Editing Brigham Young (section)

==LDS Church service==
[[File:Brigham Young ca 1857.PNG|thumb|Young {{circa}} 1857]]
At a conference on February 14, 1835, Brigham Young was named and ordained a member of the [[Quorum of the Twelve|Quorum of the Twelve Apostles]].{{sfn|Alexander|2019|p=27}}{{sfn|Arrington|1985|p=48}} On May 4, 1835, Young and other apostles went on a mission to the east coast, specifically in Pennsylvania and New York. His call was to preach to the "remnants of Joseph", a term people in the church used to refer to indigenous people.{{sfn|Arrington|1985|pp=49–50}}{{sfn|Turner|2012|page=41}} In August 1835, Young and the rest of the Quorum of the Twelve issued a testimony in support of the divine origin of the [[Doctrine and Covenants]].{{sfn|Alexander|2019|p=28}} He oversaw the finishing of the Kirtland temple and spoke in tongues at its dedication in 1836.{{sfn|Turner|2012|pp=45–46}} Shortly afterwards, Young went on another mission with his brother Joseph to New York and New England. On this mission, he visited the family of his aunt, Rhoda Howe Richards. They converted to the church, including his cousin [[Willard Richards]].{{sfn|Turner|2012|page=47}}{{sfn|Alexander|2019|p=26}} In August 1837, Young went on another mission to the eastern states.{{sfn|Alexander|2019|p=33}} He then returned to Kirtland where he remained until dissenters, unhappy with the failure of the [[Kirtland Safety Society]], forced him to flee the community in December 1837. He then stayed for a short time in [[Dublin, Indiana]], with his brother Lorenzo before moving to [[Far West, Missouri]], in 1838. He was later joined by his family and by other members of the church in Missouri.{{sfn|Arrington|1985|pp=62–63}} He became the oldest member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles when David Patten died after the [[Battle of Crooked River]].{{sfn|Turner|2012|page=60}} When Joseph Smith arrived in Far West, he appointed Young, along with Thomas Marsh and David Patten, as "presidency pro tem" in Missouri.{{sfn|Alexander|2019|p=38}}

Under Young's direction, the quorum organized the exodus of Latter Day Saints from Missouri to Illinois in 1838.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://rsc.byu.edu/joseph-smith-prophet-seer/saints-forced-exodus-missouri-1839 |title=The Saints' Forced Exodus from Missouri, 1839|access-date=July 1, 2024 |publisher=[[Brigham Young University]]}}</ref> Young also served a year-long mission to the United Kingdom. There, he showed a talent for organizing the church's work and maintaining good relationships with Joseph Smith and the other apostles. Under his leadership, members in the United Kingdom began publishing ''Millennial Star'', a hymnal, and a new edition of the Book of Mormon.{{sfn|Turner|2012|pp=66–79 [76]}}{{sfn|Arrington|1985|page=80}} Young also served in various leadership and community organization roles among church members in Nauvoo. He joined the Nauvoo city council in 1841 and oversaw the first [[Baptism for the dead|baptisms for the dead]] in the unfinished Nauvoo temple. He joined the [[Freemasonry|Masons]] in Nauvoo on April 7, 1842, and participated in an early endowment ritual led by Joseph Smith that May and became part of the [[Anointed Quorum]].{{sfn|Turner|2012|pp=83–85, 87}} Young and the other apostles directed the church's missionary work and the immigration of new converts from this point forward.{{sfn|Arrington|1985|page=99}} Young served another mission to the Eastern seaboard.{{sfn|Arrington|1985|page=105}}

During his time in Nauvoo, Joseph Smith introduced the doctrine of plural marriage among church leaders. Young performed the sealing ordinances for two of Joseph Smith's plural wives in early 1842.{{sfn|Turner|2012|pp=83–85, 87}} Young proposed marriage to Martha Brotherton, who was seventeen years old at the time and had recently immigrated from Manchester, England. Brotherton signed an affidavit saying that she had been pressured by Young and then Smith to accept polygamy. The affidavit was created at [[John C. Bennett]]'s request, after his excommunication and in conjunction with his distribution of false information combined with true information about the church's practice of polygamy. Brigham Young and William Smith discredited Brotherton's character, and Brotherton herself did not associate with the church afterwards.{{sfn|Turner|2012|pp=92–94}}{{sfn|Alexander|2019|pp=54–55}} Young campaigned against Bennett's allegations that Joseph Smith practiced "spiritual wifery"; Young knew of Smith's hidden practice of polygamy. He also helped to convince Hyrum to accept polygamy.{{sfn|Turner|2012|p=97}}

