up, making headway. And then, you know, obviously having the leadership role that he did within, uh, the, the latter Day Saint Church, , who may maybe made one, bad investment in this farm, that led him to be in debt.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: , the impression I got more from you was as someone who was kind of, perennially in debt and kind of struggling, , to keep up, but then flourished within the, the structure of the latter day Saint Church. , is there a, a difference there or am I reading too much into it? , between you and Arrington

Ben: Well, Ben, I can't remember what Leonard Arrington specifically said about that, but I did glance at what I said about that, before this interview. And I, I would say the truth. The truth sounds somewhere in between sort of entrepreneur craftsman who. Is doing okay versus, you know, the specter of poverty.

Ben: So, I mean, I think Brigham Young. Brigham Young does okay as a craftsman. And, you know, he does a lot of different things. So, you know, he can make furniture, he can do windows, , which is something he ends up doing in Kirtland. You know, he moves around a lot. You know, he references, you know, a job in Auburn, which is, you know, by today's standards, a couple of hours east of where he was living in the Rochester area.

Ben: He, you know, he, so he's sort of para pathetic to use a fancy word. You know, he moves around a lot. He's not, he's not super stable. , he does have this debt that you mentioned, um, about the time of his conversion. You know, his first wife dies, , very sadly, , not too many years into their marriage. I don't, I just don't have the impression that at the age of 30, he's, he was a man on the [00:32:00] up, you know, he was sort of doing okay and struggling along, and I see it as most likely he would have continued to do so.

Ben: Now, the fact that he's sort of on the margins, he's this hardworking guy. He's used to deprivation, you know, his family of origin was also really difficult. , he is like a lot of early converts. He's really well suited for life. , as an early Mormon elder, he's happy to hit the road. And walk around the Northeast and Canada, um, and have his feet hurt or bloody or muddy and, you know, do whatever it takes in this new capacity.

Ben: And, you know, it's not as if there isn't a lot of, you know, poverty and deprivation for quite a few years to come. , so I guess to answer your question, yeah, I, I, I don't think he was an entrepreneur who was going to really make it in terms of being, , comfortable and successful. , if he hadn't joined, , the church, I don't, I just don't see a real trajectory.

, it, it's interesting to me because, once he gets near leadership, he seems, , Irrepressible almost, is a word I would use. , and you can see that in Missouri where he's sort of semi officially deputized. , Joseph Smith can't give really great instructions because he's in, in jail, in Liberty Jail, but he basically just says, Hey, whoever's the senior apostle, can you kind of make sure that this stuff runs okay.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: And Brigham just, like runs with that, right? He, he, he seems so anxious for leadership, which is so funny because he, he shows no real anxiety for leadership in the previous, , 30 whatever years of his life. I, I just found odd.

Ben: Yeah. And you know, there aren't [00:34:00] a lot of. Great, , firsthand contemporaneous sources for how he organizes the Exodus from Missouri. There's a few, but it is this interesting moment, like you said, again, it's happenstance. He's a couple of weeks older than Hebrew Kimball, so he ends up in charge when other people have fallen by the, by the wayside really.

Ben: And so he does, he does show, does show a talent for organizing and working with people both there and, and in England, which, as you say, it's, it's interesting. He hasn't really been in that position previously. I do think he had a lot of spiritual fire and force. You know, I think you can, you can see that at Scattered and Scattered records in the 1830s.

Ben: And you can certainly see it then at winter quarters where he reintroduces the idea. Well, he introduces the idea of reconstituting, , a first presidency, which hadn't been done in the immediate wake of Joseph Smith's death. And there's a lot of opposition, and he's able to overcome it with sort of a combination of argumentation, belligerence, and spiritual fire.

Ben: You know, he there, you know, he's, they're the records of him just shouting Hosanna, , during that meeting. And it's, it's something else. I think, you know, the, the words on the page that the clerk is writing down, you know, they're not doing it justice. Uh, I would've loved to have been. I think they were in a room and not outside, you know, either in the room or the grove where it happened.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: [00:36:00] It's one of the things I actually felt when reading your book is just the tragedy of not always having, uh, better firsthand accounts of some of these speeches. So, for example, during the succession crisis with Sidney Rigdon, we have some clips and quotes of what Brigham said. , but we don't have, uh, , the full, speech.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: And um, it just made me sad cuz so some of those quotes, uh, I think you, you say that he, uh, essentially, um, Sidney Riggin says, I, I, I'm gonna be the guardian of the church. Right. Um, and, , Brigham says, do you want, do you want a nurse and a bottle washer? Uh, or do or do you want a prophet? And, uh, so, so, so that what we do have just, um, some of these speeches seems like they'd be not just spiritually powerful, but like, kind of cracking good fun, uh, and, and we miss out on some of that

Ben: Yeah, no, Brigham, he, you know, he did have that raw sense of humor and it wasn't polished and sophisticated, and he's famous for his salty language, , which I won't replicate on your Shirley Family friendly podcast. But he was really funny. , and , you know, I think Joseph, Joseph could be as well, and he was certainly mirthful in a, in a way they both, they both could be mirthful and really sociable.

