Community Corner

Today in History--July 24

Brigham Young and a band of Mormons arrived in 1847 in what would become Salt Lake City.

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Led by Brigham Young, a band of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or Mormons, arrived in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake in Utah in 1847. The group had headed West from Carthage, Illinois, where church founder Joseph Smith had been killed.

Born in Vermont in 1805, Smith at 22 said the angel Moroni had visited him, showing him an ancient Hebrew text that had been lost for 1,500 years and written by a Native American prophet, Mormon, in the fifth century A.D. Three years later, in 1830, Smith had founded the Mormon Chuch.

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People were converted and churches were established in New York, Ohio and Illinois. The religion was criticized for its practice of polygamy. In Nauvoo, Illinois, Smith was subjected to mob violence and charged with treason. His brother and he were imprisoned in the jail in Carthage, where they were murdered.

Young led more and more church members to Salt Lake City. By 1869, there were 80,000 Mormons in Utah.

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