If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.

—John Quincy Adams

Brigham Young had achieved unique status among the Mormon hierarchy, but he was away from Nauvoo on a political mission at the time of Joseph's murder. Meanwhile, thousands of Mormons in Nauvoo were being tugged and pulled by men claiming to be the next leader of the church.

Brigham returned and convinced most of Nauvoo's Mormons to accept the Twelve Apostles as collective leaders. He headed the Twelve.1

He had to unite two distinct factions: the supporters of polygamy and the anti-polygamists. Brigham, devoted to Joseph and his ideals, was determined to carry out the martyred prophet's plans to complete the Nauvoo Temple, expand the practice of polygamy, and establish a politically autonomous Kingdom of God on Earth.²

Many saw Brigham Young as a usurper. It was inevitable that schisms would cleft the youthful religion, left in a power void upon the death of Joseph. Brigham moved quickly to consolidate his leadership in light of claims to the presidency of the church by Mormons like Samuel Smith, the prophet's brother, who died of unknown causes within several weeks. Another brother of the prophet, William, accused Brigham of poisoning Samuel. Young had been away on the mission at the time of Samuel's death, so it seemed unlikely that he'd been able to connive to have him killed.³

Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were a study in contrasts. Joseph was tall, athletic, with a prominent nose and a retreating forehead. In dress he was a dandy. His rhetoric could soar. Brigham was shorter and barrel-chested. In spite of his forty-plus years, Brigham had a full shock of sandy red hair. Brigham's speech was simple, direct, and forceful. At times it could be coarse. Wisely, he chose not to emulate Joseph.4

Brigham still publicly denied that polygamy was being practiced. A pattern of dissent met by excommunication was firming Brigham's hand and would form the basis for keeping the flock in line to the present day.

Brigham bought arms for his military organization, and they were prepared to use them. He conducted surveillance on visitors and ejected dissenters. The threat of impending warfare bonded the Mormons of Nauvoo and consolidated Brigham's position.⁵

Brigham had become his people's leader. He was “passionately devoted to the martyred prophet, and his life's work became carrying out the prophet's plans.”⁶

In August 1845, in a protest against a huge win by Mormons in the local elections, mobs began burning Mormon homes in a nearby part of the county. The violence escalated. Time was running out for the Mormons in Nauvoo, and everyone knew it. A delegation from Governor Ford, including Congressman Stephen Douglas, put pressure on Brigham to leave Illinois quickly and peacefully in the spring of 1846. In return, the Mormons were promised protection from their threatening neighbors. Brigham hoped for a reasonable settlement on the sale of Mormon-owned property, but that would not happen.⁷

The Mormons displayed enough willingness to fight that the mobs had backed off. Everyone waited anxiously. As John G. Turner wrote, “Young knew when to cut his losses. The Latter-day Saints would be driven, but their expulsion felt like a deliverance from a far worse fate.”⁸ Young was ready to lead the Mormons from their Egypt, and he set about making plans.

By 1845 Brigham was thinking of Upper California as a new Zion for Mormonism. This was a vast slab of geography claimed by Mexico—present-day California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. The Mormons decided to go.⁹

In December 1845, a grand jury in Springfield, Illinois, after hearing persistent reports of counterfeiting by the Mormons, indicted Brigham and eleven other church members. The church probably was counterfeiting. Clearly, cash was hard to come by in Nauvoo.10

The law came calling again, determined to arrest Brigham. In an act Brigham would love to tell in later years, William Miller, an early convert to Mormonism, appeared outside the temple and deceived the officers into believing he was Brigham Young. They arrested Miller and took him to Carthage before a former member of the church revealed the error.¹¹

Brigham wanted to complete the Nauvoo Temple before leaving and rushed the work throughout the fall and winter of 1845. By early December the temple rooms were ready.¹²

“For Young, the Nauvoo Temple was central to his furtherance of Joseph Smith's theology, built around sealing together patriarchal families headed by faithful saints exalted as priests, kings, and—one day—gods,” according to Turner.¹³

Brigham was furious when the secrets of the temple ceremony—including “grips and tokens”—were publicly displayed as he was greeted on the street by those who had been part of the temple rituals. The penalty for revealing the ceremonies was “gruesome death.”¹⁴

Brigham could blast his flock with criticism, but he also had a playful side and was not above joking with his followers. He encouraged the presence of music, dancing, and spiritual beauty in the temple. On December 17, having completed the day's rituals, “[w]hile under the power of animation,” Young “danced before the Lord.” Young was torn about combining merriment with spiritual zeal, but dancing, plays, and music would become part of the heritage of the church.¹⁵

As the days in Nauvoo dwindled, Brigham stepped up his courtship and secretly began adding more wives.¹⁶ Young's fifty-five wives ranged in age from sixteen to sixty, and he continued marrying until 1872. He had fifty-six children by sixteen of his wives, of which forty-six lived to adulthood. Not all of his marriages resulted in sexual liaisons; some of his wives were widows in need.¹⁷

Interestingly, in 1845, John D. Lee (who will later figure prominently in this narrative) vied with Brigham for the hands in marriage of two sisters, Louisa and Emmeline Free. Brigham saw Emmeline and fell in love with her. Lee would tell a council that “Brigham told him if he would give up Emeline [sic] to him he would uphold him in time and eternity & he never should fail, but that he would sit at his right hand in his kingdom.”18 Swapping the sexual for the spiritual was good enough for Lee. Brigham married the pretty Emmeline when she was nineteen, and Lee apparently had no resentments, as he came to view Brigham as a surrogate father.¹⁹