Ben: Um, Joseph I think was most of the time, and, you know, he would like to. Wrestle. You know, if he was in a town, he'd wrestle the strongest person there and, you know, he'd certainly stay up late. But Brigham Young would too. He'd be, you know, he'd be up late dancing and socializing in the NA Temple or in winter quarters.

Ben: And, you know, I think, I think he, he liked that. He, he liked that as well. And I'm sure that, I'm sure it [00:38:00] was endearing. Endearing to.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: One of the other details I wanted to ask about is something. I'll just say we don't know, which is so, uh, well, we do know a lot about the logistics of plural marriage, and in some ways Brigham Young was a special case. Um, his family really did not resemble many others just because of the sheer size of it.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: Obviously one thing people always wonder about is, , the logistics of sexual congress within a family of that size. I know, uh, I've heard you say before, like, we just simply don't know. That is not something they were forthcoming about. You can correct me if I'm wrong, , but I don't think that's something we know a lot about, but something we do know more about I was hoping you could speak to is just, you know, when he's got 50 something children, what was the relationship of, of a child to Brigham Young?

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: Was it, was it a normal parent, child relationship? What, what did that look like?

Ben: You know, it's actually, I feel more comfortable talking about many of the marriages than I do about the father, children relationships, because I feel like we actually know more about many of those marriages, and in some cases they're rather well documented, you know, letters from wives, especially in the 1840s and 1850s.

Ben: You know, we do know something about the relationship with some of the children, such as, you know, Brigham Young Jr. There's some very poignant letters, a couple of poignant letters from Brigham to his children. You know, there's one where he's urging a son to come back from the East coast and he, he writes it in his own hand, which is really unusual.

Ben: Uh, for him. He usually has people do his writing for him. And there are definitely a lot of sources that point to, you know, the family [00:40:00] meetings he had with regularity, , for prayer and, and probably for, for other purposes. But those aren't meetings for which we have minutes, unlike many church meetings.

Ben: So I think, I think we don't know. He, I mean, he clearly didn't have close relationships with most of his children, , just as he didn't maintain close relationships really with most of his wives.

 , I, I guess I still just, , what does that mean? Not, you know, especially as a wife, he doesn't have a very close relationship, , with her, I imagine. And, and obviously some of them he did, right? Some of his wives, were, were closer than others. And there is some, you know, One of the things talked about in my family, I, I'm a descendant of Brigham Young.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: And, um, my, the woman through whom I'm descended emmaline free, was his favorite for a while, and then sort of fell out of favor. And it's interesting to, it almost sounds like a high school, the way that some of these women are gossiping about each other. And some of these women are so happy to seein, you know, fall from fall from grace to say, oh, you, you were lording it over us.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: You thought you were so special. Look at you now. , but it's interesting to see that, I guess some of the dynamics are just what you see played out in other places now in a, in a big family context.

Ben: A absolutely. And you know, I think Brigham was also, in this case, fairly practical. You know, if a. Was really disaffected or didn't wanna live in the household, he would get her a house elsewhere, you know, maybe, maybe in Provo, maybe, uh, at his farm. , and so I think he knew this wasn't a one size fits all situation.

Ben: Yeah, I mean, first of all, you know, for somebody with 55 wives, you know, he granted divorces to eight of them. Some of them simply remained in the east, , after they were sealed to him and maybe never even envisioned being part of [00:42:00] his household. So there's, you know, there is, there is a sheer variety of circumstance.

Ben: There are some who. Marry him. Augusta Adams is probably the most prominent example. They marry him and they realize that instead of being a queen, you know, they are one of many and maybe not one of the favored, and they're spend years grasping about it in letters. And, uh, you know, in that case, which I think is really a delicious detail, Brigham Young agrees for Augusta to be sealed to Joseph Smith for eternity, which I, I sort of think he's thinking, well, at least I don't have to spend eternity with her.

Ben: We'll, we'll give her to Joseph. So, you know, eminently practical.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Um, I, I, to, to wrap up, one of the things I wanted to ask you, and I'm sorry this is a little bit more of a vague question, but it's just. , what do you see as the essential attributes of Brigham Young? What was it about him that made his personality so singular that made him such a, a strong leader?

Ben: So I think the first thing, and it wouldn't make him a strong leader if it weren't combined with the other things, is there is that spiritual fire that is there, um, from the moment that he is baptized into the church. Probably even be before that. Um, you know, he is among the early latter day saints who speak in tongues.

Ben: He is comfortable with that sort of spiritual ecstasy. It doesn't burn quite as bright or as often later in his life. . But I think at the core, you know, he, he did have that spiritual fire. And then I would say it's his combination of [00:44:00] determination and flexibility that, that I mentioned earlier. You know, he, he might introduce an idea, um, such as Adam as humanities, God, and when people opposed it, he sort of shelved it for a while and he brings it back toward the end of his life.

