01Biography
Brigham Young joined the Latter Day Saint movement in 1832 and led it after its founder, Joseph Smith, was killed by a mob in 1844. Forced out of Nauvoo, Illinois, the Saints spent the winter of 1846 to 1847 at Winter Quarters, in what is now Omaha, Nebraska.
In April 1847 Young led a small vanguard company west along the north side of the Platte, then on the Oregon Trail over South Pass to Fort Bridger, and into the Salt Lake Valley in July. By December more than 2,000 Latter-day Saints had made the journey.
02Why they matter
Led the 1847 Mormon migration to the Salt Lake Valley, and his church's ferries on the North Platte and Green served later emigrants.
03How they died
He died in Salt Lake City on August 29, 1877, aged 76, probably of a ruptured appendix.
04Legacy
He was the first governor of Utah Territory, named to the post in 1850. Salt Lake City and the schools that became the University of Utah and Brigham Young University trace back to him. His record also includes backing slavery in Utah Territory and leading the territory's resistance to U.S. troops in the Utah War, during which Mormon militiamen killed at least 120 members of the Baker-Fancher emigrant train at Mountain Meadows in 1857.