The Russellville Democrat., 1877-09-13
Death of Brigham Young.
Democrat. Aug. 90. 1

repcies has passed away, but of Rrigbam Young, who died at Salt Lake City yesterday, at four o'clock, it would be the height of folly to say da mortuis nil nisi bonum. Even uniting aside his manner of domes- stic life. in which the sensuality of noligamy was carried to an unprece- dented pitch, his duplicity, his un- srrnpulousness, his readiness at any moment to sacrifice all and every
 thinp to his personal power and aograndizement, his cunning which never shrunk for moment from perjury and his cruelty which never knew mercy, point him out as man to be signalized forever with univer- , sal execration.
 The we'll known ruler of the Nor mons, like the large majority of his proselytcs, was in early life almost entirely unedcated. His father was I Vermont farmer, and he himself was born in June, 1901, and as soon as he was able to work learned the trade of glazier. While still in his native State, he joined the Baptist church, and the powers for oratory, which he undoubtedly possessed, develping early, he occasionally preached or exhorted in their meet ings. He subsequently, moved to Ohio, and there, at Kirkland in 1882, was converted to the Latter Day Saints. Almost immediately made an elder, he was three years after wards sent back to the Eastern States to win new proselytes to Joseph Smith, who was then still alive. He was very successful in his mis- sion, and when the founder of Mor monism died in 1S44, Young was i one of four candidates for the vacant presidency. He was successful, and shortly afterwards his leading rival, Sidney Rigdon, was driven out of the fold, and thenceforward the new President ruled his followers with autocratic authority. In '46, after the charter of Nauvoo had been re- pealed, Young, declaring himself another Joshua, led his people to Salt Lake, which he assured them was the promised land. He founded -his city, and but two years afterward had the audacity, which was as pro- nounced as his cunning, to apply for admission for Utah as a Mormon State within the Union. His appli- cation was refused, but in 1850 the district was organized as Territory and he himself appointed Governor for four years. A christian succeed ing him in '54, he forthwith began the plan of defiance to the Central Government, which so far as he dared, actuated his whole subsequent life, and three years afterwards Pres ident Buchanan was compelled to send force of 2,500 men to enforce peace upon the city.
 It was in 1852 that he proclaimed the celestial law of marriage" as he called It, sanctioning, and, indeed, enjoining polygamy, and which he declared had been revealed to Joseph Smith nineteen years before. Smiths widow and her sons at once denounced it as forgery, but Brig ham, by the exertion of his extraor- dinary will-power, and the employ ment of his whole influence over the community, succeeded Tn establish ing it as a doctrine. Of its license he availed himself to an unlimited extent, and when, three or four years ago, his wife Ann Eliza applied to the United States courts for d. yorce, she was then the fifteenth woman who had been "sealed' to him, and, old as he was, he has since her abandonment s'sealed" to him self several fresh victims. His com pllcity with Lee, who was shot but q short time ago at Mountain Meadow, upon the scene where the murders called the Mountain Meadow massa- ere had been committed, was strong y suspected, and in any more civil lzed State he would almost certainly have been tried, convicted and ex- ecuted for the crime. The univer- sal verdict of posterity will be that Lee was only the executant of the diabollcal treachery which Young had planned. In addition to the emoluments of his offices, Young was at once trader manufactures and an agriculturist, and ded i'm nnngnlxr ,.l. Al, I 4 l.,,