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CHAPTER I

BOYHOOD: 1832-1844

Joseph Smith III was born on November 6, 1832. He was the first child of Joseph and Emma Smith to survive infancy. His parents had been married since 1827, but all of their previous children had died in infancy. After losing twin babies in 1831, they had adopted Joseph and Julia Murdock, motherless twin infants born on the same day as their own, to assuage Emma's sense of loss. Early in 1832, Joseph Murdock died. ¹ I Hence, Joseph III grew to adulthood as the oldest son of the Mormon prophet. His father's name and legacy were to shape his destiny.

Little Joseph lived with his family in Kirtland until early in 1838. Many important events in Mormon history took place in Kirtland, but of these Young Joseph—as the prophet's son came to be known—had no comprehension. His later memories of Kirtland were of such important boyhood events as catching his first fish in the Chagrin River.² During his childhood in Kirtland, a little brother joined the family, Frederick Granger Williams Smith, born in 1836. Also during the years in Kirtland, little Joseph witnessed the construction of the Kirtland Temple, a magnificent architectural accomplishment for its time and place.

Late in 1837, the prophet faced a crisis in Kirtland. Legal, financial, and ecclesiastical problems had reached a boiling point. The prophet's unchartered bank, the "Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company," collapsed in the midst of the Panic of 1837. Creditors and lawsuits hounded Joseph Smith, Jr.'s heels. The church in Kirtland was racked with dissent. Some of the prophet's followers were convinced that he had fallen from grace.³

On January 12, 1838, Joseph Smith, Jr. and his counselor, Sidney Rigdon, fled from Kirtland in the night. The prophet had received word that a warrant for his arrest on a charge of banking fraud had been issued. The next day, Emma and the three children also left Kirtland. They joined the prophet and traveled together eight hundred miles to the west, in a covered wagon. Finally they reached their journey's end in the middle of March. The journey was made more difficult for Emma, since she was pregnant. Their destination was the Mormon settlement in northern Missouri known as Far West.

To the Mormons, Missouri was the land of "Zion." Located in the middle of the North American continent, but also on the then frontier of the United States, the Mormon prophet had taught his followers that Missouri was a specially consecrated spot. Here converted American Indians ("Lamanites," in Mormon nomenclature) would gather together with other believers in the Latter Day Gospel. At the designated central spot, Independence, Jackson County, Missouri, a great temple would be built. Independence would be the location of the New Jerusalem ("Zion"). Here Christ would reign during the millennium. In the meantime, the Saints hoped to gather to Missouri as a place of refuge from the world and eschatological tribulations, and to begin construction of an ideal society.

From an early date in the Mormon Church's history, Saints had begun gathering to Zion. But the initial Mormon settlers in Jackson County had been driven out by the "old settlers" of Missouri. A complex set of political, economic, social, and religious factors led to constant tension between the Missourians and the Mormons. After a series of conflicts, these early Mormon settlers had relocated in the relatively unoccupied lands around Far West.

Just when it appeared that the Saints might have a chance of living in peace with their neighbors (whom they called "Gentiles"), Joseph Smith and other refugees from Kirtland arrived in Far West. Almost immediately, troubles flared up again. The Missourians feared the political influence of the concentrated body of Saints. Indiscreet statements by some of the Mormon leaders about their determination to defend themselves added to the problems.

By October 1838, the troubles between the Mormons and the Missourians had escalated into civil war. Governor Lilburn Boggs—an inveterate enemy of the Latter Day Saints who had done nothing to protect them from earlier depredations—seized the opportunity to treat them as outlaws. On October 27th he issued his infamous "Exterminating Order," which declared: "The Mormons must be treated as enemies and must be exterminated or driven from the state, if necessary for the public good. Their outrages are beyond all description."⁴

After some armed skirmishing, the Mormons in outlying areas fled into Far West for protection. Crops were burned and property ravaged. Saints in the small settlement of Haun's Mill were massacred in cold blood. Finally the "Mormon War" came to a climax when the outnumbered Mormon forces in Far West were surrounded by approximately twenty-five hundred Missouri militiamen. Joseph Smith was taken prisoner. On November I, 1838, the commanding general of the Missourians issued an order to shoot the Mormon prophet and seven other prisoners. They were saved only by the defiant reply of Brigadier General Alexander W. Doniphan, a subordinate officer, who stated: "It is cold-blooded murder. I will not obey your order ... if you execute these men, I will hold you responsible before an earthly tribunal, so help me God."⁵

