WILLIAM STUART BRIGHTON (For LDS Gems) Residents of the Mountain West -- and avid skiers from anywhere -- will be acquainted with the name Brighton as designating one of the better known ski resorts in the powder-snow country of Utah -- considered by connoisseurs to be the best skiing in America. Brighton is likewise known in Church History as the site of the tenth anniversary Pioneer Day celebration by Brigham Young and the first Mormon settlers of Utah. After arriving in the Valley, Brigham said in one of his early sermons, "Now that we have arrived in the valleys of the mountains, prepared for us by the Lord, even the devil himself will be unable to dig us out if we can have just ten years to put down roots" (paraphrased). Ironically, it was just after the raising of the Stars and Stripes during the tenth anniversary celebration of the arrival of the First Pioneer Company, i.e. on July 24, 1857 at Brightons Camp at the head of Big Cottonwood Canyon, that Brigham's bodyguard Porter Rockwell came storming into the midst of the celebration on horseback, having ridden nonstop from Nebraska, to inform President Young that Johnston's Army was on its way to Utah to "dig the Mormon traitors out". The story has often been told: Albert Sydney Johnston is long forgotten, having himself fought on the side of the true rebels during the Civil War, while the Church continues to prosper and grow, and Brightons Camp has moved on from remote summer resort to contender for the Winter Olympic Games. Who was the Brighton at whose camp this early pioneer day event took place? After whom is this well-known ski and summer resort named? William Stuart Brighton was born September 24, 1829 in Cambusnethan, Lanarkshire, Scotland. His parents joined the LDS Church within a year or two of the arrival of Orson Pratt and the first Mormon missionaries in Scotland. His father Robert, was called as first President of the Airdrie Branch -- one of the earliest LDS congregations in Scotland. When Robert was killed in a mine accident, young William replaced him as Branch President. Brighton seems to be a Lowland Scots name, probably applied as a "surname", i.e. "on top" of an earlier Clan designation more precisely to identify an individual clansman by his place of birth or origin. It is known that the Brightons (or Bridgetons, Brigtons or Brigtones, as variously spelled, [c.f both Brigton and Brightons, Stirlingshire villages half way between Edinburgh and Glasgow, not far from Airdrie]). The Brightons appear to have been associated most closely with the Stewarts (Stuart is the French version of the name adopted by the royal sept of the clan. Linlithgow, seat of the Stuarts, is within walking distance of Brightons). McDonalds, Langs, Sterlings, and Camerons are also prominent in family history (see The Brighton Thornley Timmins Family History: One of a Family, Two of a Nation -- Three Pioneer Families Who Helped Build the Great Basin Kingdom. Copy on deposit in the Church Family History Library). In his diary (original also on deposit in the Church History Library) Robert engagingly tells of his courtship and marriage to Annie Bowe. In those days it was expected that converts would serve local missions before being permitted to "gather to Zion". William served for almost two years before receiving authorization from the Mission President in Liverpool to sail to Zion with his wife, oldest son, daughter, and teenage sister Annie. The daughter, Mary, died and was buried at sea. Lake Mary, one of the small lakes in the Brighton basin which flows into Silver Lake was named in memory of Mary. The Brightons joined the Israel Evans Handcart Company, the first to leave the spring after the dreadful events which wreaked catastrophe on the Willy Company the previous autumn when unseasonal snows caught it on the high passes of Wyoming (then still part of Utah Territory). As one flies over the Great Plains, or drives comfortably in one's airconditioned car, how many of us reflect on the fortitude and courage of those who embarked on this long foot trek, especially knowing what had happened to the previous pioneer group? Having worked as a miner in his homeland, William Stuart Brighton soon began prospecting the surrounding hills. Standing on the divide between what is now know as Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood canyons, he and his partner flipped to decide who would prospect which side of the divide. His partner won Little Cottonwood, with its richer deposits of silver ore; but Robert didn't do badly. He discovered and patented several smaller, but quite rich deposits in the Brighton Basin, one near Dog Lake, and another at the top of Guardsman's Pass, which later contributed to his substantial position in later life. As noted, it was ten years to the day from Brigham Young's declaration that the Saints needed this much time to put down roots, when Orrin Porter Rockwell arrived in the summer camp already coming to be known by the Brighton name where the Saints were celebrating their July 24 arrival in the Salt Lake Valley below, just a decade earlier. Rockwell had ridden without halt from Nebraska to tell Brother Brigham that President Van Buren had sent Colonel Albert Sydney Johnson with an army to "put down the Mormon rebellion". With