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Chapter Thirty-Two
Brigham Young’s Presidency: The Final Decade
“Chapter Thirty-Two: Brigham Young’s Presidency:The Final Decade,” Church History in the Fulness of Times Student Manual (2003), 406–21
Since arriving in the Great Basin in 1847, the Saints had organized sundry, often short-lived, groups for theological, scientific, and literary study. During the last decade of Brigham Young’s life, under the inspiration of God, he established religious auxiliaries that would help meet the needs of Church members for the next century. He also worked to expand Zion and to increase the spirituality of Church members,as exemplified by the colonization of northern Arizona,the reorganization of the priesthood leadership of the Church, the building and dedication of the St. George Utah Temple, and the establishment of the Brigham Young Academy.
Looking Outward
During the last decade of his life, Brigham Young continued to extend the borders of the Latter-day Saint commonwealth by colonization and to oversee further expansion in missionary work and immigration. By the end of his life, Mormon colonies had been established in Arizona, andmissionary work extended into the Republic of Mexico.
Because missionaries continued to bring in converts who then immigrated to Utah Territory, Church leaders regularly sought new areas to colonize. As early as the 1850s, Church explorers had penetrated Arizona, but the aridity of the deserts, the lack of information on the territory south of the massive Colorado River, and the raiding Indians made it difficult to attempt any colonizing during the 1850s and 1860s. In 1870 the government pacified the Navajos, who had been raiding settlements in southern Utah since 1865. This led the way for a string of settlements to be established from Kanab, Utah, to Lee’s Ferry on the Colorado River in Arizona as a springboard for further colonization.
As the winter of 1872–73 began, Brigham Young invited longtime friend of the Saints Thomas L. Kane and his wife, Elizabeth, to accompany him to St. George. During this trip President Young laid plans for a gathering place for the Saints in Sonora Valley, Mexico. Proposed settlements in Arizona were to form a connecting link between Utah and Mexico.
Establishing colonies in Arizona continued to be exceedingly difficult. In the early spring of 1873, President Young dispatched another set of explorers, the Arizona Exploring Company, which consisted of fourteen men, to visit the Little Colorado River area, the Rio Verde country, and the San Francisco mountain region, all south of the Colorado River. These explorers also became discouraged because the arid, broken countryside was difficult to traverse. Nevertheless, the determination of Brigham Young to colonize Arizona was not to be denied, and in 1874–75 he sent additional scouting parties to study the area.