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How did Brigham Young become so rich? Wasn't he essentially penniless at the death of Joseph Smith, and then his only career was as prophet? At the time of his death he accumulated a fortune of 285,000, which is the equivalent of 500 million today, according to Horace Greeley.

And does anyone have more information about the court battle his children engaged in with the church over property?

beastie wrote:How did Brigham Young become so rich? Wasn't he essentially penniless at the death of Joseph Smith, and then his only career was as prophet? At the time of his death he accumulated a fortune of 285,000, which is the equivalent of 500 million today, according to Horace Greeley.

And does anyone have more information about the court battle his children engaged in with the church over property?

Yes, but think of the tithing he must have paid!

(Um, he did pay tithing, didn't he ... ?)

Chap wrote:

beastie wrote:How did Brigham Young become so rich? Wasn't he essentially penniless at the death of Joseph Smith, and then his only career was as prophet? At the time of his death he accumulated a fortune of 285,000, which is the equivalent of 500 million today, according to Horace Greeley.

And does anyone have more information about the court battle his children engaged in with the church over property?

Yes, but think of the tithing he must have paid!

(Um, he did pay tithing, didn't he ... ?)

Doubtful. Maybe his wives did, but it all ended up in his bank account anyway, so there's no point.

LDS scholar Jeffrey Johnson observed:

"By his death on 23 August 1877, Brigham Young had married fifty-five wives. Nineteen had predeceased him, ten had received divorces, four are unaccounted for, and twenty-three survived him. Seventeen wives received a share of his estate while the remaining six apparently had nonconjugal roles." (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, ("Defining ‘Wife’: The Brigham Young Households," by Jeffrey Johnson, 1987, Vol. 20, No. 3, p.62)

http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/brighamyoungsestate.htm

I guess you had to have sex with him to get a share of the estate.

Fence Sitter wrote:

LDS scholar Jeffrey Johnson observed:

"By his death on 23 August 1877, Brigham Young had married fifty-five wives. Nineteen had predeceased him, ten had received divorces, four are unaccounted for, and twenty-three survived him. Seventeen wives received a share of his estate while the remaining six apparently had nonconjugal roles." (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, ("Defining ‘Wife’: The Brigham Young Households," by Jeffrey Johnson, 1987, Vol. 20, No. 3, p.62)

http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/brighamyoungsestate.htm

I guess you had to have sex with him to get a share of the estate.

Now, that's something interesting! All the high falutin' talk about marrying widows in order to care for them ... and ten divorces out of 55 marriages; not exactly a stellar track record.

I've read that BY pocketed $5 for every divorce he granted and that alone added up to quite a nice pile of change.

beastie wrote:How did Brigham Young become so rich? Wasn't he essentially penniless at the death of Joseph Smith, and then his only career was as prophet? At the time of his death he accumulated a fortune of 285,000, which is the equivalent of 500 million today, according to Horace Greeley.

And does anyone have more information about the court battle his children engaged in with the church over property?

I think a 285k equal to half billion today is an erroneous computation.

Computing currency equvalancies over long periods is very difficult and often innacurate. This site however attempts it:\

http://futureboy.us/fsp/dollar.fsp

When I put in 1877, the year BY died I get this:

1 dollars in 1877 had the same buying power as 21.56 current dollars. That converts 285,000 to 6,144,600. A far cry from $500 million.

Jason Bourne wrote:1 dollars in 1877 had the same buying power as 21.56 current dollars. That converts 285,000 to 6,144,600. A far cry from $500 million.

None of it earned from his own actual labor.

How did Brigham Young get so wealthy?

1. The Mormon Bishop answer:

"Do you masturbate?"

2. The Mormon Apologist answer:

"He invested his money well"

3. The Mormon Church answer (LDS Public Affairs):

"The Church spends a lot of money helping people in Africa."

4. The Mormon historian answer:

"Look....I got a wife, kids! I got a mortage. I work for the Church.
Do the math. OK?"

5. The Real truthful factual answer:

"HE STOLE IT! He "borrowed" hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from the Tithing Office, and at the end of the fiscal year he wrote "For services rendered" in order to "pay back" the "loans". He owned a railroad, many homes in Salt Lake City (some of which he rented out as brothells), two whiskey distilleries, two tobacco farms near Washington Utah, an entire town (Orderville), and most of the ZCMI, the only "Grog" (beer) hall in Salt Lake City for decades, had stock in mines in Utah (he told Mormons NOT to invest in mines or do business with Gentiles...which he did on a massive scale), plus he owned great amounts of lands in Utah, Idaho, Nevada and Arizona. Where did he get the funds for all these investments? The Tithing Office."

Beastie,
I assume you have seen these quotes:

LDS historian Leonard J. Arrington wrote:

"Brigham Young and other church authorities, when need required it, drew on the tithing resources of the church, and at a later date repaid part or all of the obligation in money, property, or services. No interest seems to have been paid for the use of these funds.... This ability to draw, almost at will, on church as well as his own funds, was a great advantage to Brigham Young and was certainly one of the reasons for his worldly success.... while Brigham Young was probably the largest borrower of funds from the trustee-in-trust, he was certainly not the only one." ("The Settlement of the Brigham Young Estate," 1877-1879, Reprinted from the Pacific Historical Review, vol. 21, no. 1, Feb. 1952, p.7-8)


LDS historians James Allen and Glen Leonard:

"It was finally determined that his estate was worth approximately $1,626,000, but obligations of more than a million dollars to the Church plus other debts and executor's fees reduced the family's claim to $224,000. When seven of his dissatisfied heirs challenged this settlement, however, that matter was settled out of court and the Church agreed to give the heirs an additional $75,000." (The Story of the Latter-day Saints, by James Allen and Glen Leonard, second ed. 1992, Deseret Book, p.385)

LDS historian B.H. Roberts told about the lawsuit filed by some of Young's heirs:

"During the three years’ presidency of the council of the twelve [after the death of Pres. Young] the affairs of the church quite generally were prosperous. Some difficulty arose, however, in the matter of settling the estate of the late President Brigham Young. Some claims were made by a number of the late president’s heirs respecting the possession of property that President Young held for the church as trustee-in-trust. It was alleged by them that President Young died seized of an estate valued at two and a half millions of dollars. This, however, was denied by his executors, and also by President John Taylor...that the property to which Brigham Young held the legal right or title was not worth over $1,626,000; and further they affirmed, that much of said estate was held by the testator in trust for the Church...and that Brigham Young was largely indebted at the time of his death 'and justly owed to said church over $1,000,000.’ " (Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, vol. 5, by B. H. Roberts, p.524-525, BYU Press 1965)

Jason Bourne wrote:

beastie wrote:How did Brigham Young become so rich? Wasn't he essentially penniless at the death of Joseph Smith, and then his only career was as prophet? At the time of his death he accumulated a fortune of 285,000, which is the equivalent of 500 million today, according to Horace Greeley.

And does anyone have more information about the court battle his children engaged in with the church over property?

I think a 285k equal to half billion today is an erroneous computation.

Computing currency equvalancies over long periods is very difficult and often innacurate. This site however attempts it:\

http://futureboy.us/fsp/dollar.fsp

When I put in 1877, the year BY died I get this:

1 dollars in 1877 had the same buying power as 21.56 current dollars. That converts 285,000 to 6,144,600. A far cry from $500 million.

This is another source that is more in depth. If you put the numbers in you will get from just under 6 million to just under 500 million. I suspect beastie's source went with the last figure. I think it is safe to say he died rich. Although church leaders and CEO deserve better then average wages, and I think BY did earn money for being president of the church, I do agree that it has limits many CEO's today go way over.

http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/