Brigham Young

Brigham Young led the great Mormon migration of 1846-48 and oversaw the church's establishment and growth in Utah. An early convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (also known as the Mormons), Young was named president of the church after the 1844 murder of its founder, Joseph Smith. Young led the Mormons west and personally chose the site of the church's new colony, which became Salt Lake City. From 1851-57 he also served as governor of the Utah Territory. The early Mormon church practiced polygamy, and official church histories say Young had 20 wives and 57 children; other sources claim two dozen wives or more.

Extra credit: Young is the great-great-great-grandfather of former NFL quarterback Steve Young... Brigham Young (as imagined by Arthur Conan Doyle) appears in the very first Sherlock Holmes story, A Study In Scarlet.