Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 10.djvu/561

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YOUNG 481 YOUNG in England, Ireland, and France, pub- lishing accounts of them, which were very favorably received, and in 1793 he was appointed secretary to the newly constituted Board of Agriculture. Of his many writings his "Travels in France," ARTHUR YOUNG published in 1792, is the most interest- ing, from its sketches of the social as well as the agricultural conditions of the French provinces just before and just after the revolution of 1789. He died in London, April 20, 1820. YOUNG, BRIGHAM. an American Mormon; born in Whitingham, Vt., June 1, 1801. His father was a farmer, and he himself learned the trade of painter and glazier. Early in life he joined the Baptists, but when about the age of 30 was convei'ted to Mormonism, and openly joined the sect at Kii-tland, O., in 1832. In 1835 he was ordained an elder and sent forth among the 12 apostles, the New England States being the district assigned to him. Here he is said to have been very successful in his proselytizing labors. On the death of Joseph Smith, in 1844, he was unanimously chosen president and prophet, though he had three competitors for the office, one of whom, Sidney Rigdon, he soon afterward excommunicated. On the forcible expul- sion of the sect from Nauvoo, 111., Presi- dent Young led them through toils and dangers, which nothing but the most ad- mirable energy could have conquered, over the plains and table-lands to the splendid valley in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, where, between the Wasat- ches and the Great Salt Lake, he founded (July, 1847) the present Salt Lake City. His immediate followers forming a nucleus, others poured into "the Prom- ised Land," and in 1849 an attempt was made to organize a State, to be called the State of Deseret, that being the offi- cial name given by the Mormons to the district. The United States Government refused to sanction the new State, but Utah was organized as a territory, and Young appointed governor. The appoint- ment of a "Gentile" governor in 1854 led to serious troubles, as Young and the other Mormons refused to recognize his authority, and it was not till a force of 2,500 troops was sent out in 1857 that the United States Government could en- force its laws on the turbulent sec- taries. Young was the founder of polygamy as an institution, and was among the first to practice it. In 1852 he promul- gated the "celestial law of marriage," which he declared to have been revealed BRIGHAM YOUNG to Joseph Smith nine years before. A large party, among whom were Smith's wife and sons, in the Church opposed the innovation, and declared the revela- tion to be a forgery, but Young's influ- ence carried the day. He himself had