Seperate his finances fron TSCC finances.

Dipping into tithing funds and maximising his privileged position this "paragon of virtue" who condemned materialism, garnered between $600,000 (his estimation) and $224,242 (the final settlement figure, which equates to $5 million today)

If he'd remained a carpenter (if only) I calculate, saving every cent, it would have taken him 175 years (approx) to accumulate the lower amount.(Typical Wages-Outrun Change 1860-1890)

The $224,242 is downplayed by George Givens in "500 More Little Known Facts" as "A fairly small sum when you consider the number of heirs." He seems to belive, by wording it this way, that he can somehow turn a large fortune into small change that Young managed to scrape together.

Are you referring to Brigham Young?

Sorry midwestanon, perhaps I should have emphasised Brigham Young more.

He has been written about as the "Mormon Moses" and his name is in the final sentence.

Thanks for your interest.

When it said Young at the bottom that's what I deduced, and given that he trekked 1400 miles with thousands to a Desert, I deduced correctly. I'm sooo smart.

Yea, that numbers gotta start looking small when it's divided amongst his 50-odd children and 16 wives.

I wish someone with the ability to do a forensic financial analysis would look into Brigham's wealth and determine where it came from. It's interesting that the person sending people out to live the United Order would himself amass this amount of wealth. It's also interesting how he got out of divulging his wealth or paying alimony to Ann Eliza Webb was to state, for the record, that she had no claim on alimony because they were not married.

So say he had 200 heirs when he died. I'm sure that's a high number. But divide 5,000,000 by 200 (in today's money) and he'd still be leaving everyone $25,000. That would not be anything to scoff at even now. The guy was a lascivious slimeball.

Church Historian, Leonard J Arrington said it seems Brigham Young didn't pay interest on these loans and of course at the time of his death he may have still owed TSCC one million dollars.

Moses never existed. The Red Sea did not part. And Briggy was an asshat.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/28/2015 06:49PM by hangar18.

In Leonard Arrington's book about the Mormon economy in the
early days he mentions that Brigham Young would borrow money
from the tithing fund, start businesses with it, and then pay
the Church back in services from those businesses.

I read this shortly after a minor scandal in the Carter
Administration. Bert Lance, Carter's Director of the Office of
Management and Budget, had gotten very low-interest loans from
a bank on which he was an officer. He resigned, was tried and
acquitted.

My TBM former-bank employee Dad was telling me how evil it was
for Lance to get these low-interest loans, and how that showed
how the Carter administration was corrupt yadda yadda.

I brought up BY's dipping into tithing funds. My Dad simply
said, "I don't believe that."

I must bone-up more on Leonard Arrington. He seems to have been more open with church history than later church historians.

John Taylor, whom BY hated, was left to go to Young's family members and try to get back the money that BY had bequeathed to them, but that really belonged to the church. BY's family now hated Taylor even more.

Thanks crathes. I've just learned that Brigham Young resigned as Trustee in Trust for a time. I'll have to read up on whether Taylor was successful in recovering any money from them.