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Show THE DEAD PROPHET. 603 Brigham as a Federal official, backed by the authority of the United States ; it is time to consider him as a marrying man, a husband and a father, in which capacity he is most popularly known. Brigham had two reasons for being a marrying man : ambition and a vigorous, sensual physique. He had a peculiar magnetic power over some people. The way it affected some women may be guessed from the fact that one of the handsomest ladies in Nauvoo got divorced from a good man, in order to be Brigham's concubine, and a refined, rather intelligent Boston lady literally followed him oif, taking along her two children to be reared in Mormonism. Brigham was rather kind to this one: called her " Augusta," and honored her with his supreme affections for three whole years. Brigham's physique was the very best that cool, hardy Vermont could furnish. His youngest child, daughter of Margaret Van Cott Young, was born in 1870; his oldest, now the wife of Edmund Ells- , worth, must have been born as early as 1825, for Brigham was a widower with two daughters when he joined the Mormons ; and his grandchildren in this line are now well advanced men and women. So his active parental life covered a period of forty- five years, and ( though I have no late returns) his children, grandchildren, and great- grandchildren number at least one hundred and fifty. Not bad for an alkali country ! Add widows and sons- in- law, and grandsons-in- law, and the number interested in the estate amounted to some two hundred. The old man outlasted three generations of wives, and had made a pretty good start on the fourth ; for he married Amelia Folsom in 1865, and the last time I saw her she was beginning to look like an old woman. Brigham lost his first wife quite young. Her daughters are both in polygamy that is, their husbands have other " women " than them, and have large families. Their daughters also have many children, and, counting his first and second wives, it is said by some, who ought to know, that Brigham's legitimate offspring are, after all, nearly as numerous as his illegitimate. About the time he was " con-verted," he married Mary Ann Angell. She was his only legal widow and lived for many years in the " white cottage on the bench" that is, on the hill just back of Brigham's. She was of the same age as Brigham, and about 1843, he began on his second lot of wives. Joe Smith got his " Revelation on Celestial Marriage," July 12, 1843, and as soon thereafter as Brigham could get authority, he married the Decker sisters. One of them, Lucy, had been for some time married to Dr. Seely, a reputable physician of Nauvoo, but the High Council |