Born of Puritan ancestors, reared in a generation that saw the world in gloomy terms - a world of deeply religious people, many of whom struggled to find religious truth. This was the society into which Brigham Young was born on June 1, 1801, in Whitingham, Vt.
But, explained Ronald K. Esplin, director of the Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Church History at BYU, the restoration through the Prophet Joseph Smith restored "a way to look at the world that brought God back to the center of it, . . . and the whole world looked different from that perspective." (Third annual Mormon History Symposium Nov. 11, 1995, in Salt Lake City, reported in Church News, Nov. 18, 1995.)Brigham Young gloried in this perspective, Brother Esplin noted, and from the time of his baptism April 14, 1832, he sat at the feet of the Prophet - as disciple and student. "He had to learn everything because he was unlearned, unsophisticated and needed Joseph Smith as model of how to be a righteous person without being pious . . . ."
Upon the death of Joseph Smith in June 1844, Brigham Young, president of the Quorum of the Twelve, assumed the mantle of leadership and led the Mormon Pioneer trek west in 1847. He later returned to the Middle Missouri Valley settlements and in 1848 returned to the Great Basin, making his final westward trek. He spent the remainder of his life building Zion in the West.
In a Church News interview, Brother Esplin explained: "Once he got to his mountain home, which he had looked forward to for many years, in spite of many enticements and opportunities to travel back to his old lands, he felt such an attachment and mission about building up the Church in the West he never left the mountain West again."
From Mormon pioneer accounts and journals, President Young was not only the leader of the many, but also the champion of the one. A letter written from near Chimney Rock in Nebraska on July 17, 1848, to Church leaders in the Salt Lake Valley affirms this. He urged the brethren to not be disappointed that the printing press and other equipment would not be arriving with him. The prophet originally planned on using teams sent from the Salt Lake Valley to transport the equipment. He changed those plans.
"We have the poor with us. Their cry was urgent to go to the mountains, and I could neither close my ears, nor harden my heart against their earnest appeals. I could bring my carriage and horses with my swift teams and be with you in 30 days, but I cannot forsake the poor in the hour of need . . . ."
Another example of Brigham Young's kindness is in the poignant story of Lucy Groves, as related to the Church News by Evelyn Taylor, a Church service missionary serving in the Church Historical Library in Salt Lake City. Lucy, traveling in 1848 with her husband, Elisha Hurd Groves, and her children, including a 10-day-old baby and two of her brother's children, fell beneath the wheels of a wagon. A front wheel passed over her, breaking three ribs. A back wheel then broke her leg.
Brigham Young himself set her leg and blessed her that she would reach the valley. A bed was set up in the wagon for Lucy. Nine days later, her oldest daughter, Mary Leah, while caring for her siblings, stumbled over her mother, rebreaking the leg. "This time the leg didn't heal so well," Sister Taylor explained. "Every jerk of the wagon was torture. Her husband saw the look on her face and pulled the wagon out of the train."
President Young rode back to the family. With tears streaming down her face, Lucy told the prophet to go on without them. Brigham said they would do no such thing. He took the bed in which she was lying, cut off the legs and fastened the frame to the bows (on which the canvas draped) of the wagon. Thus, instead of jerking with the wagon, the bed simply swayed, and Lucy was able to complete the journey to the valley.
Brigham Young's concern was apparent even when he wasn't on the pioneer trail. S William Hill, a 20-year-old English immigrant, recorded his 1862 journey west. On Aug. 29, the company in which he traveled rolled out of Emigration Canyon, into the valley and into Brigham Young's yard. Sister Taylor related how those who didn't have family with whom to stay set up camps by their wagons in the prophet's yard. Soon, a gentleman began walking from wagon to wagon, shaking hands and ensuring the weary travelers had food.
He then walked to William and his young companion. "Well," he said, "I want you boys to stay right here and make yourselves as comfortable as you possibly can until you each get a place to go to."
The gentleman then added, "My name is Brigham Young."
For many historians, the name of Brigham Young stands for colonizer. But for many Saints of the pioneer period from 1847 to 1869, his name meant kindness and spiritual leadership.