BRIGHAM YOUNG 
AN EELEUST RATION: OF PREPOTENCY 
child inherits equally from his two 
parents; yet every observant person 
realizes that this is merely a general 
law, of a statistical nature, and that it 
does not always hold good in individual 
cases. 
Sometimes one parent contributes 
much more than the other, as far as 
distinguishable characters are concerned. 
We then say that that parent is pre- 
potent. 
The idea of prepotency is particularly 
familiar to breeders of livestock, but 
few of them can explain it clearly, and 
the professional geneticist has so far 
met with little better success. It re- 
mains one of the most obscure things in 
the study of heredity, and some of the 
most plausible explanations of it are so 
hypothetical that it is almost impossible 
that their correctness should ever be 
proved. 
But of the existence of the fact, no 
one can doubt. In the human species, 
every one can cite instances where all 
the children of a family ‘‘take’’ strongly 
after their father, or their mother, as 
the case may be. But never, perhaps, 
was the phenomenon of prepotency 
more graphically shown in man than 
in the accompanying photograph of 
eleven daughters of Brigham Young, 
by eight different wives. 
“How different their mothers were,” 
writes a member of this association who 
is well acquainted with the family. 
“But all the daughters are distinctly 
‘Youngs’ in feature, voice, appearance 
and temperament. All are musical. All 
areamiable. All are adaptable, genuine, 
sincere, temperamental yet reasonable, 
and are good mimics. All are warm- 
hearted, generous, excellent cooks and 
housewives, and have the reputation of 
being attractive, magnetic and sympa- 
thetic. None is great as their father was 
great, but all are Youngs.” 
lk IS an axiom of heredity that the 
While many of these characteristics 
might be ascribed to similarity in train- 
ing, one can hardly credit education 
with having influenced the shape of the 
mouth and nose. These features, how- 
ever, in the daughters almost without 
exception, bear a very close resemblance 
to the corresponding features of the 
father. Certainly the strong, firm 
mouth of Brigham Young is reproduced 
in a most striking way. In general, it 
will probably be agreed that these chil- 
dren of a single father and eight different 
mothers show as much resemblance to 
each other as one often finds in the chil- 
dren of one father and mother. 
MAJOR POND’S EXPERIENCE 
An amusing incident connected with 
the likeness, which is so marked in 
Brigham Young’s descendants, was that 
told very frequently by Major James B. 
Pond. He was always convinced that 
he could tell a descendant of Brigham 
Young, especially the girls, whenever 
he saw one and as an illustration he 
would tell of a certain time when he and 
a friend were walking on the streets of 
Seattle and he saw two young girls com- 
ing towards them. 
Said Major: ‘‘Those girls are Brig- 
ham Young’s daughters.” 
‘‘Nonsense,”’ replied his companion. 
“Yes, they are,” persisted the Major. 
“Will you wager with me ?”’ he added. 
“Yes,” said his friend; “I will bet 
you $25 that they are not.” 
‘““Done,”’ cried the Major. 
As they met the girls the Major lifted 
his hat and said in his own courteous 
way: ‘Excuse me; this is a long way 
from Utah, but are you daughters of 
Brigham Young?” 
The girls laughed and replied: ‘‘We 
are his granddaughters, through his 
eldest son, Brigham; but how did you 
know that?” The Major had earned 
his $25. People in Utah say that the 
51 
