John D. Lee

1812–1877

Sealed to Brigham Young as a son 25 Jan 1846, Nauvoo temple.

An adoption, not a marriage — an adult sealed into a priesthood lineage running back to Adam. What the law of adoption was.

Nauvoo temple, 1846

Who he was to Brigham Young

Ritual son - and the closest of them. He took Young's surname, addressed him as 'Father', ran the family farm near Winter Quarters with Isaac Morley, and as Nauvoo temple recorder kept the register of the very ordinances he was taking part in. He was also an adoptive FATHER in his own right, adopting twenty-two people into his own family - more than anyone except Young, Kimball and Taylor.

His wife Aggatha Ann Woolsey, sealed alongside him.

How it ended

Badly, and on both sides. Young resented the rival family: in 1848 he said Lee 'electioneered also & disgusted me - & men were sealed to him who expected to be sealed to me.' Soon after reaching Utah, Lee was disciplined by an ecclesiastical court over what Stapley describes as testimony of abusive and lewd conduct towards his family. LEE'S ADOPTIONS WERE CANCELLED EARLY - so early that Joseph F. Smith left them out of the official compilation altogether. Lee was excommunicated and, in 1877, executed by firing squad for the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the only man ever convicted for it. Young had known of his role there since at least 1862.

cancelled

The record

Born: 1812
Died: 1877
Adoption sealing: 25 Jan 1846
Place: Nauvoo temple
Sealed alongside: His wife Aggatha Ann Woolsey, sealed alongside him.
Outcome: cancelled

Source: Jonathan A. Stapley, 'Adoptive Sealing Ritual in Mormonism', Journal of Mormon History 37:3 (Summer 2011): 53-117, Table 1 (p. 66 of the print run) Table 1 and nn. 38-39, 87; Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (2012) pp. 139, 160

Six of the thirty-four men adopted to Brigham Young can be named from the published sources — about 18 per cent. Why the roster is partial.