__NOTOC__Joseph Young (April 7, 1797 – July 16, 1881) was an early convert to the Latter Day Saint movement and was a missionary and longtime general authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). He was an elder brother of Brigham Young.

Early life

Young was born in Hopkinton, Massachusetts on April 7, 1797, the seventh child born to John Young and Abigail Howe. In 1830, while he was a preacher for the

Methodist Church Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related Christian denomination, denominations of Protestantism, Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John W ...

in Upper Canada, Young was introduced to the doctrine of the

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by his younger brother Brigham. Joseph eventually abandoned the Methodist faith and was

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a member of the Church of Christ by Daniel Bowen in Columbia, Pennsylvania, on April 6, 1832; Brigham followed his brother and became a member of the church one week later. Later in April 1832, Joseph was ordained to the priesthood office of

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by Ezra Landon. Immediately following his ordination, Young began a mission for the church, preaching in Canada in the spring and summer of 1832 with his brother

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for four months.

Missions

In the fall of 1832, Young joined the gathering of Latter Day Saints in Kirtland, Ohio, where he met Joseph Smith, the founder of the church. Shortly after arriving in Kirtland, Smith asked Young to depart on another mission for the church to Upper Canada, which he served over the winter months of 1832 and 1833 with his brother Brigham. On February 18, 1834, Young married Jane Adeline Bicknell in Geneseo, New York. The couple would eventually have eleven children, including daughters Jane Adeline, Julia Ann Vilate, and Chloe Eliza, as well as sons Joseph Bicknell, Seymour Bicknell, and Marcus LeGrand.

Seventy

Young accompanied Joseph Smith and others in a journey to Independence, Missouri, in 1834 as part of Zion's Camp. In 1835, Smith selected Young to be one of the leaders of the Seventy of the church. Young was ordained to the Seventy on February 28. He then became a president of the

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on March 1, 1835. After it was discovered that the senior president of the Seventy, Hazen Aldrich, had previously been ordained to the office of

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, Aldrich surrendered his position in the quorum. As a result, Young became the senior or seventh president of the Seventy. He would retain this position in the church from 1835 until his death. As a Seventy, Young served several more missions for the church, including one to

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and Massachusetts with Burr Riggs in 1835 and one to his relatives in the eastern United States with his brother Brigham in 1836. Young participated in many significant events in early Latter Day Saint history. He was present at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple in 1836 and participated in the Kirtland Safety Society. Young was also present at Haun's Mill, Missouri, when it was attacked by those who opposed the Mormon presence in Missouri. He left Missouri with the Latter Day Saints in consequence of the extermination order which had been issued by

Lilburn W. Boggs Lilburn Williams Boggs (December 14, 1796March 14, 1860) was the sixth Governor of Missouri from 1836 to 1840. He is now most widely remembered for his interactions with Joseph Smith and Porter Rockwell, and Missouri Executive Order 44, known b ...

. Young relocated

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for a brief time before settling in

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in 1840, where he worked as a painter. Young also joined the Nauvoo Legion in 1842. Young received his

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in Nauvoo on February 3, 1844, just months before Joseph Smith was killed. He was selected by Smith as an inaugural member of the Council of Fifty on March 1, 1845. At the time Smith was killed, Young was campaigning on behalf of Smith's bid for the presidency of the United States. Like many early Latter Day Saints, Young practiced

plural marriage Polygamy (called plural marriage by Latter-day Saints in the 19th century or the Principle by modern fundamentalist practitioners of polygamy) was practiced by leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) for more tha ...

. On January 16, 1846, he was married to Lucinda Allen and Lydia Caroline Hagar, in the

Nauvoo Temple The Nauvoo Temple was the second temple constructed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.''Manuscript History of the Church'', LDS Church Archives, book A-1, p. 37; reproduced in Dean C. Jessee (comp.) (1989). ''The Papers of Jose ...

. Soon to follow was Mary Ann Huntley on February 6, 1846. Later, on 7 April 1868 he married Sarah Jane Snow, and Elizabeth Stevens on November 28, 1868.Individual Record:
Joseph Young. familysearch.org Young would eventually father a total of twenty-one children.

Later life in Utah

Young and his four wives left Illinois in 1846 and settled in Winter Quarters, Nebraska, and later Carterville, Iowa. He and his wives left Carterville in 1850 to join the Latter Day Saints who had followed his brother Brigham to the

Salt Lake Valley Salt Lake Valley is a valley in Salt Lake County in the north-central portion of the U.S. state of Utah. It contains Salt Lake City and many of its suburbs, notably Murray, Sandy, South Jordan, West Jordan, and West Valley City; its total po ...

in Utah Territory. Young arrived in Salt Lake City in September 1850. The Youngs travelled in the William Snow/Joseph Young Company, with Young acting as a captain of the group. In 1870, Young served a final mission for the church to the British Isles. He also served in the

Utah Territorial legislature The Utah State Legislature is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Utah. It is a bicameral body, comprising the Utah House of Representatives, with 75 state representatives, and the Utah Senate, with 29 state senators. There are no term lim ...

. He died in Salt Lake City on July 16, 1881 at the age of 84. At the time of his death, Young had served as a general authority or a missionary of the church for nearly fifty years.

References

* *Flake, Lawrence R. ''Mighty Men of Zion: General Authorities of the Last Dispensation''. Salt Lake City: Karl D. Butler, 1974. *Jenson, Andrew. '' Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia''. Vol. 1. Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History Company, 1901.

External links

Grampa Bill's G.A. Pages: Joseph YoungJoseph Young and Seymour B. Young Papers

L. Tom Perry Special Collections The L. Tom Perry Special Collections is the special collections department of Brigham Young University (BYU)'s Harold B. Lee Library in Provo, Utah. Founded in 1957 with 1,000 books and 50 manuscript collections, as of 2016 the Library's special ...