Instead of executing the prophet, it was determined to take him and some others away for trial. On November 2nd, before marching them away, they were allowed to say good-bye to their families. An armed guard brought Joseph Smith to his home, but would not allow him to enter the house. When Joseph Smith III ran out the gate to greet his father, the guard thrust him away with brandished sword, uttering an oath. Emma was holding her infant son, Alexander (born June 2nd), in her arms, but the guard would not allow the prophet to hold his baby son in his arms for a word of farewell. Emma was not allowed to approach her husband to kiss him good-bye. As Joseph Smith III later recalled with bitterness: "With careless profanity and coarse brutality he thrust mother and children from the side of husband and father, and marched his unresisting prisoner back into the custody of sworn enemies."⁶ This was Young Joseph's first encounter with Anti- Mormonism, a phenomenon with which he would contend for the rest of his life.

After a hearing at Richmond, Missouri, eleven prisoners were jailed to await trial. Five were kept at Richmond Jail. Six, including the prophet, were sent to Liberty Jail, in Clay County. On November 30th, the prophet and the others began their confinement. Liberty Jail was a small, fortress-like structure, built of oak logs and stone, with negligible lighting or ventilation. For six months the prisoners endured the miserable conditions there.⁷

Joseph Smith, Jr. did not know whether or not he would emerge from prison alive. It was possible that he might be lynched. Or, he might be convicted and executed by the authorities, since he faced charges of treason and murder. He could entertain legitimate skepticism about the possibility of obtaining a fair trial in Missouri.

Blessing in Liberty Jail

Under the circumstances, Joseph Smith had to consider what would happen if he were to die. What would be his family's fate? Would his followers be scattered? Who would assume the leadership of the church?

This last question was particularly important, since the prophet had given a revelation in 1831 which declared that no one but himself could act as prophet for the church, and that a successor must be appointed by himself.⁸ Prior to his imprisonment, he had designated more than one successor (or possible successor). In 1833 and 1834, he had given some indication that his first or second counselor in the First Presidency might preside "in the absence" of the prophet. But this probably referred to temporary administrative duties to be assumed while the prophet was occupied elsewhere, not succession to his office upon his death. Furthermore, both of his counselors—Sidney Rigdon and Hyrum Smith—were imprisoned with him, in November, and their fates were as uncertain as his own. On July 8, 1834, the prophet secretly designated David Whitmer to succeed him if he should die, but this possible successor had been removed from consideration by his excommunication for apostacy in 1838. Later in 1834, Joseph Smith had named Oliver Cowdery associate president, with the right to succeed to the presidency. But Cowdery also had become disaffected and had been excommunicated in 1838.⁹ Therefore, as he began his imprisonment at Liberty Jail, Joseph Smith's church was left without a clear successor if he should be killed. Such considerations moved him to designate his oldest son, Joseph Smith III, as his successor while in prison.

The prisoners were permitted to receive visitors. Family and associates frequently took advantage of this privilege. Emma Smith visited her husband on three occasions: December 8th, December 20th, and January 21st.¹⁰ On the first of these visits, Sidney Rigdon's wife Phebe accompanied her. They each took one of their sons with them: Joseph Smith III and John Wickliffe Rigdon. ^IIOn the second or third visit, Young Joseph again accompanied his mother and stayed overnight with his father. During this visit the prophet (with one of the other elders) laid his hands upon his son's head and blessed him, as his eldest son, to the blessings which had come down to him through his progenitors. ¹² Of the adults present in the room, only one left a record of the blessing: Apostle Lyman Wight. In 1855 Wight wrote a letter upholding the right to Joseph Smith III to succeed his father, in which he stated:

Now Mr Editor if you been presant when Joseph called on me shortly after [we] came out of jail to lay hands with him on the head of a youth and heard him cry aloud you are my successor when I deport and heard the blesings pored on his head I say had you heard all this and seen the tears streaming from his eyes you would not have been led by blind fanaticism or a zeal without knowledge.¹³

