Wife, No. 19
by Ann Eliza Young
Category: Mormon Church

Ann Eliza Young (née Webb) was one of Brigham Young's many wives and later a critic of polygamy and a U.S. Mormon dissident. She was the 19th, or possibly 27th, wife of Brigham Young, the second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, having married him when he was 67 years old and she was a 24 year old divorcee with two children. She filed for divorce from Young in January 1873, an act which attracted much attention. Her bill for divorce alleged neglect, cruel treatment, and desertion, and claimed that her husband had property worth $8,000,000 and an income exceeding $40,000 a month. (Young countered that he owned less than $600,000 in property and that his income was less than $6000 per month.) Ann Eliza Young subsequently went around the country speaking out against polygamy, Mormonism, and even Brigham Young himself.