| Trails West |
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| BRIGHAM YOUNG Left/Right photos: LDS Church Archives Brigham Young was born June 1, 1801 in Whitingham, Vermont. He was the ninth of eleven children of John and Abigal Howe Young (who died when Brigham was 14 years old). At the death of his wife, John (who had earlier served in the Revoltionary War) moved his family to upstate New York. Times were hard, and Brigham had only 11 days of formal education. In 1823, Brigham joined the Methodist Church, and the following year married Marian Works. In 1829, the young couple settled in Mendon, New York, which was only 40 miles from Manchester where the Book of Mormon was published by Joseph Smith. Brigham was baptized in 1832 and served a mission in Canada. Marian died in 1833, and Brigham joined Joseph and the Saints in Kirtland, Ohio. In 1841, Brigham was President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 1844, after the death of Joseph Smith in Carthage, Illinois, Apostle Young was chosen as the prophet of the Church. Three years later, he led the Saints to the Great Basin and a new life in the American West. |
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| Saints Arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, 1847 |
| The Mormon Trail stayed to the north side of the river as it followed the famous Oregon Trail west. Near Fort Bridger, Wyoming, the Mormon Trail split to a southwest direction towards the Salt Lake Valley. In present day Parley's Canyon, above Moutain Dell damn, the trial turned right and began it's last climb to the summitt of Emigration Canyon and down into the Great Basin. Upon entering the mouth of the canyon, Brigham Young stopped his wagon (on what is called the hogs-back, just southeast of present day Hogel Zoo) and said: "This is the Place . . . Drive on." |
| The Mormon Trail |
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| Links: > The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints > PBS. "Trail of Hope: The Story of the Mormon Trail" > The Mormom Pioneer Trail > Omaha. The Mormon Pioneer Trail |
| "The real meaning, the real importance of the 1846 trek across Iowa [by the Mormon Pioneers], was that it began the movement and the learning experience which eventually" brought 70,000 LDS Saints "to present-day Utah. The trek west was a rite of passage, a "refiner's fire" welding the new converts together, creating a group solidarity; it was a formative experience. . . "The exodus was the beginning of the end of what to that time had been essentially a mid-western phenomenon. Thereafter, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints became a western-centered movement. Membership [today is nearly 11 million] in 150 different countries, with more members of the Church outside" of the United States "than there are in the United States." -- Dr. Stanley B,. Kimball, Professor of History, Southern Illinois University. The exodus was also one of the largest organized marches of a religious people in world history. From 1847 until 1869, the trail brought thousands of pioneers over the 1300 mile Mormon Trail and into the Great Salt Lake Valley. "It was an unusual transplanting of an American city, an American religion, and an entire society with its settlement pattern and its political and social institutions, to make a new home and city in the Rocky Mountains." Source: http://www.omaha.org/trails/history.htm |
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| This Is The Place Monument |
| Right: Bronze statue of Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball and Wilford Woodruff, by artists, Mahonri Mackintosh Young (1877-1957), Wooley, Taylor, architects. Bronze and granite variety stone. Alvin A. Cole, who worked on the 15 foot high is pictured. Overall monument: 60 feet tall, 83 feet long. Dedicated in 1947. Photo courtesty of Gerald W. Cole, West Jordan, UT, May 2000. |