Joseph Smith III was too young to remember the words with which he was blessed. However, he was able to recall the visit and some of the attendant circumstances.¹⁴

Ecclesiastical Dynasticism

Why did the prophet designate his six-year old son to be his successor? Paternal love and pride were perhaps factors. But this action reflected something deeper: a sense of familial destiny and a policy of ecclesiastical dynasticism.¹⁵

To begin with, Joseph Smith believed that he and the Smith family were a specially chosen family, descended from the Biblical patriarch Joseph. The Book of Mormon contained the following prophecy, purportedly uttered by Joseph of old, foretelling the advent of a latter day prophet bearing the name "Joseph:" "A seer shall the Lord my God raise up, who shall be a choice seer unto the fruit of my loins .... And his name shall be called after me; and it shall be after the name of his father." ¹⁶ A similar prophecy was inserted by Joseph Smith, Jr., into his inspired translation of the Bible.¹⁷

Not only did Joseph Smith believe that he was a descendant of the patriarch Joseph, an heir of his blessings, and one specially chosen to restore the Gospel in the latter days as foretold of old, but he also believed that the Smith family was specially blessed. This sense of familial destiny was particularly apparent in his appointment of his father, Joseph Smith, Sr., to the office of presiding patriarch on December 18, 1833. Joseph Smith, Jr. declared that the office belonged to his father by right of lineage, because he was a descendant of Joseph, son of Jacob, unto whom the birthright in Israel had descended. Furthermore, the Mormon prophet declared, the office of presiding patriarch— with the right to hold the keys of the patriarchal order—was to continue forever through the posterity of Joseph Smith, Sr., passing on from father to son, from generation to generation. The seer prophetically foretold that his father would have a multitude of nations descending from him and that his father one day would stand in their midst as a prince, because all the blessings of Joseph his progenitor should come upon his head and upon his seed after him. ¹⁸

This belief that the Smith family was specially chosen and blessed had practical consequences. Between 1833 and 1843, as more and more offices were added to the Mormon hierarchy, Joseph Smith advanced a series of relatives into positions of hierarchical authority. These included his father, his brothers Hyrum and William, his uncle John, his aunt's first cousin Amasa M. Lyman, his first cousin George A. Smith, and several distant cousins, including Brigham Young.

Joseph Smith clearly intended his descendants to occupy prominent positions of ecclesiastical leadership. This is evident in a revelation he gave in 1832 which included the statement, "Therefore your life and the priesthood have remained, and must needs remain through you and your lineage until the restoration of all things ... ."^I9 The right to preside in the church by right of lineage was a general principle taught in Joseph Smith's revelations.²⁰ His appointments reflected this principle of ecclesiastical dynasticism.

It is therefore unremarkable that he entertained hopes that his oldest son someday would occupy a position of leadership in the Mormon Church. Just as his parents had been impressed that someday Joseph, Jr. would play an important role in the divine economy, so similar hopes were entertained for Joseph III. These hopes were reflected in a blessing which Joseph Smith, Sr. pronounced upon the head of Joseph III, in Kirtland. The blessing declared:

Your name is after the name of your father You are Joseph the third You shall live long upon the Earth And after you are grown up you shall have wisdom knowledge and understanding And shall search into the Mysteries of the kingdom of God Your heartt shall be open to all men And your hand shall be open to relieve the wants of the poor You shall be admired by all who shall behold you you shall be an honor to your Father and Mother — And a comfort to your Mother You shall be a help to your brothers and you shall have power to carry out all that your Father shall leave undone When you come of age And you shall have power to wield the sword of Laban²¹

Implicit in this blessing was the belief that the Smith family had been appointed by God to carry out an important mission in the history of redemption. This was especially apparent in the promise that little Joseph would "hove power to carry out" all that his father should leave undone.

The blessing in Liberty Jail was consistent with Joseph Smith, Jr.'s theology and previous appointments. While languishing in prison—his fate uncertain—it was natural for him to wish to pass on the blessings of the seed of Joseph to his oldest son, including the right to preside in the church.

Life in Illinois

After the imprisonment of Joseph Smith, the Mormons were compelled to abandon their homes and property and to leave Missouri. After her third visit to Liberty Jail, Emma Smith departed Far West for Illinois. When she reached the frozen Mississippi River, on February 15, 1839, for safety's sake, she got down from the wagon and walked across the river. In her arms she carried Frederick and Alexander. Julia and Joseph clung to her dress on either side. With several thousand other Saints, she found temporary refuge near Quincy, Illinois.