Ben: Or he introduces the, you know, he clearly has this idea of unity and economic cooperation. That's maybe the most famous example is you, is the United Order sort of this attempt at communitarianism in the 1870s? Well, Brigham has all sorts of setbacks when he tries to introduce that sort of economic unity and he has to pull back from a lot of initiatives.

Ben: At the same time though, you know, his, his fierce determination along those lines, um, the details might not always work out, but he very much stitches together his people with a sense of, of common purpose and solidarity against outside threats. So I think in, in those respects, you know, that that combination serves him, serves him really well.

Ben: He's fiercely determined, but he's also willing to be nimble when circumstances necessitated. And I think that also has a lot to do with the fact that he's successful as a leader for a long period of time. And he leads, he leads the church for 33 years after Joseph Smith's death through all sorts of different circumstances, different political threats, different.

Ben: Times of dissent within the church, the advent of the Transcontinental Railroad and the influx of non-Mormons to the Utah [00:46:00] territory. And if he didn't have that flexibility, he wouldn't have been able to succeed for as long as he did.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: The, the podcast is called How to Take Over. And the idea is that people are supposed to learn something from the lives of these people. Brigham Young comes along at an interesting time, uh, in that, in the 19th century.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: It's not just Mormonism and the, the various offshoots of that that come about, but you also have, , seventh Day Adventism. You have all these sort of different branches. You have, , all these Restorationists churches. You have, Jehovah's Witness. You've, you've got a, a lot, it's this like fertile ground I guess for new Christian sects and religions popping up in the United States.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: Is anything like that gonna happen again and is there ever going to be a chance for another Brigham Young to come along of, uh, do you think there will ever be another religious leader of that significance in the United.

Ben: Well, that is a fun question. , you know, I still, I, I still think there's a tremend. I mean, there's just still a tremendous amount of diversity and ferment within American religion. I, you know, one thing that comes to mind, and this doesn't directly answer the question, but another characteristic of Brigham Young that I think might surprise people is he was really curious.

Ben: A lot of early latter day Saints were when they were roaming around the United States on missions, or in England, they didn't. A completely single-minded focus on evangelism and proselytizing. They would attend the meetings of other religious societies, not only to make their own case, but [00:48:00] just to see what was out there.

Ben: And Brigham notes doing that on a number of occasions, and you can find that in other, uh, missionary journals from the early 1840s as well. So he, he was someone who was really curious about what was going on in his world and took the time to, to check things at. I think that's not necessarily what I would point to is what made him a great leader, but I think it's something that people wouldn't know about him.

Ben: You know, I think there have been lots of powerful religious leaders in the United States, uh, since then. You know, people like. And know, ranging from Martin Luther King to Billy Graham, you know, people who have touched, uh, millions of lives, um, and still do, we're never gonna have the exact circumstances that, uh, Brigham Young had, which gave him the opportunity to not just lead a church, but to attempt to establish what he understood as the kingdom of God in a very literal sense, uh, on the Earth.

Ben: So in terms of those circumstances, you know, those, those, those opportunities just are not here in 21st Century America. And, you know, so I think some of those singular characteristics of Brigham Young's life in leadership, they simply can't be replicated.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: , I, I like your answer On some ways it's sad to me that like you're right in some ways that frontier is closed, but like you said, , there's definitely, um, Successors to have large spiritual impact. And, uh, it's, it's, the United States is still a, an interesting place, uh, religiously and spiritually.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: [00:50:00] Uh, John, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. The book is Brigham Young, pioneer Prophet. Uh, I highly recommend it to everyone. Go pick yourself up a coffee. Um, before I actually read it, somehow I heard of it as the anti-Mormon, , biography of Brigham Young. Not accurate at all. Uh, it is neither anti-Mormon nor, uh, as you've mentioned, you're not a member of the faith.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: It's, it's very fair, very even handed. Very interesting. I, I loved the, the perspective that you offered. So, again, to the audience, I highly recommend you go pick up, uh, John Turner's book. And, uh, is there anything else that you want from my audience anywhere they should check you out or, or look at?

Ben: Well, I think, you know, they should anticipate, uh, in a couple of years. I'm working on a biography of Joseph Smith, so I have a prequel. I have a prequel in the works. Uh, but I, I don't have much to say about that now. But Joseph, you know, he lived a much shorter life than Brigham, but he's really difficult to, to, uh, to write about.

Ben: So I've got my hands full.

how-to-take-over-the_brigham-young-end-notes_ben_wilson-kel3j12t8_cfr_2022-oct-21-1802pm-utc-riverside: Well, I can't wait. Uh, and hopefully we'll, uh, we'll have you on again when, uh, when that comes out, but, um, great. Thanks very much, John.

Ben: Thanks. 

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