In November 1832, Young joined the gathering of Latter Day Saints in Kirtland, Ohio, where he met Joseph Smith, the founder of the church. Shortly after arriving in Kirtland, Smith asked Young to depart on another mission for the church to Upper Canada, which he served over the winter months of 1832 and 1833. On February 18, 1834, Young married Jane Adeline Bicknell in Geneseo, New York. The couple would eventually have eleven children.
Young accompanied Joseph Smith and others in a journey to Independence, Missouri, in 1834 as part of Zion's Camp. In 1835, Smith selected Young to be one of the leaders of the Seventy of the church. Young was ordained to the office of Seventy on February 28 and was ordained as one of the seven presidents of the First Quorum of the Seventy on March 1. After it was discovered that the senior president of the Seventy, Hazen Aldrich, had previously been ordained to the office of high priest, Aldrich surrendered his position in the quorum. As a result, Young became the senior or seventh president of the Seventy. He would retain this position in the church from 1835 until his death. As a Seventy, Young served several more missions for the church, including one to New York and Massachusetts with Burr Riggs in 1835 and one to his relatives in the eastern United States with his brother Brigham in 1836. Young participated in many significant events in early Latter Day Saint history. He was present at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple in 1836. Young was also present at Haun's Mill, Missouri, when it was attacked by those who opposed the Mormon presence in Missouri. He left Missouri with the Latter Day Saints in consequence of the extermination order which had been issued by Lilburn W. Boggs. Young received his endowment in Nauvoo, Illinois, on February 3, 1844, just months before Joseph Smith was killed. He was selected by Smith as an inaugural member of the Council of Fifty on March 1, 1844. When Smith was killed on June 27, 1844, Young was campaigning in Ohio on behalf of Smith's bid for the presidency of the United States. Like many early Latter Day Saints, Young practiced plural marriage. On January 16, 1846, he was married to Lucinda Allen and Lydia Caroline Hagar, in the Nauvoo Temple. Soon to follow was Mary Ann Huntley on February 6, 1846. Later, on 7 April 1868 he married Sarah Jane Snow, and Elizabeth Stevens on November 28, 1868. Young would eventually father a total of ten children with his plural wives.
Later life in Utah
Young and his four wives left Illinois in 1846 and settled in Winter Quarters, Nebraska, and later Carterville, Iowa. He and his wives left Carterville in 1850 to join the Latter Day Saints who had followed his brother Brigham to the Salt Lake Valley in Utah Territory. Young arrived in Salt Lake Cityin September 1850. The Youngs travelled in the Wilford Woodruffpioneer company. In 1870, Young served a final mission for the church to the British Isles. He died at, and was buried in, Salt Lake City at the age of 84. At the time of his death, Young had served as a general authority or a missionary of the church for nearly fifty years.