In April 1839, Joseph Smith and his fellow prisoners were allowed to escape by their captors. Opinion had turned against Missouri's mistreatment of the Mormons, and the continued captivity of the prophet (who had never been tried) was an embarrassment. Joseph crossed the Mississippi and joined his family. He immediately began looking for a new location to which the Saints might gather and soon settled upon a tiny hamlet named Commerce, in Hancock County, Illinois. Arrangements were made to purchase the surrounding land, and soon the Saints busily were engaged in turning Commerce into a populous city.

Commerce grew rapidly. It occupied a strategic location at the head of the Des Moines Rapids on the Mississippi River. These rapids formed a barrier to many of the larger vessels which trafficked the river, necessitating unloading and transporting of cargoes overland between the foot and the head of the rapids. Commerce was also a beautiful location, lying on a horseshoe-shaped bend in the Mississippi. Commerce soon was renamed "Nauvoo," from a Hebrew word signifying beauty. The city was platted, and plans were laid to build an imposing temple upon the highest point in the center of the city. From there the white limestone structure would dominate the view for miles around. But the city had one disadvantage. Low-lying ground (along the river) and poorly drained areas were ideal breeding grounds for mosquitoes. During the initial warm seasons there, the Saints suffered terribly from "ague," as malarial chills and fevers were then denominated.

The Smith family moved into one of the few original homes in Nauvoo. This came to be known as the "Old Homestead." It was located on the southern part of the bend in the river, on low ground very close to the Mississippi. The first summer there, the Old Homestead was filled with Saints afflicted with ague. Emma Smith put her famous nursing skills to good use, energetically tending to the sick, who eventually overflowed into the yard. Young Joseph was pressed into service carrying buckets of water to assuage the thirst and fever of the ague- sufferers.

Although the years spent in Nauvoo witnessed the introduction of important new teachings by the prophet Joseph Smith, these were not the events which impressed themselves upon the memory of Joseph Smith III. He viewed life through a boy's eyes. He was, of course, struck by various deaths in the family: that of his sixty-nine year old grandfather, Joseph Smith, Sr. on September 14, 1840, that of his twenty-five year old uncle Don Carlos Smith on August 7, 1841, that of his infant brother Don Carlos on August 15, 1841, and perhaps most forcefully by that of his beloved cousin and playmate, seven-year old Hyrum Smith, on September 21, 1841.²²

One of the most important aspects of Young Joseph's life in Nauvoo was his schooling. As yet there was no common school system, and various teachers established private schools as they saw fit. Scholars of various ages occupied the same classroom. Benches and tables were relatively primitive. Quill pens and homemade ink were the order of the day, and writing lessons were enscribed in copy-books which the teacher retained until it was time for the next lesson. Young Joseph had a terrible struggle in his initial attempt to master longhand, employing the "pot-hook system," which he ever afterwards regarded as a form of torture. He attended a series of schools, taught by teachers such as Julia Durfee, Miss Wheeler, Howard and Martha Coray, Mr. Thompson, Mr. Cole, and James Madison Monroe. He made strides both in academic studies and in his social development. He was a strong boy and learned to defend himself, but he was no bully and always came to the defense of weaker classmates when they were unfairly preyed upon. No troublemaker, boyish exuberance nevertheless earned him an occasional lesson from "Assistant Birch."

There was plenty of time for boyish activities, such as ball games, a secret club, skinny-dipping in the Mississippi in the summer, or sliding on the ice in the winter. Young Joseph also learned his way around domestic animals, mastering the art of cow-milking and horseback-riding. Visits of Indians to the city fascinated him. He also loved to explore the temple as its construction progressed. Carpenters, stone-cutters, masons, and other workmen abounded in Nauvoo in those days, and Young Joseph watched them work and made friends with them. He also drilled and paraded with the boy's auxiliary of the local militia, the Nauvoo Legion, in which he was an officer.²³

Nauvoo's population grew as converts continued to immigrate there. The prophet's house constantly was flooded with visitors. In 1842, a handsome two- story frame house was built for the Smith family, cater-corner across the street from the Old Homestead. The prophet decided to convert his new dwelling into a hotel, capable of accommodating the crowds of visitors. A new wing was added to the structure to provide additional rooms, and the hotel opened for business in October 1843. It was named "The Nauvoo Mansion," but more commonly was referred to as "the Mansion House," or simply "the Mansion." As mistress of the house, Emma Smith supervised the staff of domestic help, and the hotel became noted as one of the finest on the Mississippi River. With its fine dining room, excellent quisine, and noted occupants, the Mansion House also became a center of social life in Nauvoo.