Young married Lucy Ann Decker in June 1842, making her his first plural wife. Young knew her father, Isaac Decker, in New York. Lucy was still married to William Seeley when Young married her. Young supported her and her two children while they lived in their own home in Nauvoo. Lucy and Young had seven children together.{{sfn|Smith|2008|pp=272–273}}{{sfn|Turner|2012|page=94}}{{sfn|Arrington|1985|page=102}} Young was one of the first men in Nauvoo to practice polygamy, and he married more women than any other polygamist while in Nauvoo.{{sfn|Turner|2012|p=91}} While in Nauvoo, he married Clarissa Decker, Clarissa Ross, Emily Dow Partidge, Louisa Beaman, Margaret Maria Alley, Emmeline Free, Margaret Piece, and Zina Diantha Huntington. These wives bore him children after they moved to Utah. He also married in Nauvoo, but did not have children with Augusta Adams Cobb, Susannah Snively, Eliza Bowker, Ellen A. Rockwood, and Namah K. J. Carter.{{sfn|Alexander|2019|pp=54–55}} Eight of Young's plural marriages in Nauvoo were to Joseph Smith's widows.{{sfn|Arrington|1985|p=121}}

Young traveled east with Wilford Woodruff and George A. Smith from July to October 1843 on a mission to raise funds for the Nauvoo temple and its guesthouse. Young's six-year-old daughter Mary Ann died while he was on this mission.{{sfn|Arrington|1985|pages=105, 108}} On November 22, 1843, Young and his wife Mary Ann received the [[second anointing]], a ritual that assured them that their salvation and exaltation would occur.{{sfn|Turner|2012|p=103}}<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Buerger |first1=David John |title="The Fulness of the Priesthood": The Second Anointing in Latter-day Saint Theology and Practice |journal=[[Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought|Dialogue]] |date=Spring 1983 |volume=16 |issue=1 |page=23 |doi=10.2307/45225125 |jstor=45225125 |url=https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/the-fullness-of-the-priesthood-the-second-anointing-in-latter-day-saint-theology-and-practice/ |access-date=September 26, 2022|doi-access=free }}</ref> In March 1844, Brigham Young was an inaugural member of the [[Council of Fifty]], which later organized the Mormon exodus from Nauvoo.{{sfn|Alexander|2019|p=56}}{{sfn|Arrington|1985|page=109}}

