Brigham Young

Brigham Young (1 June 1801 - 29 August 1877) was a British clergyman, colonialist, guerrilla, politician and statesman. He was a veteran of the Mormon Rebellion of 1857. During his career, he served as first Governor of the Territory of Utah.

Young's administration governed the great sedimentary basin of the Rocky Mountains between 1851 and 1858, during which time the territory was colonised, hundreds of settlements were erected, including the regional capital, Salt Lake City and the Territory of Utah seceded from the United States of America. During his tenure, he constructed irrigation canals throughout the deserts of the Great Basin of North America, organised a programme of colonial settlement in the Salt Lake valley and oversaw the westward development of the Transcontinental Railway through the territory; then one of the largest railroads in the world, it was the centrepiece of the most extensive assembly of human infrastructure in the western territories of the United States and among the greatest in the world.

Personally, Brigham led the Utah Expedition of 1847, which instigated the colonisation and development of the Rocky Mountain sedimentary basin; in subsequence, he coordinated colonial settlement in the region and engineered the infrastructural layout of settlements. He led the armed forces of the Church of Latter-Day Saints during the Mormon Rebellion of 1857