Lemuel G. Brandenbury

Lemuel G. Brandenbury (fl. 1840s–1850s) was the first chief justice of the Supreme Court of the Utah Territory in 1851. Various sources also spell his last name as Bradenbury, Bradenburg, or Brandeberg.[1][2]

Little is known about Brandenbury except that he was from Pennsylvania,[3][2] and that he had on one occasion "made a speech on the courthouse steps in Carlisle, Pennsylvania".[2]

Brandenbury was appointed to the territorial court by President Millard Fillmore on March 12, 1851, after Joseph Buffington declined the position due to insufficient compensation.[4] Brandenbury was the first non-Mormon territorial official to arrive, and was honored by a banquet and several dances.[5]: 22  Brigham Young described Brandenbury as "an inconspicuous lawyer", and despite the initial good relations, Brandenbury himself 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. Brandenbury did not return to the territory thereafter. Five years later, Young asserted in a speech that Brandenbury 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]

References
  1. "Research - Utah State Archives".
  2. 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. Carter, Clarence Edwin (1972). "The Territorial Papers of the United States: Volumes I-XXVI".
  4. 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".
  5. Furniss, Norman F. (2005) [1960]. Mormon Conflict: 1850-1859. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0-300-11307-5.


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