Lemuel Green Brandebury[lower-alpha 1] (January 1, 1810 – March 10, 1875) was an American judge who in 1851 served as the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of the Utah Territory.[1][2] He later became a public critic of the Mormon Church and its then practice of polygamy.[3]

Brandebury was from Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, and had a brother, Rev. C. B. Brandebury. He was a member of the Carlisle, Pennsylvania Bar and worked with C. B. Penrose in Philadelphia.[4][5][2]

Brandebury was appointed to the territorial court by President Millard Fillmore on March 12, 1851, after Joseph Buffington declined the position due to insufficient compensation.[6] Brandebury was the first non-Mormon territorial official to arrive, and was honored by a banquet and several dances.[7]: 22  Brigham Young described Brandebury as "an inconspicuous lawyer", and despite the initial good relations, Brandebury quickly found himself feeling unwelcome in Utah, returning to Washington with the other non-Mormon members of the territorial government as one of the "Runaway Officials of 1851" to denounce the local government in the territory.[3]

Brandebury did not return to the territory thereafter. Five years later, Young asserted in a speech that Brandebury had been doing odd legal jobs in Washington, D.C., to make a living, and would have fared better had he stayed in the territory.[2]

During the Civil War, Brandebury served in the Engineer Regiment of the West in the Union Army.[8]

He later worked for many years in the Department of the Treasury. In 1875, he died suddenly in Washington, D.C. of apoplexy, aged 65.[4]

Notes

  1. ↑ Various sources also spell his last name as Brandenbury, Bradenbury, Bradenburg, or Brandeberg.

References

  1. ↑ "Research - Utah State Archives".
  2. 1 2 3 Clifford L. Ashton, "Utah: The Territorial and District Courts", chapter 5 in James K. Logan, The Federal Courts of the Tenth Circuit: A History (1992), p. 129-31.
  3. 1 2 "Mormonism Unmasked". The Sunbury American. Sunbury, Pennsylvania. January 17, 1852. p. 1. Retrieved December 26, 2023.
  4. 1 2 "Sudden Death". Waynesboro Record. Waynesboro, Pennsylvania. March 25, 1875. p. 2. Retrieved December 26, 2023.
  5. ↑ Carter, Clarence Edwin (1972). "The Territorial Papers of the United States: Volumes I-XXVI".
  6. ↑ Supreme Court, Utah; Hagan, Albert; Marshall, John Augustine; Zane, John Maxcy; Williams, James A.; Nye, George L.; Tanner, Joseph M.; Thompson, John Walcott; Edler, August B.; Pratt, Harmel L.; Irvine, Alonzo Blair; Dalton, William S.; Arnold Rich, H. (1877). "Reports of Cases Decided in the Supreme Court of the State of Utah: 1851/1876".
  7. ↑ Furniss, Norman F. (2005) [1960]. Mormon Conflict: 1850-1859. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-11307-5.
  8. ↑ Union Soldiers Compiled Service Records, 1861-1865


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