other young men, William soon found himself in Echo Canyon marching from bonfire to bonfire to maintain the impression that the "Mormons" had a substantial army awaiting Johnson's arrival in the canyon. This led to Johnson's decision to pass the winter on the High Plains of Wyoming, where Lot Smith and his boys hamstrung their horses and stampeded their herds -- leading to near starvation of Colonel Johnson's troops and inducing in him sufficient humility to compromise with Governor Young, entering the Valley peaceably the next spring. Thus was the "Mormon War" settled, the Mormons not having been "dug out of their mountains" at all Indeed, the coming of Johnson's Army proved the fulfillment of a prophesy by Heber C. Kimball when Colonel Johnson's surplus supplies were soon being sold in the streets of Salt Lake City "cheaper than the same goods in New York". (For an interesting treatment by a non-Mormon, non-American contemporary of these events see The City of the Saints , by Sir Richard Burton. Harper & Brothers: New York, 1862. Reprinted University Press of Colorado, 1990). William S. Brighton, in addititon to his mining ventures, also took up cattle grazing, employing his children, and later his grandchildren, to bring the cows up the canyon from the Valley in the spring, to herd and milk them during the summer, producing both cheese and butter for sale, and to return them to the Valley in the Fall. Friends from the City who came to Brighton's Camp from time to time to enjoy the Alpine coolness during the summer heat, finding his wife Annie a particularly good cook and tiring of tent living, suggested he build a hotel. This became the well-known Brighton Hotel near the shore of Silver Lake. His wife Annie, anticipating the Utah Fish and Game Commission by seventy years, saw to stocking the smaller nearby lakes with trout from Silver Lake. Annie had a small boat with side paddles actuated by a hand crank from which she used to catch fish in Silver Lake to prepare dinner for hotel guests. The Deseret News in a 1937 edition reported the hotel's eventual destruction by fire. The granite slab foundations can still be discerned near the Forest Service's museum at the beginning of the walk around the lake. A historic marker in the parking lot briefly remarks on W. S. Brighton's role in settling the basin. William's sons took the contract for installing the first telegraph line from Salt Lake up Big Cottonwood (nowadays coming more and more to be called Brighton Canyon), and over Guardsman's pass to Park City. A member of the Brighton family operated the small store William opened to supply the needs of summer visitors until it was acquired by the Despain family some years ago. Having prospered since his arrival in Zion, W. S. Brighton acquired most of the lots on Block 59, Plot B, (between 8th and 9th East and South Temple and First South) in the second platting of old Salt Lake. On the north side of First South, mid-block, he erected an impressive three story, Victorian-style home, where he reared his substantial family. One of William's sons, Robert, who chose to settle in Holladay, closer to his Big Cottonwood interests, was one of the early Salt Lake City bishops. Another, Thomas Bowe, who settled on one of his father's lots to the west of the parental home, was one of the first motormen employed by the Salt Lake streetcar system -- the equivalent in its day one supposes of being a hotshot jet-jockey. T. B. Brighton, who as a young man returned to Scotland as a missionary, was the subject of two front page articles in the Deseret News -- January 7 and January 24, 1904 -- when he and his partner were shot and killed during a robbery at the end of the streetcar line by a drifter who ran out of funds while passing through Salt Lake on his way to parts unknown. T. B. left three older sons (eight, ten, and twelve), a four year old daughter, a two year old son, and a babe in arms. His oldest son, another Thomas, became Professor of Chemistry at the University of Utah; the second son William, Professor of Animal Husbandry; his daughter Mary served for many years as personal secretary to the Presiding Bishop, later to Apostle Joseph F. Merrill, and before retirement, at the request of President George Albert Smith, to the Patriarch to the Church. Mary also served for many years as Secretary and Treasurer of the Brighton Home Committee which administered the huge log YWMIA lodge which stood for many years on the monolithic rock at the head of the cirque in the Brighton Basin. Her husband Bishop Mont Timmins started the first regularly held Sunday morning services for LDS girls staying at the Home, anticipating the construction of the lovely LDS Chapel in Brighton by forty years. The beautiful log Brighton Girl's Home, reminiscent in many ways of Old Faithful Lodge in Yellowstone Park, was regrettably also lost to fire some twenty years ago. William S. Brighton's sister Annie also made an important, if quiet, contribution to the development of the west. Soon after arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, in her mid-teens, she married Robert Thornley, a young Lancashireman who had driven an ox team across the plains the previous summer. He and his cousin Seth Langton had just returned from an exploratory