The Mansion was just one of numerous new structures which Young Joseph watched pop up across Nauvoo's landscape. These varied in quality from shanties and outbuildings to substantial brick structures. The prophet acted as a land agent, buying and selling city lots. Thousands of dollars worth of property passed through his hands. He also became a store-owner. In 1841, he opened his "Red Brick Store," on the flat, just west of the Old Homestead. The store's second story had a large meeting room, where Masons and other groups could conduct meetings. Also upstairs was Joseph Smith's private office, in which he attended to church business and where the church records were stored. In effect, this office functioned as the headquarters of the church. Joseph Smith III was quite familiar with the office and the scribes employed there: Willard Richards, William Clayton, W. W. Phelps, and James Whitehead. For a time, a school was conducted in the upstairs meeting room, which Young Joseph attended. When class was dismissed, the schoolboys would dash noisely down the stairs, much to the annoyance of Dr. Willard Richards. An extremely corpulent man, Dr. Richards once or twice demonstrated his displeasure at the ruckus by standing at the foot of the stairway and refusing to let the boys pass until they promised to be quieter. Because of his frequent presence in the Red Brick Store and the office, Young Joseph became acquainted with many of the church's leading elders. He personally was familiar with all of the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

When he was around ten years old, Joseph Smith III was baptized by his father in the Mississippi River. Young Joseph was among a group of fifty or sixty young people immersed in the "Father of Waters" that day. His religious instruction also included family prayers; attendance at outdoor worship services in the grove next to the unfinished temple on Sundays, weather permitting; and Sunday School. It was his Sunday School teacher, Almon W. Babbitt who confirmed him, after his baptism.²⁴

Critical Developments in Mormonism

While Young Joseph went about his boy's life, critical developments were occurring within Mormonism. Between 1839 and 1844, his father introduced significant additions to the Mormon faith.

Fusion of church and state. The Latter Day Saints had imbibed the communitarian mead which flowed freely in Ante-Bellum America. A vision of religious community lay behind their early experiments with the Law of Consecration and their continued attempts to gather together to build holy cities. Their belief in latter-day revelation through a prophet naturally led to an ecclesiastical structure which concentrated power in the hands of the divinely designated authority-figure, Joseph Smith. The Mormons also believed that the parousia was drawing near. This millennialist strain in Mormon thought—the confidence that the Saints would soon be enjoying millennial bliss while the Gentiles would undergo tribulation and judgment—lent itself to a form of religious exclusivism.

Not only were the Saints close-knit and authoritarian, but they had undergone relentless persecution. Under the circumstances, they joined themselves together ever more tightly for self-protection. By 1840, a new convert named John C. Bennett had won his way into the confidence of Joseph Smith. Bennett was ambitious and persuasive. The prophet put him to use in Springfield, the state capital, to secure a municipal charter for Nauvoo. Having a charter was nothing unusual for larger cities, but Bennett secured important concessions from the legislature. The two most important were the power to raise a municipal militia largely independent of state control, and the power of the municipal court to grant writs of habeus corpus "in all cases arising under the ordinances of the City Council." On their face these provisions were unexceptional, but the Saints employed them to insulate and protect themselves from external authority and threats.²⁵ As one historian has noted, Nauvoo represented an attempt to form an independent and quasi-sovereign government, a tendency which was carried much farther in Utah.²⁶

In practice, church and state became fused together tightly. In Nauvoo, members of the city council not only passed ordinances but also sat on the municipal court. So did the mayor. In effect, the legislative, executive, and judicial powers were vested in the prophet and his designees. Under the Mormon practice of "obeying counsel," whomever the prophet designated was a certain victor in municipal elections. In the first mayoral election, in 1841, John C. Bennett was elected without opposition. Later Joseph Smith himself become mayor. Joseph Smith made prompt use of the city's authority to raise a militia, which was named the "Nauvoo Legion." The Legion was intended to protect the Saints (and the prophet) from any more arrests, raids, kidnappings, or mobbings. Joseph Smith himself became the commander of the Legion—the only Lieutenant General in the United States—and saw the Nauvoo Legion become more powerful than the militia of any other near-by city, over two thousand strong.

