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History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

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674 THE LAST DAYS OF BRIGHAM YOUNG.<br />

foul means, 46 but by economy and close attention to<br />

his business interests. Of all the business men in<br />

<strong>Utah</strong> he was perhaps the most capable, but in the art<br />

<strong>of</strong> making money he had no set system; merely the<br />

ability for turning money to account and for taking<br />

care <strong>of</strong> it. He purchased saw-mills and thrashing-<br />

machines, for instance, and let them out on shares<br />

he supplied settlers and emigrants with grain and<br />

provisions; from the lumber and firewood which he<br />

sold to the troops at Camp Floyd he is supposed to<br />

have netted some $200,000, and from other contracts<br />

a much larger sum. By many he is accused <strong>of</strong> enriching<br />

himself from the appropriations <strong>of</strong> tithes, and<br />

by plundering alike both saint and gentile, whereas<br />

none paid his church dues more punctually or subscribed<br />

to charities more liberally than did the president.<br />

That with all his opportunities for making<br />

money honestly and with safety he should put in<br />

peril his opportunities and his high position by stooping<br />

to such fraud as was commonly practised among<br />

United States <strong>of</strong>ficials <strong>of</strong> exalted rank, is a charge<br />

that needs no comment. 47 He had a great advantage<br />

in being able to command men and dictate measures,<br />

but he did not rob the brethren, as many have asserted.<br />

At his decease the value <strong>of</strong> his estate was<br />

estimated at $2,500,000, 48 though as trustee for the<br />

church he controlled a much larger amount.<br />

46 Stenhouse, for instance, relates that in 1852 he balanced his account<br />

with the church, amounting to $200,000, by directing his clerk to place this<br />

sum to his credit for services rendered, and that in 1867 he discharged his<br />

liabilities, amounting to $967,000, in a similar manner. Rocky Mountain<br />

Saints, 665. Such statements are pure fiction.<br />

47 In the records <strong>of</strong> the internal revenue <strong>of</strong>fice at Washington his total<br />

income for 1870 is stated at $25,500, in 1871 at $111,680, and in 1872 at<br />

$39,952.<br />

48 It has been stated in several books and many newspaper paragraphs that<br />

<strong>Brigham</strong> had large deposits in the Bank <strong>of</strong> England, the amount being placed<br />

as high as $20,000,000. This is entirely untrue. Stenhouse, for instance,<br />

says that a New York journalist who visited him in 1871 inquired as to this<br />

report, the sum being then stated at $17,000,000. <strong>Brigham</strong> replied that he<br />

Had not a dollar outside <strong>of</strong> <strong>Utah</strong>, but that the church had some small amount<br />

abroad for its use. The following extract from Richards' Narr., MS., may<br />

serve to explain the matter: 'The rumor that President <strong>Young</strong> ever had any<br />

money in the Bank <strong>of</strong> England is entirely false. When I was in Liverpool I<br />

;

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