John Young 1763

JOHN YOUNG 1763

[The following history was written by Brigham Young and published in the Millennial Star, 25:295]

My father, John Young, was born March 7, 1763 in Hopkinton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. He was very circumspect, exemplary and religious, and was, from an early period of his life, a member of the Methodist Church. At the age of sixteen he enlisted in the American Revolutionary war, and served under General Washington. He was in three campaigns in his own native State and in New Jersey. In the year 1785 he married Nabby Howe, daughter of Phinehas and Susannah, whose maiden name was Goddard. In January, 1801, he moved from Hopkinton to Whitingham, Windham County, Vermont, where he remained for three years, opening new farms. He moved from Vermont to Sherburn, Chenango County, New York in 1804 where he followed farming, clearing new land, and enduring many privations and hardships with his family, incidental to new settlements. My mother bore to my father five sons and six daughters... In 1813 my father removed to Cayuga Co., New York, and continued farming and making improvements. My mother died June 11, 1815. In 1817 my father removed to Tyrone, Steuben Co., in which year he married widow Hannah Brown, who bore to him one son, Edward, born in Wayne, Steuben Co., New York, July 30, 1823. In 1827 my father removed to Mendon, Monroe Co., where he continued farming. In 1831 he heard the Gospel preached by Elders Eleazer Miller and Elial Strong; and in the month of April 1832, he went with his sons, Joseph and Phinehas H., to Columbia, Pennsylvania, to investigate the principles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and to see the Saints, and their method of administration, where he was baptized on the 5th of April, by Elder Ezra Landon. He removed to Kirtland with his family in the fall of 1833; and in 1834 he was ordained a Patriarch by President Joseph Smith, and blessed his family. He was the first ordained to that office in the Church. September 19th, 1838, in company with his daughter Fanny, and his grandson, Evan M. Greene, and family, he left Kirkland for Missouri. On arriving at Fayette, in that state, he found himself in the midst of General Clark's command of militia, amounting to about one thousand men, who left that night for Far West. The next day he proceeded to Old Chariton, and found the General had left a guard at the ferry, so he had to return to Illinois. They were frequently met by companies said to be militia, who declared that if they knew they were Mormons they would kill them. When they returned to Columbia General Gaines was there raising a company to go to the assistance of General Clark to exterminate the Mormons. Evan M. Greene made application to General Gaines for a pass to go out of the State with the company, representing that his grandfather was a revolutionary soldier. The General replied that if he would change his wagon, which was a very good eastern wagon, for a Virginia wagon, or would go on horseback, they could go without molestation; otherwise he could give him no pass that would benefit them. Thus they were compelled to change their wagon, and could get nothing but an old Virginia Dearborn, and getting into this they traveled without even being hailed by the companies they met, which were not a few. He went to Morgan County, Illinois; from thence he went to Quincey in 1839, on a visit to his children, where he died on the 12th day of October.