The Mormon prophet, however, wanted more of California’s gold. He worked hard to discourage loyal Saints from deserting Zion (present-day Utah) for El Dorado, but in late March 1849, according to a journal of the time, “It was decided to send Elder Lyman and Orrin P. Rockwell to California with an epistle to the faithful Saints, and also to preach the Gospel and look after the interests of the Church and the Saints.” Apostle Amasa Lyman left Salt Lake in mid-April with at least 20 men and several families; one of his main assignments was to collect funds for the LDS Church.

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Amasa Mason Lyman was one of early Mormonism’s most dynamic leaders. Converted in 1832, he had been arrested with Joseph Smith for treason in Missouri in 1838 and had suffered through all the religion’s ordeals until it found a refuge in the Great Basin. In 1851 Lyman established the Mormon settlement of San Bernardino, which quickly became the second largest city in California. A renowned orator, Lyman also had a powerful independent streak that led him to conclude that Christ was “simply, a holy man” and to denounce the 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre—positions that led Brigham Young to excommunicate him in 1870.

Lyman carried a very odd letter from Young to Brannan. The prophet assured the now-disaffected tycoon there were no legal complaints against him, as Brannan had suggested. “The man who is always doing right has no occasion to fear any complaints that can be made against him,” Young wrote, adding ominously, “and I hope you have no occasion to fear.” Since Brannan had been “blessed abundantly,” Young said he expected to receive “$10,000, at least, of your tithing, on return of Elder Lyman”—if he sent $100,000, so much the better. “If you want to continue to prosper, do not forget the Lord’s treasury, lest he forget you.”

Once Brannan had “settled with the treasury,” he should remember that Brother Brigham had “long been destitute of a home, and suffered heavy loses and incurred great expenses in searching out a location and in planting the Church in this place.” Young asked Brannan to send him $20,000, “(a present) in gold dust to help him in his labors. This is but a trifle where gold is so plentiful, but it will do me much good at this time.” Young then asked him to throw in another $20,000 to divide with his two counselors, Brothers Heber Kimball and Willard Richards.

Some historians have tried to pass this off as a joke, but the next line, “a hint to the wise is sufficient,” became one of Young’s hallmark phrases: It meant, basically, “Don’t make me spell it out.” To make things crystal clear, Brother Brigham wrote, “Should you withhold when the Lord says give, your hope and pleasing prospects will be blasted in an hour you think not of, and no arm to save [you]. But I am persuaded [of] better things of Brother Brannan.”

Lyman wasted little time in delivering Young’s letter. He wrote back to Salt Lake in early July 1849, noting that most of the Mormons still in the goldfields had made money but were “profligate in spending it. In this way, thousands of dollars of the fruits of their labor has been wasted.” The only trace of their golden windfall was “their confirmed habits of profligacy and dissipation.”

Lyman described his visit with Brannan. “I think that Samuel will do something for the Church if he is let alone,” the apostle reported guardedly. He intended to give the new millionaire “an opportunity to do all the good he may have the means or disposition to do.”

Brannan was not disposed to do Brigham Young any good at all. Unbeknown to the Mormon prophet, the California mogul had already washed his hands of Mormonism weeks before Young wrote his letter. In mid-March 1849, Brannan wrote his sister in Boston, reporting that he had cleared more than $100,000 during the previous year—and he hoped to keep the cash “from the authorities of the Church. They have forsaken me.” Brannan felt that Young had ignored his requests for information and, in fact, was unclear why they sent him to California in the first place, “Unless it Was to Get me out of the Way, Suposing [sic] it Being a Spanish Country i Would Be Kil[l]ed.” He was sent in 1846 with only “a parcel of Women and Children and a few Men settlers.” He suspected, however, that Young and his henchmen would not ignore him for long: “When the Lord finds out I have Got a Little Money, He will Begin to feel after me.” And Brannan made it clear that his use of “the Lord” was not in reference to God Almighty.

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