Jedediah M. Grant

Jedediah M. Grant, also known as Jeddy, was a prominent leader under Brigham Young whose preaching helped define the Mormon Reformation of 1856 and 1857. The book presents him as a figure who urged the Saints toward both plural marriage and severe religious discipline, linking the drive for marital conformity with teachings about blood atonement.

Position and Influence

Grant was Brigham Young’s second counselor and was described as immensely popular among the Saints. They affectionately called him Jeddy, Brigham’s Sledge Hammer, a nickname that captures the forceful role he played in the period’s religious campaign. The account identifies him as the Reformation’s principal spearhead, placing him close to the center of church leadership rather than at its margins.

The Reformation is presented as a concentrated surge of religious fervor that peaked in 1856 and 1857. Grant’s influence lay in turning that fervor into public exhortation: he pressed the faithful to accept demanding doctrines and treated religious commitment as a matter of urgent moral consequence.

Blood Atonement and Religious Discipline

Grant preached that some serious sins could not be atoned for through ordinary religious means and argued that the sinner’s blood must be shed. In September 1856, he applied this teaching to people he said were already in the community, insisting that their offenses required blood atonement. The account connects this rhetoric to a wider preoccupation with blood among Mormon leaders, while distinguishing the severe doctrine from the broader scriptural idea of atonement through Jesus Christ.

His sermons gave the teaching a direct, communal force: the alleged sinners were not distant abstractions but people Grant claimed were present among the Saints. The book places this advocacy within the development of a culture of violence in Utah, but does not describe Grant carrying out violence himself. His documented role here is that of a preacher who promoted blood atonement as a religious obligation.

Advocacy of Plural Marriage

Grant was also an energetic advocate of plural marriage. He preached the Saints’ duty to marry profusely, and the book says his campaign achieved its intended effect: Mormon men began taking additional wives at a rapid pace. Wilford Woodruff’s observation in 1856 that very few girls aged fourteen or older in Utah remained unmarried, or were not about to marry, conveys the scale and speed of the social pressure surrounding marriage.

The account sets Grant’s campaign within the wider promotion of plural marriage under Brigham Young. Grant’s significance is the conjunction of these two exhortations: he pressed the faithful toward plural marriage while also urging a severe doctrine of blood atonement. Both were presented as matters of religious duty, and together they reveal the Reformation’s intense demands on the Saints.