“here Is My Home At Last!” (February 1963 | Volume: 14, Issue: 2)

“here Is My Home At Last!”

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Authors: Carl Carmer

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February 1963 | Volume 14, Issue 2


After Joseph and Hyrum Smith were murdered by an anti-Mormon mob at Carthage, Illinois, on June 27, 1844, great contention arose among the Latter-day Saints as to who would succeed Joseph as head of the Church. At a vast meeting beside the unfinished temple on August 8, Sidney Rigdon urged that he be made Church guardian, claiming that he had received a revelation from on high that this should be his office. A little later a sturdy figure rose from the audience and spoke for himself. Not as tall as Joseph Smith, Brigham Young was nevertheless of commanding presence. He proclaimed himself a dedicated follower of the Prophet, and he spoke with a sincerity and practicality which made Rigdon seem both small and pretentious. He was overwhelmingly sustained as president of the Twelve Apostles, on whom the power of the Church now rested.

Brigham Young had been born four years earlier than Joseph Smith, and in the same state of Vermont. His family had moved to western New York when he was two. As he grew older Brigham devoted his energies to becoming a carpenter and joiner. There are fine houses still standing in New York State (including the home of Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Henry Seward, at Auburn) that are testimonials to the thoroughness and quality of his craftsmanship.

The young builder was converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Mormon neighbors. He did not meet the founder of the faith until 1832, after Joseph had moved to Kirtland, Ohio. At that time Brigham made a pilgrimage for the express purpose of declaring his loyalty and found Joseph in the forest, back of the house where he was living, “chopping and hauling wood.” Thus the originator of the Mormon Church and the man who was to do more than any other member in perpetuating it, both Yankee-born, became known to each other.

The new head of the Latter-day Saints was to prove himself not only an effective administrator but one of the greatest leaders of men in all American history. He spoke the vernacular of his time with exactness of meaning, yet with a touch of poetry. He had an intuitive knowledge of his fellows. He had common sense. He had a kind of down-to-earth spirituality. And he bristled with authority.

Though President Young was aware of the gathering tempest of hatred which was soon to result in the Mormons being driven out of Nauvoo by armed mobs, he insisted that the magnificent temple of which Joseph Smith had dreamed be completed. Before it was finished, however, the decision had been made that the whole body of the Xauvoo Saints would move westward. The first wagons left Nauvoo in February, 1846.

By autumn twelve to fifteen thousand of the Saints had reached the west bank of the Missouri, where they built a temporary