Levi Edgar Young was born in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory on February 2, 1874,[1] the son of LDS Church general authority Seymour B.

[3] Levi Young graduated from the University of Utah in 1895, and later became a faculty member at the same school, teaching history.

[2] Later in his life, he studied at Harvard University with professors Albert Bushnell Hart, Edward Channing, and Ephraim Emerton.

[4] After his death, the Relief Society Magazine stated, "President Young has left a resplendent heritage of faith and good works to his family and to the Church.

"[7] Young may have publicized the existence of the 1832 account of Joseph Smith's first vision, a major historical document in the LDS Church.

[8]: 42–43  That office was Joseph Fielding Smith's, who at the time of the recounting had ascended to the position president in the LDS Church.

Smith denied access to the original documents to Jerald and Sandra Tanner, a pair prominent of Mormon critics, historians, and apostates.

[8]: 42–43  The Joseph Smith Papers project confirms that the pages related to the account were later returned to the original letterbook.