trip to Cache Valley, recently opened up by the settlement of Wellsville. Annie and Robert, with their cousin Seth, founded the second settlement in Cache Valley -- Summit Creek, now known as Smithfield (see History of Smithfield. Also Brighton, Thornley, Timmins Family History, op. cit. ) The mother of Gutzon Borglum, the noted sculptor of the Mt. Rushmore Monument in South Dakota, was the first child born in the town of Smithfield. Borglum was himself born in Paris, Idaho, an offshoot of the Cache Valley Mormon settlements. While Robert operated a saw mill in Smithfield canyon, from whose product most of the houses and barns, as well as the Smithfield Tabernacle, was constructed, Annie reared eight sons and two daughters. As the sons reached adulthood, they operated a wagon trucking business, transporting Cache Valley produce to the Montana mines, where they soon also opened a rooming house maintained by their sisters. Annie Brighton Thornley's children thus helped spread Mormonism into northern Idaho and Montana. There they converted a young Cornishman who was operating the pumps in some of the deep mines in Butte. William Timmins married a Thornley daughter, returning to Cache Valley where, for the remainder or his life he was engineer at the first sugar factory, which brought the initial cash crop, and long-lasting prosperity, to Cache Valley farmers. There is a story related to Brighton and the Brightons which bears recounting in this brief history. The Moyle family has been associated with Brighton and the Brighton family since James Moyle, a contemporary and associate of Wm. Stuart Brighton, early took up summer residence at Brighton, and indeed served as the attorney who wound up William Stuart Brighton's estate upon his death. During the summer of 1993 following church in the lovely chapel on the shores of Silver Lake overlooking the magnificense of Mt. Millicent, the author fell into conversation with Jim Moyle, grandson of the mentioned James Moyle, who told the following story of the construction of the Brighton chapel. As has already been related, Mary Brighton Timmins was Treasurer/Secretary of the Brighton Home Committee which administered the YWMIA girls home formerly located on the great rock overlooking the basin. When girls were in residence during the summer, it had become the custom to hold Sunday School services at the girls home. My father, who was bishop at the time, regularized these meetings, seeing that priesthood members were assigned each Sunday to administer and pass the sacrament and that hymns and speakers were provided. When the YWMIA home burned in the early 1960's, there was no longer a place for meetings to be held, and those wishing to attend services had to drive down the canyon. Great Uncle Dan Brighton held title to much of the land surrounding Silver Lake. Most of the rest of the family had held on to no more than a cabin site. At the time this account begins, Uncle Dan was in his nineties, having outlived all other members of his family. Brother Henry D. Moyle, who was at the time Counselor to President David O. McKay, head of the Church's Finance Committee, and influential with the Building Committee, and who loved Brighton, approached Uncle Dan saying, "Brother Brighton, if you will deed your land on Silver Lake to the U.S. Forest Service I'll see that it becomes a Nature Preserve so that all who know and love Brighton will have its enjoyment in perpetuity and will hold your name in remembrance. Moreover, I'll reserve an acre of land in this corner for the construction of a lovely chapel to be called 'The Brighton Ward' and will see that the Church provides financing for its construction". Well, Dan deeded the land and Brother Henry D. asked the Church Building Committee to come up with appropriate plans for this spot special to his childhood and family memories. As might be imagined by those familiar with the Committee's devotion to modular, cookie-cutter church buildings, it provided President Moyle with plans for an unimaginative, small red brick starter church. Brother Moyle at his own expense thereupon hired a private architect who came up with the design for the beautiful stone chapel now standing on the site -- with its impressive full glass wall overlooking Millicent. Naturally, the Building Committee was upset at this end-run, but could do little about it because of President Moyle's influence. Justice arrived less than two years later when the Committee came back to President Moyle saying it had been asked to architect an LDS chapel for construction near Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone Park, and asked whether they could use his private plans for the Brighton chapel. Of course he agreed, and today there are two near identical "Brighton" chapels, one at Brighton, one near Mammoth in Yellowstone National Park. Today the Brighton name has become attached to banks, restaurants, service stations and schools -- as well as to the mountain resort, though few of the present generation know its historical antecedents. It is hoped that this brief article may remedy that deficiency by bringing to memory the life and contributions of another LDS Pioneer "who also served", though not as well known to history as some more luminary contemporaries.