author
Brigham Young
1801–1877
A carpenter and painter by trade, he became one of the central leaders of the early Latter-day Saint movement and helped guide its migration to the Great Basin. His life is closely tied to the founding of Salt Lake City and the shaping of early Utah.
1 Audiobook
Discourses of Brigham Young
by Brigham Young
About the author
Born in Whitingham, Vermont, on June 1, 1801, Brigham Young worked as a craftsman before joining the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the early 1830s. After the death of Joseph Smith, he emerged as the church’s leading figure and eventually served as its second president.
Young is best known for leading Latter-day Saint pioneers westward to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. In the years that followed, he played a major role in building settlements across the region and served as the first territorial governor of Utah. He also supported education and is associated with institutions that later became the University of Utah and Brigham Young University.
His legacy is large and complicated. He was a powerful religious and political leader whose influence on the American West was immense, and he remains an important, often debated figure in U.S. and Latter-day Saint history. He died in Salt Lake City on August 29, 1877.