This volume is a product of The Brigham Young Center, a nonprofit foundation focused on transcribing and making available the large corpus of Brigham Young documents and facilitating the research, writing, and publication of material about the life and world of Brigham Young. We are extremely grateful for the generous support and encouragement of The Brigham Young Center board—John D. Esplin, Richard E. Turley Jr., Jeffrey N. Walker, and John W. Welch—and the center’s associate director, John A. Peterson.

We have benefited greatly from the work of and our association with the Joseph Smith Papers Project. We extend sincere appreciation to the many people who have contributed to that project over the decades. Many members of the project’s staff at the Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have assisted us in both small and significant ways. In particular, we wish to thank Darcee Barnes, LaJean Carruth, Brett Dowdle, Matthew C. Godfrey, Matthew J. Grow, Jeffrey Mahas, Adam Petty, Megan Sanderson, and Alex D. Smith.

The staffs of the Church History Library and the Family History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University; Utah State Historical Society; and New York State Archives all deserve recognition and our gratitude for their assistance with our research. We also express a special thank-you to Barbara D. Anderson, librarian, Heritage Research Library, Washington County Historical Society, New York, for her help as we learned more about the places Brigham Young visited in Washington County.

We also thank the excellent staff at Brigham Young University’s Religious Studies Center for the editing and production of this book. We especially appreciate Jared W. Ludlow, Don L. Brugger, Brent R. Nordgren, Alex Socarras, Emily Rogers, Emma Taylor, Leigh Ann Copas, and Annalyn Sorensen.

Our families have been constant sources of love and support as this volume has developed. We are grateful beyond words for each of our families. They have patiently listened to the stories we have told them as our research advanced and our writing matured. They have learned more about the life, world, and ministry of Brigham Young as a result. It is our hope that readers of this volume will likewise benefit.