I am reading " Great Basin Kingdom" by Arrington.

B. Young's power was of a Biblical nature in 1850's and 60's Utah.

Does anyone have a good source for how Young would send out his "men" to buy up land, and then he would get a "revelation" to, BY GOD, send people from their Salt lake homes that they had just built and be forced to buy land in the new area from Brigham Young's land agents ?

As John D. Lee once said, " to disobey President Young was to sentence himself to death".

At lunch last week with the inimitable Will Bagley, we were comparing our "disillusionment" with Brigham Young. My epiphany came when I mentioned Young to a friend and got an earful... At that point, as a technical nevermo I gave Young some grduging respect as a great leader who had orchestrated the colonization of the Great Basin and separated the Mormons from the conflicts that had bedeviled them back east.

My friend told me of his ancestors arriving in one of the handcart companies, either the Willie or Martin Company, and immediately being shipped off to the "outer limits" of the territory as a means of keeping them from talking about their experiences.

I've since confirmed this was his practice.

Bagley, coming from a similar perspective, said his disillusionment began with researching the Mountain Meadows Massacre and seeing that there was no way to escape Young's culpability. I've followed in his footsteps, starting a little later when the scandal broke with the unearthing of the Arkansas remains in 1999, and his scholarship is so impeccable it's impossible to reject that conclusion.

There's a considerable amount of information on Young's selection of wives, and how many, other than the young "favorites," were selected with an eye towards their wealth as far more than their charms.

Two good starting points would be Fanny Stenhouse's "Tell it All," and Ann Eliza Webb Young's "Wife No. 19." I know the latter describes Young's self indulgent tendencies (Mormons discount that as born of bitterness over the divorce). I also vaguely recall that Young wed the mother of the wife of the object of Manti Bishop Warren Snow's "obsession," of whom the notorious story of Snow's castrating the young woman's suitor has been widely told here. Despite her wealth, she was reduced to living in poverty.

Will also told of a "miserly streak" Young developed in his later years, adopting practices to "collect" every debt owed him by the Saints, practically to the point of using strongarm tactics.

Those are some directions someone might want to explore; interestingly, both of us considered writing biographies of Young (he had a lot better chance than I would've of accomplishing that feat, of course), but he said he decided against it because he "can't write a biography of someone he doesn't like."

Right now Young looks to me to be a "historical monster," and I do find the fanatcism that probably motivated him to be interesting if definitely gruesome. But I'm doubtful I could contain my road rage long enough to write the entire story.