Many of them soon after found a refuge at Commerce, (afterward named Nauvoo) and vicinity, in Illinois, which speedily became a comparatively large and prosperous city. But persecution of the Latter-day Saints was shortly recommenced, and on the 27th of June, 1844, when under the express pledge of Thos. Ford, Governor of the State, for their safe keeping, Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were shot and killed, and John Taylor was severely wounded, at Carthage, by a mob with faces blackened. At the time of his death Joseph Smith was President of the Church, and Hyrum Smith was Patriarch.
On the death of Joseph Smith, the council of the Twelve Apostles, with Brigham Young as their president, became the presiding council in the Church.
In consequence of continued mobocratic outrages and threats, the Church determined to leave Nauvoo and go west to some far distant place where they hoped to be permitted to live in peace. Brigham Young and one thousand families left Nauvoo in February and the early spring of 1846, arriving at Council Bluffs, Iowa, in July of that year, where the Mormon Battalion of five hundred men was called for by the Federal Government, and raised to aid in the war against Mexico.
In September following, the Latter-day Saints remaining in Nauvoo, including the aged, infirm, poor, and sick, were attacked by an armed mob, despoiled of most of their property, driven across the river, and otherwise outrageously and inhumanly abused.
In the spring of 1847, Brigham Young and a company of pioneers (one hundred and forty-three men, three women and two children) started across the great plains and the Rocky Mountains. They arrived in Salt Lake Valley July 24th, of the same year, and immediately founded Great Salt Lake City, now Salt Lake City, subsequently making other settlements and building cities all over the Territory of Utah and extending into the Territories and States adjoining.
The pioneers were followed by seven hundred wagons in the fall of the same year, and by many emigrants of Latter-day Saints every year since.
On the 27th of December, 1847, a First Presidency was accepted, consisting of Brigham Young, president, with Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards, counselors.
In 1857, in consequence of false and malicious reports, President Buchanan sent an army to Utah to operate inimically to the inhabitants. But the army was unable to enter Salt Lake Valley that year.
In the spring of 1858, the people of Salt Lake City and the country adjacent left their homes, with the view of burning them, and traveled southward. But amicable arrangements were soon made, most of the people returned to their homes, and the army found itself with nothing to do, until the secession of the Southern States, when its commander and other officers took the side of the south, and the rank and file were sent to fight on the side of the north. The army came to Utah to despoil and destroy, but God overruled things and caused it to greatly aid the people, materially and financially, to build up and develop the Territory, and they have prospered ever since, although some federal officials and other unprincipled characters have many times endeavored to oppress them and accomplish their overthrow.
On the 29th of August, 1877, Brigham Young died, and the direction of the Church fell upon the council of the Twelve Apostles, with John Taylor presiding.