Nauvoo's position created jealousy in the eyes of her neighbors, particularly Warsaw, Illinois. Warsaw lay at the foot of the Des Moines Rapids, and regarded herself as a commercial rival of Nauvoo. Not only Nauvoo's economic strength, but her military and political power were soon seen as dangers by the other cities in Hancock County. The Mormons engaged in bloc-voting, as directed by the ecclesiastical authorities, and held the political balance of power in the county. As their numbers grew, they became increasingly important in congressional and state-wide races. Initially candidates looked upon the Saints as a group to be courted, but soon they came to be resented and even hated (particularly by the losers).

The repeated use of the Nauvoo Municipal Court to quash warrants issued by other jurisdictions became a great source of irritation. If the State of Missouri, for example, issued a warrant for the arrest of Joseph Smith, and an officer served him with the warrant, the Court could issue a writ of habeus corpus, and the prophet would be free of his captors. Repeated use of this device infuriated the prophet's enemies, who were convinced that he could never be brought to justice, since he controlled the Municipal Court.²⁷

Toward the end of his life, Joseph Smith took a bold new step. He created the secret Council of Fifty, in March 1844. Composed of fifty trusted men— mostly Mormon elders but also a few friendly Gentiles—the Council of Fifty was supposed to represent the embryo of the Kingdom of God on earth. Not strictly speaking an ecclesiastical organization, it was nevertheless a creature of the church. After organizing the Kingdom, Joseph Smith had himself secretly crowned King.²⁸

Organizing the Council of Fifty was highly secret. But the other developments which manifested the Mormon tendency to merge church and state were visible and highly irritating to Nauvoo's neighbors. Ultimately, these tendencies led to the prophet's death.

Plural marriage. Joseph Smith introduced important new religious teachings in Nauvoo. The most notorious was plural marriage. Joseph Smith secretly took plural wives while in Kirtland, but it was in Nauvoo that he began systematizing his teaching upon the subject, teaching it to his closest disciples, and expanding its practice to include those trusted elders. The prophet stated that he had been commanded to restore the "patriarchal order of marriage," and that it was necessary to the restoration of all things.²⁹

Polygamy—as plural marriage was popularly called—became a source of great conflict between Joseph and Emma Smith. "While Joseph might argue that he proposed it by divine command, Emma's genuine love for her husband coupled with her own pious upbringing allowed no place in her life for another wife for her husband."³⁰ Despite the strains which polygamy created in his own household, the prophet entered into numerous plural marriages. One biographer counted forty eight such marriages, but it is impossible to ascertain the exact total.³¹

Emma Smith alternately rebelled against plural marriage and acquiesced in it. A recent study documents that Emma knew of seven of her husband's marriages, and may have known about others.

Of these, six women lived in Emma's home. Under persistent pressure from Joseph, Emma finally agreed to "give" him four wives and she chose Emily and Eliza Partridge and Sarah and Maria Lawrence, two pairs of sisters who came to live with the Smiths after their families were unable for various reasons to keep them. A fifth woman, Eliza R. Snow, was Emma's age, well educated, and periodically lived with the Smiths both in Kirtland and Nauvoo. Several of the Walker children also lived with Emma and Joseph, and he married Lucy Walker after asking her brother for her hand .... but Emma was in St. Louis during this time purchasing goods for Joseph's store.³²

In 1843, after "giving" the Partridge and Lawrence sisters to Joseph as wives, Emma grew more and more bitter about polygamy. She began exerting increasing pressure upon her husband to abandon the practice. In an effort to quiet her opposition, the prophet dictated the revelation on plural marriage on July 12, 1843.³³ His brother Hyrum took it to Emma, hoping that she would submit to the word of the Lord, but returned chastened and wiser about the depths of Emma's opposition to polygamy. Only after the other young wives were expelled from the Smith household did Emma find some measure of peace.³⁴

