Excerpts -- Brigham Young: The New York Years

"I stopped running, jumping, wrestling and
laying out my strength for naught."
Brigham Young
Sermon of November 6, 1864
Journal of Discourses, 10: 360

In 1817 Brigham Young, then sixteen years old, left home and went on his own. His father had said, "You now have your time; go and provide for yourself."1 Records indicate that Brigham, having "made up his mind to quit the country and see what he could find to do in the village,"2 went directly to the vicinity of Auburn, where he may have boarded at first with Susannah and James Little in Aurelius.

Whatever his initial residence, it appears that he "farmed" or "bound" himself out to various families in and around Auburn for his board and a small stipend.3 He was hired as a "chore boy" on the Reed and Wadsworth farms on West Genesee Street in Auburn,4 and worked in what was claimed to be the "oldest asparagus bed in the county" on a corner of that town's Grover Street.5

Brigham was soon joined by Lorenzo and Joseph—and possibly by Phinehas. Lorenzo, then only ten years old, arrived during the winter of 1817-1818 and apprenticed himself to James Little, and Joseph arrived in the spring of 1818 and "let [himself] to Mr. James Little for service, and worked two years for him for Six Dollars per month, or $72.00 per year." Records indicate that Phinehas married Clarissa Hamilton in Auburn in 1818 and that he lived in Mentz (or Haydenville), a village between Aurelius and Port Byron where Brigham was to reside a few years later.6

Auburn in 1817 was a bustling frontier town situated on the well-traveled Seneca Turnpike. It was a plain, rather Dutch-looking village and its muddy streets were choked with a never-ending wave of immigrants. Land speculation ran high and the village fathers, prodded by local land barons, opened new streets to meet the fresh demand for building lots. It was a boom town with new buildings going up virtually overnight.

Auburn held great promise for the future. Its thousand or so residents worked clearing land, or found employment in the mills or in the various shops, stores, and taverns along Genesee Street. This was the town's principal avenue, the most traveled in spite of its mud and lack of sidewalks. At least thirty shops and six taverns displayed their colorful signboards.7

One of these buildings, near what is now Osborne Street, housed the woodworking shop of John C. Jeffries, who advertised "Chair Making, Sign Painting and Gilding," and who, in a local newspaper dated November 6, 1816, ran this ad:

It was apparently to this Mr. Jeffries that Brigham Young, at the age of sixteen, was apprenticed to learn the trades of carpenter, painter, and glazier.8 Of his early apprenticeship, Brigham later recalled:

The first job my boss gave me was to make a bedstead out of an old log that had been on the beach of the Lake for years, water-logged and watersoaked. Said he—"There are tools, you cut that log into right lengths for a bedstead. Hew out the side rails, the end rails and the posts; get a board for a head board, and go to work and make a bedstead." And I went to work and cut up the log, split it up to the best of my ability, and made a bedstead that, I suppose, they used for many years. I would go to work and learn to make a washboard, and make a bench to put the wash tub on, and to make a chair.9

One of Brigham's early assignments as Jeffries's assistant was to do painting in the home of Judge Elijah Miller. On July 25, 1816, Miller had purchased from William Bostwick four acres of land on the "triangle" south of the Western Exchange Hotel between South and William streets in Auburn. In the course of a year, Miller had a fine two-story brick house erected on the site. In the fall of 1817 Jeffries was employted to "paint the woodwork, [and he] brought with him the renowned Brigham Young, then a journeyman of his, to assist him."10 The Miller (now Seward) House on South Street, today one of the finest museums of its type in upstate New York, boasts an ornate mantelpiece reputed to be the work of Brigham Young.11


		Armchair, said to have been made by Brigham Young, was preserved by the Hickox family of "Number Nine," west of Canandaigua, New York. On display at the Ontario County Historical Society Museum, Canandaigua. Courtesy Ontario County Historical Society Museum

Owners of several old houses in Auburn today claim the distinction of having a "Brigham Young mantelpiece." During the period in which these houses were built, fireplaces were installed in several rooms in each house for heat, and the best rooms of a house had decorative mantels to enhance the beauty of their architecture. There is speculation that during the winter months craftsmen such as Brigham Young produced a supply of these beautifully handcrafted mantelpieces in the shop, and in turn sold them to other local carpenters and builders. Many of the mantels bore striking similarities in workmanship.

