Situated near the southwest corner of Vermont is the small village of Whitingham, Windham County. Brigham Young was born there on June 1, 1801. His life began less than 100 miles from Sharon, Vermont, where the Prophet Joseph Smith would be born 4 1/2 years later. Both future prophets would spend their early years not far from each other.
Brigham’s parents, John and Abigail “Nabby” Young, and their children had arrived at Whitingham from Massachusetts less than five months before Brigham’s birth. Presently, several signs and monuments stand at Whitingham noting the birthplace of the town’s most famous native son.
The Young family stayed in Whitingham for three years before moving on to west-central New York. Brigham Young later stated that he had only 11 days of formal schooling. He likewise noted that he knew hard labor and lacked sufficient food until his “stomach would ache.” He recalled “what it is to be in poverty, and to be destitute of the raiment necessary to keep my body warm.” (See “Brigham Young: American Moses,” by Leonard J. Arrington, pages 11-12.)
Despite his lack of formal education, he became skilled in several different trades: carpenter, painter and glazier. One biographer reports that many homes in Auburn, New York, “boast of a Brigham Young mantelpiece, staircase or semielliptical fanlight doorway” (see “Brigham Young: American Moses,” page 13). This young man would one day succeed the Prophet Joseph Smith and serve as president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints longer than anyone else. Brigham Young married Miriam Works in early October 1824. Several New York homes they lived in are still extant.
Kenneth Mays is a board member of the Ensign Peak Foundation (formerly Mormon Historic Sites Foundation) and a retired instructor in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Department of Seminaries and Institutes.