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Show Page 275 the aging pioneers, Salt Lake City nearly closed down on June 8, 1876, while 800 people over 65 boarded a festooned train for a day's outing in Utah Valley. The three oldest apostles, Orson Wilford, and John Taylor, spoke to the gathering and blessed them all, but no one could help watching the feeble Prophet sitting quietly in his happy but absent 17 mood. Few had contemplated Brigham Young's passing, or what would become of the Church the day its master was no longer there. Quite a number of people thought of Orson Pratt as the second man in Mormonism and expected that he would succeed if the President were to die, while others were confident that the senior apostle, Orson Hyde, would be the logical choice. In October 1861, Brigham had declared that seniority in the Twelve would determine his successor, and that this was to be dictated by date of ordination. At that time, Orson Pratt was sustained as second in line after Hyde, and Brigham had been very careful to call for the 18 conference vote every six months on each apostle in order. But suddenly, in June 1875, Brigham announced that he had re-considered the entire matter; henceforth, seniority would be a matter of "continuous" service in the Quorum. Again the shadows of 1842 arose and blighted any possibility that Orson would succeed to the Presidency of the Church. There was little ambition in his character in any case, but a tinge of humiliation must have accompanied this re-shuffling of rank, particularly in view of his length of service in both Quorum and Church. Hyde fell with him, for he also had suffered a brief period of disaffection in the 1830s, and Orson found himself fifth in the Council - after Taylor, Woodruff, George A. Smith, and Orson Hyde. In the spring of 1877, Orson and Marian boarded the Utah Western for |