this position. Follower of Brigham Young In July 1844 while traveling, Lyman learned that Smith and his brother Hyrum had been killed by a mob at Carthage, Illinois. He returned to Nauvoo. When apostles Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Wilford Woodruff, Pratt, and Lyman Wight arrived in Nauvoo on August 6, Lyman sided with the group of Latter Day Saints who supported the leadership of Young and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, as opposed to that of Sidney Rigdon, Smith's First Counselor in the First Presidency. Young restored Lyman as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on August 12, 1844. In 1847, Lyman and his seven wives and children traveled with the Mormon pioneers who followed Young to the Salt Lake Valley in present-day Utah. Young chose Lyman and Charles C. Rich to lead an expedition to establish a Mormon foothold in the San Bernardino Valley in southern California, a long-held ambition for Young. In March 1851, 437 Latter-day Saints under the leadership of Lyman and Rich left Great Salt Lake City. After traversing the Cajon Pass, the group purchased Rancho San Bernardino from the Lugo family, and built Fort San Bernardino. The fort quickly grew into a burgeoning settlement, reaching a population of 3,000 in 1856 and spurring the creation of a new county (split off from Los Angeles County in 1853) and the incorporation of a new municipality (in 1854). Lyman served as the first mayor of San Bernardino. Charges of heresy and excommunication In 1860, Young appointed three of the twelve apostles—Lyman, Charles C. Rich, and George Q. Cannon—to the presidency of the church's European Mission. On March 16, 1862, Lyman preached a sermon in Dundee, Scotland, which all but denied the reality of and the necessity for the atonement of Jesus Christ, which is a central tenet of the LDS Church. His speech appeared to have been overlooked for years, but on January 21, 1867, Lyman was brought before his fellow quorum members to answer for his heretical words. Lyman confessed his error and apologized to the quorum. He wrote a letter of apology to the general membership of the church, which was published in the Deseret News. However, months later, Lyman began publicly preaching the substance of his 1862 Dundee speech. As a result of his failure to live up to his confession and apology, the church stripped Lyman of the