Brigham Young
President of the Latter-day Saints’ Twelve Apostles in the years after Joseph Smith’s death. He signed the epistle of December 1847 that reports the pioneer company’s journey to the Great Basin and the choice of a site for Great Salt Lake City.
A text in the Doctrine and Covenants, headed by the church as given through Brigham Young at Winter Quarters on the Missouri in January 1847, orders the Latter-day Saints to be organized into companies for the journey west, under the direction of the Twelve Apostles (Doctrine and Covenants 136, heading and verses 1–3).
The general epistle of 23 December 1847 is signed by Young as president, on behalf of the Twelve (General Epistle of the Twelve (1847), p. 88). It reports that members of the council and 143 pioneers left Winter Quarters on 14 April 1847 and reached the Great Basin in the latter part of July (General Epistle of the Twelve (1847), p. 82), and that they chose the site of a city there, to be called Great Salt Lake City (General Epistle of the Twelve (1847), p. 83). See Joseph Smith and the Latter-day Saints and Salt Lake City.
In the timeline
- 6 April 1830, firm dateJoseph Smith and the Latter-day Saints
On 6 April 1830, the year the Book of Mormon is printed, Joseph Smith and five others organize a church in western New York. Its leaders declare it to be Christ’s church restored. The Catholic Church and some other churches do not accept its baptism.
Primary sources
Doctrine and Covenants
- Doctrine and Covenants 136, heading and verses 1–3churchofjesuschrist.org