History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

674 THE LAST DAYS OF BRIGHAM YOUNG.
foul means, 46 but by economy and close attention to
his business interests. Of all the business men in
Utah he was perhaps the most capable, but in the art
of making money he had no set system; merely the
ability for turning money to account and for taking
care of it. He purchased saw-mills and thrashing-
machines, for instance, and let them out on shares
he supplied settlers and emigrants with grain and
provisions; from the lumber and firewood which he
sold to the troops at Camp Floyd he is supposed to
have netted some $200,000, and from other contracts
a much larger sum. By many he is accused of enriching
himself from the appropriations of tithes, and
by plundering alike both saint and gentile, whereas
none paid his church dues more punctually or subscribed
to charities more liberally than did the president.
That with all his opportunities for making
money honestly and with safety he should put in
peril his opportunities and his high position by stooping
to such fraud as was commonly practised among
United States officials of exalted rank, is a charge
that needs no comment. 47 He had a great advantage
in being able to command men and dictate measures,
but he did not rob the brethren, as many have asserted.
At his decease the value of his estate was
estimated at $2,500,000, 48 though as trustee for the
church he controlled a much larger amount.
46 Stenhouse, for instance, relates that in 1852 he balanced his account
with the church, amounting to $200,000, by directing his clerk to place this
sum to his credit for services rendered, and that in 1867 he discharged his
liabilities, amounting to $967,000, in a similar manner. Rocky Mountain
Saints, 665. Such statements are pure fiction.
47 In the records of the internal revenue office at Washington his total
income for 1870 is stated at $25,500, in 1871 at $111,680, and in 1872 at
$39,952.
48 It has been stated in several books and many newspaper paragraphs that
Brigham had large deposits in the Bank of England, the amount being placed
as high as $20,000,000. This is entirely untrue. Stenhouse, for instance,
says that a New York journalist who visited him in 1871 inquired as to this
report, the sum being then stated at $17,000,000. Brigham replied that he
Had not a dollar outside of Utah, but that the church had some small amount
abroad for its use. The following extract from Richards' Narr., MS., may
serve to explain the matter: 'The rumor that President Young ever had any
money in the Bank of England is entirely false. When I was in Liverpool I
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