Brigham Young, the man who had succeeded in expelling Rigdon and establishing his own position as head of the church, was born in Whitingham, Windham County, Vermont, on June 1, 18...
In June, 1865, a distinguished party from the East visited Salt Lake City, and their visit was not without public significance. It included Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House of...
Brigham Young died in Salt Lake City at 4 P.M. on Wednesday, August 29, 1877. He was attacked with acute cholera morbus on the evening of the 23rd, after delivering an address in t...
As early as 1853 intimations of the doctrine that an offending member might be put out of the way were given from the Tabernacle pulpit. Orson Hyde, on April 9 of that year, spoke,...
Smith had shown his dominating spirit as soon as he arrived at Far West. In April, 1838, he announced a "revelation" (Sec. 115), commanding the building of a house of worship there...
The murder of the Smiths caused a panic, not among the Mormons, but among the other inhabitants of Hancock County, who looked for summary vengeance at the hands of the prophet's fo...
Just when Smith's attention was originally diverted from the discovery of buried money to the discovery of a buried Bible engraved on gold plates remains one of the unexplained poi...
The man who had more to do with founding the Mormon church than Joseph Smith, Jr., even if we exclude any share in the production of the Mormon Bible, and yet who is unknown even b...
Summing up his observations of the Mormons as he found them in Utah while secretary of the territory, five years after their removal to the Great Salt Lake valley, B. G. Ferris wro...
The murders committed during the "Reformation" which attracted most attention, both because of the parties concerned, the effort made by a United States judge to convict the guilty...
With the return of the people to their homes, the peaceful avocations of life in Utah were resumed. The federal judges received assignments to their districts, and the other federa...
The government at Washington and the people of the Eastern states knew a good deal more about Mormonism in 1856 than they did when Fillmore gave the appointment of governor to Youn...
The first party to leave Nauvoo began crossing the Mississippi early in February, 1846, using flatboats propelled by oars for the wagons and animals, and small boats for persons an...
Brockman's force was disbanded after its object had been accomplished, and all returned to their homes but about one hundred, who remained in Nauvoo to see that no Mormons came bac...
In January, 1833, Smith announced a revival of the "gift of tongues," and instituted the ceremony of washing the feet.* Under the new system, Smith or Rigdon, during a meeting, wou...
All peaceable occupations were now at an end in Daviess County. General Atchison reported to the governor that, on arriving there on September 17, he found the county practically d...
Meanwhile, the Mormons in Clay County, with the assent of the natives there, had opened a factory for the manufacture of arms "to pay the Jackson mob in their own way,"* and it was...
When Major Van Vliet returned from Utah to Washington with Young's defiant ultimatum, he was accompanied by J. M. Bernhisel, the territorial Delegate to Congress, who was allowed t...
The precise date when Joe's attention was first called to the possibility of changing the story about his alleged golden plates so that they would serve as the basis for a new Bibl...
We have seen that Joseph Smith's desire was, when he suggested a possible removal of the church to the Far West, that they should have, not only an undisturbed place of residence,...
The counties in which the Mormons settled after leaving Jackson County were thinly populated at that time, Clay County having only 5338 inhabitants, according to the census of 1830...
The death of the prophet did not bring peace with their outside neighbors to the Mormon church. Indeed, the causes of enmity were too varied and radical to be removed by any change...
The end of the complete seclusion of the Mormon settlement in Utah from the rest of the country--complete except so far as it was interrupted by the passage through the territory o...
The attitude of the Mormons toward the government at the outbreak of hostilities with the Southern states was distinctly disloyal. The Deseret News of January 2, 1861, said, "The i...
It is easy to understand that a church whose leaders had such views of financial responsibility as Smith's and Rigdon's, and whose members were ready to apostatize when they could...
There is no reason to believe that, to the date of Joseph Smith's death, Brigham Young had inspired his fellow-Mormons with an idea of his leadership. This was certified to by one...
More than one day's march was now made without finding water or grass. Banks of snow were observed on the near-by elevations, and overcoats were very comfortable at night. On June...
The elder Smith, as we have seen, was known as a money-digger while a resident of Vermont. Of course that subject as a matter of conversation in his family, and his sons were a cha...
The next federal officers for Utah appointed by the President (in August, 1852) were Lazarus H. Reid of New York to be chief justice, Leonidas Shaver, associate justice, and B. G....
The winter of 1845-1846 in Hancock County passed without any renewed outbreak, but the credit for this seems to have been due to the firmness and good judgment of Major W. B. Warre...