In 1844, Young traveled east again to solicit votes for Joseph Smith in his [[Joseph Smith 1844 presidential campaign|presidential campaign]]. In June 1844, while Young was away, Joseph Smith was [[Death of Joseph Smith|killed by an armed mob]] who stormed the jail where he was awaiting trial for the charge of treason. Young did not learn of the assassination until early July.{{sfn|Turner|2012|pp=107–108}}{{sfn|Arrington|1985|page=111}} Several claimants to fill the leadership vacuum emerged during [[Succession crisis (Latter Day Saints)|the succession crisis]] that ensued.{{Sfn|Coleman|2004|p=137}}{{sfn|Turner|2012|p=112}} Church members gathered at a meeting on August 8, 1844, with the intent to choose between two claimants, Young and [[Sidney Rigdon]], the senior surviving member of the church's [[First Presidency]].{{Sfn|Coleman|2004|p=138}} At the meeting, Rigdon argued no one could succeed Smith and that he (Rigdon) should become Smith's "spokesman" and guardian of the church. Young argued that the church needed more than a spokesman and that the twelve apostles, not Rigdon, had "the fullness of the priesthood" necessary to succeed Smith's leadership. Young claimed access to revelation to know God's choice of successor because of his position as an apostle.{{sfn|Turner|2012|p=112}} The majority of attendants voted that the Quorum of the Twelve was to lead the church.<ref name=Manifestations>{{Cite book |last=Jorgensen |first=Lynne Watkins |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VXXZAAAAMAAJ |title=Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820–1844 |publisher=[[Brigham Young University Press]] and [[Deseret Book]] |year=2017 |editor-last=Welch |editor-first=John W. |editor-link=John W. Welch |edition=2nd |location=Provo and Salt Lake City |pages=395–507 |chapter=The Mantle of the Prophet Joseph Passes to Brother Brigham: One Hundred Twenty-nine Testimonies of a Collective Spiritual Witness |isbn=978-0-8425-2607-4 |chapter-url=https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3162&context=byusq |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240524033510/https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3162&context=byusq |archive-date=May 24, 2024}}</ref> Many of Young's followers stated in reminiscent accounts (the earliest in 1850 and the latest in 1920) that when Young spoke to the congregation, he miraculously looked or sounded exactly like Smith, which they attributed to the power of God.{{sfn|Turner|2012|pp=112–113}}{{sfn|Arrington|1985|pp=114–115|ps=. "Some of those present were startled by an occurrence that they regarded as miraculous ... However one tries to explain it—the downcast spirits of the Saints, who had mourned Joseph's passing for forty days; their yearning to be comforted by their lost leader, their disappointment with Rigdon, whose ambition had diluted his sincerity; their surprise at the presence of 'Brother Brigham' who was thought by many to still be on his way back from Boston, and Brigham's talent for mimicry—the diaries, letters, and later recollections of many of those present testify to an experience that persuaded them that Brigham was the new Joseph."}}{{efn|Historians have come to different conclusions on whether contemporary records support this "transfiguration of Brigham Young" (also sometimes called the "mantle phenomenon") as an authentic experience, whatever its causation. One source is skeptical of the "mantle phenomenon" as historically authentic.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Van Wagoner |first=Richard S. |author-link=Richard S. Van Wagoner |date=Winter 1995 |title=The Making of a Mormon Myth: The 1844 Transfiguration of Brigham Young |url=https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V34N0102_171.pdf |journal=[[Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought|Dialogue]] |volume=28 |issue=4 |pages=1–24 |doi=10.2307/45226132 |jstor=45226132 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201108180352/https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V34N0102_171.pdf |archive-date=November 8, 2020}}</ref> Another church source considers the "mantle phenomenon" historically authentic.<ref name=Manifestations/> Van Wagoner argues that of the contemporary accounts, "none ... references an explicit transfiguration, a physical metamorphosis of Brigham Young into the form and voice of Joseph Smith", and that later reminiscences simply parroted each other as "a 'contagious' thought ... spread through the populace to create a 'collective mind'" to uphold the Latter-day Saints' claims of succession from Smith. Jorgensen argues that two 1844 accounts stating respectively that "Elijah's mantle had truly fallen upon the 'Twelve'" and that "Young 'favours Br Joseph both in person, manner of speaking more than any person ever you saw looks like another" (412) provide contemporary "mantle accounts". Jorgensen also notes that the two earliest reminiscences which comprehensively described the "mantle experience" were written in 1850 by Caroline Barnes Crosby and Emily Smith Hoyt, not male priesthood leaders, but women in the church's laity.}} Young began acting as the church's president afterwards, though he did not yet have a full presidency. He also led the Anointed Quorum.{{sfn|Turner|2012|pp=113, 117}} Young led the church as president of the Quorum of the Twelve until December 5, 1847, when the quorum unanimously agreed to organize a new First Presidency with Young as president of the church. A church conference held in Iowa sustained Young and his First Presidency on December 27, 1847.{{sfn|Arrington|1985|p=153}}

Not all church members followed Young. Rigdon became the president of [[Rigdonite|a separate church organization]] based in [[Pittsburgh]], Pennsylvania, and several other potential successors emerged to lead what became other denominations of the movement.{{sfn|Gutjahr|2012|pp=68–80|ps=. In the nineteenth century, in addition to Rigdon such claimants included [[William Bickerton]], [[Jason W. Briggs]], [[Joseph Smith III]], and [[James Strang]]. Gutjahr reports that "since Joseph's death in 1844, there have arisen some seventy different Mormon sects, nearly fifty of which still exist[ed]" as of 2012.}}

Before departing Nauvoo, Young focused on completing the Nauvoo temple. After the exterior was completed on December 10, 1845, members received their temple endowments day and night, and Young officiated many of these sessions.<!--ALL of the sessions?--> An estimated 5,000 members were endowed between December 10, 1845, and February 1846.{{sfn|Alexander|2019|p=65}} With the repealing of Nauvoo's charter in January 1845, church members in Nauvoo lost their courts, police, and militia, leaving them vulnerable to attacks by mobs. Young instructed victims of anti-Mormon violence on the outskirts of Nauvoo to move to Nauvoo. Young negotiated with [[Stephen A. Douglas]] and agreed to lead church members out of Nauvoo in the spring in exchange for peace.{{sfn|Turner|2012|pp=120, 124–125}} Some Mormons counterfeited American and Mexican money, and a grand jury indicted Young and other church leaders in 1845. When officers arrived at the Nauvoo temple to arrest Young, he sent William Miller out in Young's hat and cloak. Miller was arrested but released when it was discovered he was not Brigham Young. Young himself condemned the counterfeiting. John Turner's biography states: "it remains unclear whether Young [...] had sanctioned the bogus-making operation".{{sfn|Alexander|2019|p=66}}{{sfn|Turner|2012|p=127}} The indictment of Young and other leaders, combined with rumors that troops would prevent the Mormons from leaving, led Young to start their exodus in February 1846.{{sfn|Alexander|2019|p=67}}