Page:History of Utah.djvu/246



194 BRIGHAM YOUNG SUCCEEDS JOSEPH.

from the earth. Brother Orson Pratt sat on my left; we were both leaning back on our chairs. Bring- ing my hand down on my knee, I said, 'The keys of the kingdom are right here with the church.'" But who held the keys of the kingdom ? This was the all- absorbing question that was being discussed at Nauvoo when Brigham and the other members of the quorum arrived at that city on the 6th of August, 1844.

Brigham Young was born at Whitingham, Wind- ham county, Vermont, on the 1st of June, 1801. His father, John, a Massachusetts farmer, served as a pri- vate soldier in the revolutionary war, and his grand- father as surgeon in the French and Indian war.^ In 1804 his family, which included nine children,^ of whom he was then the youngest, removed to Sherburn, Chenango county, New York, where for a time hard- ship and poverty were their lot. Concerning Brig- ham's youth there is little worthy of record. Lack of means compelled him, almost without education, to earn his own livelihood, ab did his brothers, finding employment as best they could. Thus, at the age of twenty-three, when he married he had learned how to work as farmer, carpenter, joiner, painter, and glazier, in the last of which occupations he was an ex- pert craftsman.

In 1829 he removed to Mendon, Monroe count}'", where his father then resided; and here, for the first time, he saw the book of Mormon at the house of his brother Phineas, who had been a pastor in the re- formed methodist church, but was now a convert to Mormonism.^

^ Waiters The Mormon Prophet and his Harem. Linforth, Boute from Liverpool, 112, note, states that his grandfather was an officer in the revolu- tionary war; this is not confirmed by Mrs Waite, who quotes from Brigham's autobiography. Again, Nabby Howe was the maiden name of Brigham's mother, as given in his autobiography; while Linforth reads Nancy Howe; and Remy, Jour, to G. S. L. City, i. 413, Naleby Howe.

^Born as follow: Nancy, Aug. 6, 1786, Fanny, Nov. 8, 1787, Rhoda, Sept. 10, 1789, John, May 22, 1791, Nabby, Apr. 23, 1793, Susannah, June 7, 1795, Joseph, Apr. 7, 1797, Phineas, Feb. 16, 1799, and Brigham, June 1, 1801. Two others were born later: Louisa, Sept. 25, 1804, and Lorenzo Dow, Oct. 19, 1807.

'In Ibid., it is mentioned that before tha organization of the latter-day