Brigham Young

Born Whittingham, Vermont

Brigham Young converted to Mormonism in 1832, and gradually rose in the leadership structure until he became the head of the "Twelve Apostles" under Joseph Smith. After Smith's murder by an anti-Mormon mob in 1844, Young assumed leadership of the larger portion of the church. In 1847 he led the Mormons from Nebraska to the Great Basin, where he founded Salt Lake City as the new church headquarters. He oversaw the migration of tens of thousands of Mormon converts to the West and the founding of hundreds of settlements. The Mormon majority elected Young as governor, but he was soon replaced by an appointed territorial governor. Political conflicts and challenges to the Mormons' separatist communal and theocratic venture led the United States to dispatch troops to Utah in 1857 and assert federal authority. Young was notorious for his many wives, a practice taught as a religious principle by his predecessor, Joseph Smith.