The Governors of Utah: Brigham Young

IMPROVEMENT ERA.

VOL. IV. NOVEMBER, 1900. No 1 .

THE GOVERNORS OF UTAH .

BRIGHAM YOUNG.

One of the features of the present volume of the ERA referred to in the prospectus for volume four was full page portraits of governors of Utah, with accompanying short historical and bio- graphical sketches. Asa step towards the fulfillment of this prom- ise, we have pleasure in presenting in this number a portrait of President Brigham Youngfrom a daguerreotype taken in December , 1850, shortly after he was appointed governor of Utah. It is a striking likeness of the governor as he appeared at that time, and it is not difficult to read init themany-sided character traits of the great leader-the founder of our State . Brigham Young, the first governor of Utah Territory, was born June 1, 1801, in Whitingham, Windham County, Vermont. He was appointed governor on September 28, 1850. "An act to estab- lish a Territorial Government for Utah," was signed by President Millard Fillmore, and went into effect on the 9th of September , 1850, but the news of the organization of the Territory and the appointment of governor and other officers, did not reach the val-

2 IMPROVEMENT ERA.

ley until January 27, 1851, being even then unofficially conveyed by way of San Francisco, through New York papers which were brought to Salt Lake City by Mr. Henry E. Gibson. Prior to this time, the Provisional Government of the State of Deseret had borne sway. It was the child of a mass convention which met in Salt Lake City on the 4th of March, 1849. On the 10th of the same month, a constitution was adopted, and a pro visional government was organized under the name of the State of Deseret. The election of officers for this provisional government took place on the 12th following, and resulted in the choosing of Brigham Young for governor. It will thus be seen that he was already the choice of the people and was acting as governor when the news of his presidential appointment reached him. He took the oath of office on the 3rd day of February, 1851, and immedi- ately set to work to change the provisional to the territorial form of government. Accordingly, on the 5th of April, 1851, the Gen- eral Assembly of the State of Deseret was dissolved, and the state merged into the Territory of Utah, the first territorial election be- ing held the following August. Aside from the political events of his first term, which though exciting were of little permanent import except for the episodes of the "Runaway Judges" Brandebury and Brocchus and Secretary D. B. Harris, who created a breach which may rightly be said to be the beginning of the long controversy between the Federal judges and the "Mormons," there were many significant events which occurred in the local history of the people, in all of which the wisdom of the directing mind of the great leader was manifest. The national Congress was petitioned, March 3, 1852, for the construction of a national central railroad and telegraph line to the Pacific coast-a request followed by other similar petitions in 1853-54. The hopes of the people were realized in 1869, President Young living to take part in the construction of this great highway. The growth, ex- tention and colonization of new settlements were continued; dra- matic and educational interests were encouraged; public buildings and stores were erected; grist and saw mills were busy in all parts; home manufacturing institutions sprang up in various places, en- couraged by legislative appropriation and protection. The corner stone of the temple was laid on the 6th of April, 1853; the Indian

THE GOVERNORS OF UTAH. 3

question called for careful diplomacy; and the troubles with the red men, in the Walker war of 1853, caused a conflict in which the lives of twenty whites were lost with a loss of three hundred thousand dollars in property. At the expiration of his first term, a petition, signed alike by Federal officials, "Mormons" and Gentiles, and headed by Colonel E. J. Steptoe (who had arrived in Salt Lake City with a body of troops to punish the perpetrators of the Gunnison Indian massacre,) was sent to President Franklin Pierce, asking the appointment of Gov- ernor Young for a second term. The president had at first refused to reappoint him, owing doubtless to evil imputations against his char- acter circulated by Secretary Harris and others. The place was tendered to Colonel Steptoe, who declined, knowing that Young was the people's choice. This petition was forwarded to Washing- ton inDecember, 1854,and resulted in the reappointment of Brigham Young as Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Agrowing discontent among the Federal officials character- ized the second term, notwithstanding Brigham Young was the means of instituting such order and justice in Utah as were never equalled in any other western state or territory in our frontier history. Three local events occurred in 1856, each of which may well be called a calamity. The period of want, in the early months of that year, caused by the previous season's crop being destroyed by grasshoppers and drought, in which the people were compelled to add sego and thistle roots to their scanty rations of meal and vegetables; the Tintic Indian war, by which twelve settlers lost their lives, with other Indian troubles on the plains; and the great- est calamity of all-the death of upwards of one hundred and fifty persons in the belated hand-cart companies. The close of his sec- ond term saw that "ill-advised measure on the part of the United States Government," the Utah War, which cost the government "several hundred lives and the loss of at least fifteen million dol- lars at a time when men and money could least be spared, and accomplished practically nothing save that it exposed the president and his cabinet to much well-deserved ridicule." Through the wise manipulations and consummate strategy of Governor Young, the "Mormons" won through it the respect and esteem of a large por- tion of the outside world, and a thousand favorable echoes from