The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon, Upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi.

First Salt Lake City edition of the Book of Mormon, the scripture Joseph Smith first published in 1830 as a record of the ancient peoples of the Americas, which became the founding text of the Latter-day Saints and one of the most widely distributed books ever printed. Brigham Young’s own copy of this rare edition of the Book of Mormon, the first printed in Salt Lake City, signed by him and presented to Major Anson Mills of the United States Army, who recounted receiving it from Young in his autobiography. Duodecimo, bound in full contemporary brown pebble-grain morocco with titles and ruling to the spine, all edges gilt, brown endpapers. Boldly signed “Brigham Young” on the second free endpaper. Ownership plate of Major Anson Mills to the front pastedown. Housed in a custom full morocco clamshell box made by the Harcourt Bindery. An exceptional survival of the 1871 edition. Brigham Young (1801-1877) succeeded Joseph Smith as the leader of the Latter-day Saints, led the great migration west to the Salt Lake Valley, and served as the second president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1847 until his death. He founded Salt Lake City, served as the first governor of the Utah Territory, and led the founding of the institutions that became the University of Utah and Brigham Young University. The book’s former owner, Major Anson Mills, served in the Union Army during the Civil War and continued in service through a long series of frontier campaigns until his retirement in 1897. In the aftermath of the war, Mills found himself stationed at Fort Bridger in Utah, where he became connected with Young, then both the head of the church and the governor of the territory. His printed bookplate, “Property of Major Anson Mills, U.S. Army, Fort Davis, Texas, 1882,” is mounted to the front pastedown. Recounting his first meeting with Young in his 1918 autobiography, Mills wrote, “He looked like General Grant, and was an earnest and, I believe, a sincere and conscientious man. He said he was glad to meet a regular officer, because the regular army always treated them well, but that the volunteers under Connor had been demoralizing to those of the Mormon faith. Discussing my prejudice against his people, about which he asked and I answered frankly, he said, ‘You have doubtless heard we are disloyal to the Union.’ Pointing to the flag flying over his Tabernacle, he said it had waved every day since the war began.” Young invited Mills to accompany his son-in-law to that week’s sermon, and Mills obliged. He wrote specifically of receiving the present copy from Young on that occasion, seeing “open on the pulpit the inspired volumes from which they preached,” the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Book of Mormon. “He presented a copy of the latter to me, inscribed with his name, which I still have.” The meeting left a lasting impression. “My experiences changed my mind regarding the Mormon people,” Mills wrote. “I believe their church the equal of any in the inculcation of those qualities which make the Mormons law-abiding, industrious, economical and faithful to all their agreements.” In very good condition with rubbing, toning, the upper hinge cracked but holding, and occasional underlining in pencil. An exceptionally rare copy, linking the leader of the Latter-day Saints to an officer of the frontier army. The Book of Mormon (1830) is the foundational scripture of the Latter Day Saint movement. Joseph Smith Jr. (1805-1844) related that in 1823 an angel named Moroni led him to a set of golden plates buried in a hill near his family’s farm in Manchester, New York, which he received in 1827 and translated, by his account, by the gift and power of God. First published in Palmyra, New York, in March 1830 in an edition of five thousand copies, financed by the farmer Martin Harris, who mortgaged his land to pay the printer, the book presents itself as the record of ancient peoples of the.…