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from yesterday’s Writer’s Almanac:

It’s the birthday of Brigham Young, born in Whitingham, Vermont (1801). He got married in 1824, when he was 23, and he and his wife joined the Methodist Church. In April of 1830, Samuel Smith, the brother of the Mormon leader Joseph Smith, passed through Young’s town to distribute copies of the Book of Mormon. Smith gave a copy to Brigham’s brother Phineas, and the book circulated through the Young family until it finally came into the hands of Brigham Young. Two years later, he was baptized as a Latter-day Saint. He and his brother decided to make the 325-mile journey from New York to Kirtland, Ohio, to meet the leader of Mormonism, Joseph Smith.
When Smith was killed in 1844, Young was made president of the Mormon Church. After being threatened and attacked by locals in various Midwestern towns, he led a group on a trek to the West, searching for a place to set up the Mormon headquarters. He finally decided on Salt Lake City, Utah.
He oversaw the construction of canals, roads, telegraph lines, gristmills, woolen mills, iron foundries, and railroads. Within 10 years, about 100 Mormon colonies had been established in the American West. By the time of Young’s death in 1877, nearly 400 colonies had been established and Young had made about $600,000, making him the richest businessman in Utah at the time.