| 20 Salt Lake Valley, and returned to Winter Quarters, where they arrived October 31,1847.
On December 5,1847, they met in council and appointed Brigham Young to be President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and Heber C. Kimball and Willard Richards his counselors.
In a "General Epistle from the Council of the Twelve Apostles, to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, abroad, dispersed throughout the Earth, Greeting," "written at Winter Quarters, Omaha Nation, west bank of Missouri River, near Council Bluffs, North America, and signed December 23, 1847, in behalf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; Brigham Young, President, Willard Richards, Clerk" (Millennial Star, vol. 10, pp. 81-88)-an extract from that Epistle as found on page 86 is as follows:-
"Since the murder of President Joseph Smith, many false prophets and false teachers have arisen, and tried to deceive many, during which time we have mostly tarried with the body of the church, or been seeking a new location, leaving those prophets and teachers to run their race undisturbed, who have died natural deaths, or committed suicides; and we now, having it in contemplation soon to reorganize the church according to the original pattern, with a First Presidency and Patriarch, feel that it will be the privilege of the Twelve, ere long, to spread abroad among the nations, not to hinder the gathering, but to preach the gospel, and push the people, the honest in heart, together from the four quarters of the earth."-Millennial Star, vol. 10, p. 86.
The very next day after signing this epistle, December 24, 1847, the action of the Twelve on the 5th, forming a Presidency, was presented to a conference composed of no more than one thousand persons, and by this conference the action of the Twelve was confirmed. Thus was Brigham Young made President by choice of a part of his quorum first, and then by about one thousand members assembled on the confines of civilization, and without the knowledge of the majority of the church, which at the death of Joseph Smith numbered, as has been estimated, about one hundred and fifty thousand in the world, including about thirty
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