Clarisa Decker Young

“There aren’t any trees, but they can be planted.”

Clara Decker Young, Harriet’s daughter was a natural choice for a third woman to accompany the Vanguard Company across the plains and into the valley. First, she was a hard worker, she was smart, and she naturally took to helping her mother Harriet with a six-year-old little brother and a six-year-old little step-brother. She said that before she left Winter Quarters she made herself a fine skirt and it was hard to keep it clean during the journey but that they always had some clean clothes on the Sabbath day. One of the hardest things for Clara was to see the cattle come limping into camp at night. Many of them got very lame. As a plural wife of Brigham Young, Clara supported her husband even when others were disappointed when they first saw the Salt Lake Valley, As they entered the valley of the Great Salt Lake, try and imagine, if you can, the feeling of Clara and her two female companions. Harriet gazed at the desolate wilderness and cried. She said to her husband, “Weak and weary as I am, I would rather go one thousand miles farther than stay in such a forsaken place as this. “Ellen Kimball said nothing but looked heartbroken. Clara, the pretty young wife of Brigham Young, said, “Things do not look dreary to me. I am satisfied to abide by my husband’s decision that ‘This is the Place’. There aren’t any trees, but they can be planted,” she said.

Clara Young was a beautiful young girl. She said that before she left Winter Quarters she made her a fine skirt and waist from some material her husband purchased for her. It was a task to keep clean on that journey, but they always managed to have some clean clothing on the Sabbath day.

She said one of the hardest things was to see the cattle come limping into camp at night, some of them got very lame. Before the journey was over there was a great deal of sickness and the women nursed and cared for the sick; they were truly ministering angels. They were greatly blessed for not one soul died on the journey. And she went calmly about making a home out of wagon boxes.

The first winter in the valley the saints lived in the old fort for protection against the Indians and wild animals. The entrances to the fort were carefully guarded by heavy gates and were kept locked at night. Clara Young says that they were among the first to move into their little hut in the fort. Her cabin was about eighteen feet square. It had a door and wooden windows which she took out during the day to let in the light, then nailed back at night. The floor was dirt; there was a big fireplace at one end where Clara cooked for her family. It also provided the heat for the cabin.

This was all very fine until the heavy rains set in–then the sod roof leaked and the storm was almost as bad inside as out. Eliza R. Snow lived in Clara’s home that first winter and she tells how they would get into bed and put, their umbrellas over their heads to try to keep dry.

As mentioned, Clara was a daughter of Harriet Young. She was born to Harriet and Isaac Decker in Freedom, Cattaraugus County, New York. In 1837 they moved to Kirtland, Ohio, then to Missouri, and then to Nauvoo in 1841. In 1844 she married Brigham as a plural wife and together they had five children. Then in 1847, she traveled with her mother Harriet, and Ellen Kimball as one of the three Vanguard Women arriving in the Salt Lake Valley.

Clarissa (Clara) Decker was born on July 22, 1828, in Freedom, Cattaraugus Co., New York, a daughter of Isaac Decker and Harriet Page Wheeler. Isaac and Harriet had six children together: Lucy Ann, Charles, Harriet, Clarissa, Fannie, and Isaac Perry Decker. Her mother, Harriet, separated from her father about 1842 and married Lorenzo Dow Young, brother to Brigham Young.

Clarissa’s sister, Lucy Ann Decker, married Brigham Young on June 14, 1842, in Nauvoo. Clarissa married Brigham Young on May 8, 1844. Clarissa’s brother, Charles, married Vilate Young, a daughter of Brigham Young from his first wife, on February 4, 1847, at Winter Quarters. Clarissa’s sisters, Harriet and Fannie, married two brothers–Edwin Little and Feramorz Little–who were sons of Susanna Young, sister to Brigham Young. Therefore, the Decker family was quite connected with the Young family.

Clarissa was almost sixteen at the time of her marriage to Brigham Young in 1844 and was his seventh wife. In 1846 Clarissa was involved in the exodus from Nauvoo to Winter Quarters.

After her arrival in the Salt Lake Valley, Clarissa remained with the saints while her husband returned to Winter Quarters. She was an example of patience and industry to the pioneer women who followed after the original company of pioneers. Clarissa had her first child, Jeannette Richards Young, in December 1849, when she was 21 years of age. She had four more children: Nabbie Howe, Jedediah Grant, Albert Jeddie, and Charlotte Talula Young.

Clara raised a little Indian girl whom they named Sally, It was the custom of the Indians to torture their prisoners of war and put them to death if they could not sell them. Sally was a prisoner, a very tiny prisoner and Charles Decker bought her and gave her to his sister, Clara, who reared her to womanhood, then Sally felt it her duty to return to her own people. She returned and married an Indian Chief, but was unable to endure the hardships of savage life, consequently, she soon passed away.

Clarissa Decker Young was not a public woman. She took no part in affairs outside of her home, though her sympathies were with women who were doing charitable and religious work. She was a great reader and always kept in touch with vital subjects, especially those pertaining to literature and the arts. She was small in stature, of medium complexion, a loving wife, a devoted mother, and a faithful friend to all needing her friendship.

Brigham Young had combined vibrant energy and self-certainty, with deference to the feelings of others and a complete lack of pretension. By the time of his death, Brigham Young had married twenty-seven women, sixteen of whom bore him fifty-six children. He died on August 29, 1877, apparently of peritonitis, the result of a ruptured appendix.

Clara Decker Young died on January 5, 1889, in Salt Lake City in her old home on State Street, near the former site of the famous Social Hall. She was the last of the three original pioneer women of Utah to pass away. She is buried in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.

Source: Biographical Encyclopedia, Vol. 3, p. 804; FindAGrave.com; “Brigham Young, 1801-1877′ original text corrected and edited by Dr. Larry C. Porter, Department of Church History and Doctrine, and Janet Rex, University Communications, 4/2001.

Clarissa Decker Young