Brigham Young's wide range of interests spurred him to undertake such varied endeavors as building a chandelier and inventing a new alphabet for written English, said Chad M. Orton on Aug. 20 at BYU's Campus Education Week during a class titled "Lesser-known Contributions of Brigham Young."

"We're so lucky to have Brigham as one of the leaders of our Church, we really are," said Brother Orton, an archivist for the Church History Department. "Brigham was a Renaissance man in the traditional sense of the word. … [He] revealed himself as a Renaissance man in his continuous search for knowledge; his willingness to use what he learned to benefit his family, his Church, his community; and his ability to solve problems. There were very few men who had as broad of expertise [as he did] during this time."

Once Brigham Young, president of the Church from 1847-77 and governor of the Utah Territory 1850-58, was showing a visitor around the Salt Lake Theater. That individual stopped to praise a certain chandelier and speculate as to how much it had cost.

"He took a look at a chandelier and ventured a guess that the Saints must've paid $1,000 for it from New York City — it was that beautiful," Brother Orton said. "In response Brigham explained, 'I made it myself. The circle is a cartwheel, the wheel off of one of our common Utah box-carts. I had it waxed and gilded in my own hands. It hangs by a pair of ox chains which I also gilded.' "

With the enormous influx of immigrants into the Salt Lake Valley in the 19th Century, President Young wanted to find a way to allay the daunting task of learning English.

"There were so many immigrants coming into Utah that Brigham proposed a system to create a new orthography — how we write the English alphabet," Brother Orton said. "He came up with what is known as the Deseret Alphabet, which included 38 symbols with each symbol having its unique sound rather than 26 letters of the alphabet."

The Deseret Alphabet never gained much of a foothold in education circles (not enough primers could be printed for dissemination to the immigrants entering Utah), but the mere fact that President Young could even conjure up such an idea showed the expansive scope and depth of his vision for challenging convention.

That same visionary quality helped President Young devise a plan to build the Salt Lake City Tabernacle. In the days before steel beams, no edifice existed anywhere in the world with such a large freestanding roof devoid of any intermediary supporting columns. But he thought the Tabernacle's roof could be constructed using the same technology used to build bridges of the time period. Consequently, he contracted a bridge maker to help design a roof for the Tabernacle that subsequently made it a singularly unique building for decades to come.

Near the end of class Brother Orton shared his motivation for teaching such a class as "Lesser-known Contributions of Brigham Young."

"So many people feel like they really don't understand Brigham," he said. "They just don't know who he is; they're confused. What I've tried to do tonight is tell some stories that if you look at them, I think that those help us really understand who that great man is."

jaskar@desnews.com