Brigham Young
Brigham Young was an American leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and a settler of the Western United States. He was the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1847 until his death in 1877. He founded Salt Lake City and he served as the first governor of the Utah Territory, United States. Young also led the foundings of the precursors to the University of Utah and Brigham Young University. Young had a variety of nicknames, among the most popular being "American Moses" (alternatively, the "Modern Moses" or the "Mormon Moses"), because, like the biblical figure, Young led his followers, the Mormon pioneers, in an exodus through a desert, to what they saw as a promised land. Young was dubbed by his followers the "Lion of the Lord" for his bold personality, and was also commonly called "Brother Brigham" by Latter-day Saints. Young was a polygamist and was involved in controversies regarding black people and the Priesthood, the Utah War, and the Mountain Meadows massacre.
John Taylor
John Taylor was the third president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1880 to 1887. He is the only president of the LDS Church to have been born outside of the United States.
Orson Pratt
Orson Pratt, Sr. was a leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and an original member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. He was born in Hartford, New York, USA, the son of Jared and Charity Dickenson Pratt. Orson Pratt died of complications from diabetes on October 3, 1881, the last surviving member of the original Council of the Twelve.
Heber C. Kimball
Heber Chase Kimball was a leader in the early Latter Day Saint movement. He served as one of the original twelve apostles in the early Latter Day Saint church, and as first counselor to Brigham Young in the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death.
George Q. Cannon
George Quayle Cannon was an early member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), and served in the First Presidency under four successive presidents of the church: Brigham Young, John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, and Lorenzo Snow. He was the church's chief political strategist, and was dubbed "the Mormon premier" and "the Mormon Richelieu" by the press. He was also five-time Territorial Delegate from Utah.
George A. Smith
George Albert Smith (commonly known as George A. Smith to distinguish him from his grandson of the same name) was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and served in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and as a member of the church's First Presidency.
Wilford Woodruff
Wilford Woodruff, Sr. was the fourth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1889 until his death. Woodruff's large collection of diaries provides an important record of Latter Day Saint history, and his decision to formally end the practice of plural marriage among the members of the LDS Church in 1890 brought to a close one of the most difficult periods of church history. Woodruff joined the Latter Day Saint church on December 31, 1833. At that time, the church numbered only a few thousand believers clustered around Kirtland, Ohio. On January 13, 1835, Woodruff left Kirtland on his first full-time mission, preaching without "purse or scrip" in Arkansas and Tennessee.
Orson Hyde
Orson Hyde was a leader in the early Latter Day Saint movement and an original member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. He was the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1847 to 1875 and was a missionary of the LDS Church in the United States, Europe, and the Ottoman Empire.
Daniel H. Wells
Daniel Hanmer Wells was an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and the third mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, United States.
Erastus Snow
Erastus Fairbanks Snow, born in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1849 to 1888. Snow was also a leading figure in Mormon colonization of Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico.
Joseph F. Smith
Joseph Fielding Smith, Sr. was the sixth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). He was the last president of the LDS Church to have personally known the founder of the Mormon faith, Joseph Smith, Jr., who was the brother of his father Hyrum Smith.
Lorenzo Snow
Lorenzo Snow was the fifth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1898 to his death. Snow was the last president of the LDS Church in the nineteenth century.
Charles W. Penrose
Charles William Penrose was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1904 to 1911. Penrose was also a member of the First Presidency of the church under Church Presidents Joseph F. Smith and Heber J. Grant from 1911 until his death. After joining the church, Penrose was called to a mission of seven years, preaching throughout England. In 1861, he emigrated to Utah. After arriving, he was called on yet another mission to England. Upon his return, he settled in Ogden, Utah. There he became involved in newspaper publishing, eventually becoming the editor of the Deseret News in Salt Lake City. Penrose was known for his writing, including missionary tracts and for penning lyrics for LDS hymns, including God of Our Fathers, O Ye Mountains High, and Up, Awake, Ye Defenders of Zion. Penrose was a professor of theology at Brigham Young Academy from 1897 to 1899 and again in 1901 and 1902. Penrose was called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and ordained an apostle on July 7, 1904 after the passing of Elder Abraham O. Woodruff. After John Henry Smith (the Second Counselor to President Joseph F. Smith) died, he was called and set apart as Second Counselor in his stead on December 7, 1911. James E. Talmage filled the vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve caused by President John Henry Smith's death and Charles W. Penrose's call as Second Counselor. He also served as Second Counselor for President Heber J. Grant when the First Presidency was reorganized on November 23, 1918 after the death of President Joseph F. Smith.
