Who Is Brigham Young?

Who is Brigham Young The answer from Great Salt Lake comes booming thro' the echoing defiles of the Eocky Mountains that he is President, High Priest and Prophet of the Latter Day Saints, a man of family - yes, a man of families - a venerable and veritable patriarch of the old school of Israel, " the lion of the tribe of Judah," the " chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely.' But next comes the protest of the Gentiles of Utah, that he is impostor, a demagogue, a tyrant, and a gay deceiver and that he has become rich and powerful from the credulity of his followers Then we have the testimony of the dispassionate traveler that the Mormon Prophet is a remarkable man, of rare abilities as a leader, a colonizer, law-giver, am ruler, and one of the most successful men of the day as farmer, merchant, railway buildcr and speculator. But who is he ii lineage'r And where did he come from' are among the astounding inquines con coming him made in a letter from Eng land, which we publish to-day. The wri ter of the letter has an idea that he hai discovered at Stockton7on-Tees, county o Durham, the first wife of the Mormon po tentate, and the chain of circumstantia evidence upon which he hangs bis case i very curious and interesting. The ossential points of the story ar that an old woman in the county of Dur ham, England, 81 years of age, of th name of Brigham, thinks that Brigham Young is her husband, who deserted he and their children, and disappeared from England 40 years ago. It appears tha her husband Brigham was the natural son of a man named Young and a woman named Brigham ; that he was adopted by a mam uamed Allen ; that af ter the young man's marriage he proved anything bu a devoted husband and father ; that h worked some time in London as a coope under the name of William Brigham, and that hti left London and his wife and chil dren to join the Mormons in America This man would now be in the 76th yea of his age. and our inquiring correspon dent evidently believes that Presiden Brigham Young of the Latter Day Saint of Utah, is the long lost husband of th aforesaid Mrs. Brigham. We canuot undertake the task of assist ting the iuterested parties in England in gathering up evidence required to estab lish the supposed claims of Mrs. Brigham to the position of the first wife of th great Brigham of Utah. That famou English traveler, Eichard F. Burton, in his " City of the Saints," says of the Mor mon Prophet that he was bom at Witting ham, Vermont, on the lst of June, 1807 and as Burton in his statement was rela ting a conversation held with the Prophe himself, we conclude that he speaks by authority. We had supposed, however that Brigham Youug was a native New Yorker. Still, between the general de scription of thé person of Young as given in our letter from Eugland, and that o Burton - allowing for the interval of thir ty years - there is a resemblance, and upon one point it is remarkable. Burton speak of a little droop in the lid of the left eye ' which mttde me think he had suffe re( from paralysis," and our English lette refers to the same peculiarity. However many distinguished characters in all age of the world have been claimed in differ ent persons and by different places. Ten cities claimed the poet Homer, dead, Through which the living Homer begged hi bread. From time to time some hopeful indi vidual has been set up as Louis XVI] It was logically proved in an interesting book on the subject, publishedin thiscit; some years ago, that in the Rev. Eleaze W illiams, since deceased, we had the roya Bourbon amougst us. Another claiman to the same honor now lives in Germany And there is the Tichborne case, and there are many other cases, all showing that i is easier to get up a claim to a name or an estáte than to establish it. Nevertheless, as we expect some strin geut measures of legislation from the present session of Congress against Mor mon polygamy, and for the protection o the first wife in her pre-emption right to her Mormon husband, if the friends o Mrs. Brigham believe that they have a good case against Brigham Young they would, perhaps, do well to prosecute it to a decisivo settlement. Ann Eliza Webb Young, the seventeenth wife of Brigham .now prosecuting a suit for divorce anc alimony, says that her neglectful husbanc has only nineteen wives at present, bu' that upon Amelia Folsom, No. 18, he lavishes all his affections, and that he is afraid of her. But let Mrs. Brigham, of England, eighty-one years of age, prove her claim, and, and she may yet be the reignint' Queen of Salt Lake Citv as Mrs Brighain Youne I