Brigham also worked on construction of the Auburn Theological Seminary and the home of one of its trustees. (The cornerstone of this Presbyterian institution was laid "with great formality" on the afternoon of May 11, 1820, and subsequently opened that October with eleven students.) Young nearly lost his life one day while painting on the roof of the three- to four-story structure. The support he was on gave way and he slid down the roof's incline. Luckily he was able to grab hold of the wooden eaves trough as he went over the roof's edge, where he dangled until rescuers brought ladders and helped him down.12

One of the seminary's first trustees was "Squire" William Brown, who lived in a house at the corner of South and Grover streets, opposite the Miller (Seward) House. Brigham is reputed to have worked on the construction of Brown's house as a carpenter, painter, and glazier.

About 1854 the Brown House was purchased by Charles Hutchinson. It later became the residence of his daughter, Alice J., and David M. Dunning, whom she married in 1871. Dunning's mother, Jane, was the daughter of Joseph Wadsworth, and Dunning was born in the old Waldsworth home (Joseph Wadsworth House) on West Genesee Street where Brigham is reported to have lived and worked for a time.13

David, who resided in the Brown House until his death on August 24, 1940, spoke proudly of Brigham Young's connection with his family.

My grandfather [Joseph Wadsworth] always spoke very highly of Brigham as an energetic, active and capable young man. His living there was generally known in the family and often mentioned during our life there.14

The Brown House itself was a fine example of Federal architecture. When David Dunning died in 1940, the property was sold to J. Reynolds Wait.15 The house was then rented to a succession of tenants, fell into decay, and was finally demolished in 1974.

The LDS church has received as gifts a number of wooden artifacts said to have been made by Brigham Young. For example, Mr. Wait made a gift of several mantelpieces, through his friend Karl Butler, to the LDS church as specimens of Young's handiwork. One representative mantelpiece is presently a fixture in the high council room of the Latter-day Saint chapel in Ithaca, New York.

Dunning told of a water-powered woodworking shop on the nearby bank of Crane Brook where Brigham apparently made furniture. Dunning's widow owned a cherry desk said to have been made in this little shop. Also given to the LDS church, the desk is plain and sturdy, rather chaste in design, but nonetheless of fine workmanship.

In still another account, Sylvester Matthews reported that after the Brown House was completed, Brigham applied for work at the old cabinet shop across Grover Street, on the present site of Memorial City Hall. Brigham was told by the proprietor, Colonel John Richardson, that he already had two apprentices. One Richardson descendant said, however, that Brigham did indeed eventually secure work with Colonel Richardson in his "furniture factory."16

Brigham told of having assisted in building the first meat market in Auburn. The market, located on the west side of the North Street bridge over the Owasco Outlet, was opened by Edward Patten (of Onondage Hill) in 1820.17

Brigham Young summed up this early "career," and hinted at the maturity he had gained in the process, in a sermon decades later.

Among various other occupations I have been a carpenter, painter and glazier, and when I learned my trades and worked, both as journeyman and master, if I took a job of painting and glazing, say to the amount of one pound sterling, or five dollars, and through my own carelessness in any manner injured the work or material, I considered it my duty to repair the injury at my own expense.18

There is no doubt that Brigham took pride in his carpentry. He once wrote an acquaintance from the New York days:

I felt amused and interested in your statement that a chair made by me would occupy a place in your Centennial supper to be held next Tuesday. I have no doubt that many other pieces of furniture and other specimens of my handiwork can be found scattered about your section of the country, for I have believed all my life that, that which was worth doing was worth doing well, and have considered it as much a part of my religion to do honest, reliable work, such as would endure, for those who employed me, as to attend to the services of God's worship on the Sabbath.19

It was therefore in Auburn, first as a mere "chore boy" and then as a "carpenter, painter, and glazier," that Brigham became a man and began to establish for himself the principles and disciplines that were to guide him with excellent effect for the rest of his life. Of that "arriving" he reminisced that

a year had not passed away before I stopped running, jumping, wrestling and laying out of my strength for naught; but when I was seventeen years of age, I laid my strength in planing a board, or in cultivating the ground to raise something from it to benefit myself. I applied myself to those studies and pursuits of life that would commend me to every good person who should become acquainted with me, although, like other young men, I was full of weakness, sin, darkness and ignorance. . . . I sought to use language on all occasions, that would be commendable, and to carry myself in society, in a way to gain for myself the respect of the moral and good among my neighbors.20

NOTES

1. Brigham Young, sermon of November 6, 1864, in JD, 10:360, supra, chap. 1, n. 4. Lorenzo implied another reason for Brigham's departure when he recalled that Brigham remained home until his father married Hannah Brown, then "he again went from home." Little, "Historical Items about Brigham Young," 2:6, supra, chap. 1, n. 2.