Jedediah M. Grant
Jedediah Morgan Grant was a leader and an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). He was member of the First Council of the Seventy from 1845 to 1854. He also served in the First Presidency under Church President Brigham Young from 1854 to 1856. He is known for his fiery speeches during the Reformation of 1856, earning the nickname, "Brigham's Sledgehammer". He is the father of Heber J. Grant, who later served as President of the Church.
Franklin D. Richards
Franklin Dewey Richards was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from February 12, 1849 until his death. He also served as president of the quorum from September 2, 1898 until his death. Both his son, George F. Richards, and grandson LeGrand Richards were members of the quorum, with his son also serving as president of the quorum from 1945 to 1950. Richards also served in the Utah Territorial Legislature in 1852 and 1856. Franklin County in southeastern Idaho is named after Richards.
Amasa M. Lyman
Amasa Mason Lyman was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and was an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). He was also a counselor in the First Presidency to founder and president of the church Joseph Smith, Jr.
Parley P. Pratt
Parley Parker Pratt, Sr. was an early leader of the Latter Day Saint movement whose writings became a significant early nineteenth-century exposition of the Latter Day Saint faith. In 1835 he became one of the first members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Practicing polygamy, Pratt was murdered in 1857 by the estranged husband of his twelfth wife. He had a total of 30 children, and his living descendants in 2011 were estimated to number 30,000-50,000. He was a great-great-grandfather of Willard Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican candidate for President of the United States.
Ezra T. Benson
Ezra Taft Benson (commonly referred to as Ezra T. Benson to distinguish him from his great-grandson of the same name) was as an apostle and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).
Charles C. Rich
Charles Coulson Rich was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and served as an apostle of LDS church. He was baptized by George M. Hinkle in 1832, after having been taught by Lyman Wight in 1831. In 1838 he married Sarah D. Pea whom he had previously proposed to by letter, the two having never before met. Rich was a leader in Caldwell County, Missouri and fought in the Battle of Crooked River in 1838. After the expulsion of the Latter Day Saints from Missouri, Rich settled in Nauvoo, Illinois where he was made an original member of the Council of Fifty. He also served as a member of the Nauvoo High Council, and as a brigadier and major general in the Nauvoo Legion. Brigham Young appointed Rich a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on 12 February 1849. Rich followed the church's principle of plural marriage, taking six wives in all and fathering 51 children.
Moses Thatcher
Moses Thatcher was an apostle and a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the LDS church. He was one of only a few members of the Quorum of the Twelve to be dropped from the Quorum but to remain in good standing in the church and retain the priesthood office of apostle.
Brigham Young, Jr
Brigham Young, Jr. served as president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS church from 1899 until his death.
Joseph Young
Joseph Young was an early convert to the Latter Day Saint movement and was a missionary and longtime general authority of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). He was an elder brother of Brigham Young.
Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith, Jr. was an American religious leader and the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, the predominant branch of which is Mormonism. At age twenty-four, Smith published the Book of Mormon, and in the next fourteen years he attracted thousands of followers, established cities and temples, and created a lasting religious culture.
George Teasdale
George Teasdale born in London, England, was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS church. Teasdale was ordained an apostle on 16 October 1882, by Church President John Taylor. Teasdale served a mission for the church from 1887 to 1890 in which he preached in the United Kingdom, France, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Ireland. In the 1860s, he had served a mission to the United Kingdom and in the 1870s he served a mission to Tennessee, North Carolina and Virginia. Teasdale died in Salt Lake City at age 75 of an intestinal obstruction. He was buried at Salt Lake City Cemetery.
John H. Smith
John Henry Smith was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). He was a prominent politician in Utah and played an important role in the process whereby Utah made the transition from a territory to a state of the United States.
Orson F. Whitney
Orson Ferguson Whitney born in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from April 9, 1906 until his death.
Francis M. Lyman
Francis Marion Lyman was a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the LDS church. He was the President of the Quorum from 1903 until his death. Lyman's father and son were also apostles in the church: his father was Amasa M. Lyman and his son was Richard R. Lyman. Both his father and son were excommunicated from the church while serving as apostles.