2. Sylvester J. Matthews. The Antiquarian (Auburn, N. Y.), January 18, 1902. this was a tabloid published for a brief period consisting primarily of local history.

3. Ulysses Prentiss Hedrick, A History of Agriculture in the State of New York (New York: Hill and Wang, 1933; reprinted, 1966), p. 78.

4. Matthews, The Antiquarian, supra, n. 2.

5. Ibid.

6. Little, "Biography of Lorenzo Dow Young," p. 26, supra, chap. 1, n. 15; Young, "Young Family Genealogy," p. 13, supra, chap. 1, n. 9; and Auburn Gazette, November 25, 1818.

7. Henry Hall, History of Auburn ( Auburn, N. Y., 1869), pp. 121-22.

8. "Biographical Sketch of Brigham Young," manuscript, dated April 18, 1872, in Church Archives, supra, chap. 1, n. 2.

9. Brigham Young, discourse of August 31, 1875, in JD, 18:76, supra, chap. 1, n. 4.

10. Benjamin F. Hall, "Geneological and Biographical Sketch of the Late Honorable Elijah Miller," p. 80, manuscript, ca. 1877, in Cayuga County Historian's Office, Auburn, N. Y.

11. Brigham may have had at least a speaking acquaintance with Miller's daughter, Frances. Seven years later she married William H. Seward, who was to become governor of New York and secretary of state under Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson.

On a trip to the Orient in 1869, William Seward stopped off in Salt Lake City to visit Brigham Young. (Both men were about the same age.) After exchanging greetings, Brigham reportedly asked, "Governor Seward, who lives in Squire Brown's house at Auburn now?" Seward replied, "I bought it from Squire Brown, and lived there a year or two, and since then it has had several owners." Brigham then said, "I worked on that house as a journeyman carpenter when they were building it, about the same time that I was employed at the Theological Seminary." Frederick W. Seward, Seward at Washington, 1861-1872 (New York, 1891).

12. Hall, History of Auburn, pp. 380, 383, supra, n. 7; and Little, "Historical Items about Brigham Young," 2:2, supra, chap. 1, n. 2.

13. Mrs. Jerome Rich (formerly Mary Ann Wadsworth), also suggested that Brigham worked on the construction of the Joseph Wadsworth home. "Joseph Wadsworth built the farmhouse on what was known as the Dunning Farm, and Brigham Young, the Mormon, is supposed to have been the journeyman carpenter as he was then residing in Port Byron."

14. Auburn Advertiser-Journal, January 13, 1927. In 1947 the Brown house was demolished and the property is now the site of New York Telephone Company's Auburn office. Dunning further recalled:

Sometime during the war, about 1862-63, one day a carriage drove up from the city and a gentleman announced himself as John Young, a son of Brigham Young. He was on his return from a trip to Europe and had been requested by his father to stop off at Auburn and find the Wadsworth place and see if any of the Wadsworths were still living there. He was told that my mother, a daughter of Joseph Wadsworth, was living there, and that her father died in 1855. Ibid.

15. Account of death of David M. Dunning and related information supplied by his granddaughter, Mrs. Charlotte Kruger, Auburn, N. Y.; and Mary Van Sickle Wait, Brigham Young in Cayuga County (Ithaca, N. Y.: DeWitt Historical Society, 1964), p. 44.

16. Matthews, The Antiquarian, supra, n. 2; and Colonel John Richardson of New Hope, Pa., to Mary Van Sickle Wait, January 4, 1965.

17. Dean C. Jessee, Letters of Brigham Young to His Sons (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1874),
p. 23.

18. Brigham Young, discourse of April 20, 1856, in JD, 3:323, supra, chap. 1, n. 4.

19. Brigham Young to George Hickox, February 19, 1876, Ontario County Historical Society, Canandaigua, N. Y.

20. Brigham Young, sermon of November 6, 1864, in JD, 10:360, supra, chap. 1, n. 4.