The practice of plural marriage was kept secret from all outsiders and most Mormons. The practice was illegal, unpopular, and regarded by almost everyone as immoral. Persistent rumors about Mormon polygamy created a problem, however. The church responded by denying the rumors. But the denials were couched in such language as to convey one meaning to the uninitiated and another to the initiated:

Joseph and the other church leaders developed a system of code words that enabled them to discuss plural marriage without being direct in their speech. Believing that God did not intend for practice of plural marriage to be public knowledge, but pressed to make some response to the rising clamor about the issue, church leaders began to find indirect ways to refer to "the new and everlasting convenant of marriage."³⁵

The use of ambiguous language served to protect the church for the moment, but it laid the groundwork for schisms after the prophet's death, when many uninitiated Saints broke fellowship with those who taught and practiced the principle.

Other religious developments. Plural marriage was part of a larger complex of doctrinal developments during Joseph Smith's years in Nauvoo. He initiated endowment and sealing ordinances which promised that earthly ties between parents and children and husbands and wives would continue eternally. In theory these rites were to be performed in a temple, but in the absence of a temple they were performed elsewhere. Baptism for the dead was introduced, whereby living proxies could ensure that the dead had an opportunity to complete their obedience to the gospel. Joseph Smith also elaborated upon the concept of plurality of gods. In Joseph Smith's cosmology, there were myriads of spirits in a pre-mortal state. These awaited bodies into which to be born. Mortal existence was a probationary period. Those who complied with the Gospel, were sealed in celestial marriage, and proved worthy, could advance to godhood in the afterlife. In this scheme, plural marriage was no mere afterthought. Those elders who took additional wives increased their own glory in the celestial kingdom, and added numerous children to the great chain of sealed members of a celestial family stretching from Adam to the last generation.³⁶

Blessing of Joseph Smith III

It was within this larger doctrinal context that the prophet Joseph Smith blessed his oldest son on January 17, 1844. In this blessing, the prophet again stated that the Smith ancestral blessings would find realization in Young Joseph. He distinctly stated that Joseph Smith III would be his successor as president of the church, a position which belonged to the lad both by blessing and right of lineage. This blessing incorporated the prophet's belief in lineal transmission of blessings and priestly authority. It reflected his belief in the divine selection of the Smith family for a special role in the history of redemption, as foretold in prophecy. It also was integrally related to his recent teachings about families: upon this view the spirits who were born into the Smith family were specially chosen in their pre-existence to be part of the line of Joseph, were to be specially blessed on earth, and were to be joined together as a royal family in eternity.

The blessing took place upstairs in the Red Brick Store, at a private council meeting.³⁷ Approximately twenty-five persons were present. Besides the direct participants in the ceremony, they included John Taylor, Willard Richards, Reynolds Cahoon, Alpheus Cutler, Ebenezer Robinson, George J. Adams, W. W. Phelps, and John M. Bernhisel. Bishop Newel K. Whitney held the horn of oil.³⁸ Patriarch and Counselor Hyrum Smith anointed the lad. President Joseph Smith pronounced the blessing upon his son. His scribe Thomas Bullock recorded his words:

A blessing, given to Joseph Smith, ^3rd, by his father, Joseph Smith, Jun^ron Jan^Y 17.1844

Blessed of the Lord is my son Joseph, who is called the third,—for the Lord knows the integrity of his heart, and loves him, because of his faith, and righteous desires. And, for this cause, has the Lord raised him up;—that the promises made to the fathers might be fulfilled, even that the anointing of the progenitor shall be upon the head of my son, and his seed after him, from generation to generation. For he shall be my successor to the Presidency of the High Priesthood: a Seer, and a Revelator, and a Prophet, unto the Church; which appointment belongeth to him by blessing, and also by right.

Verily, thus saith the Lord: if he abides in me, his days shall be lengthened upon the earth, but, if he abides not in me, I, the Lord, will receive him, in an instant, unto myself.

When he is grown, he shall be a strength to his brethren, and a comfort to his mother. Angels will minister unto him, and he will be wafted as on eagle's wings, and be as wise as serpents, even a multiplicity of blessings shall be his. Amen.³⁹

This blessing was common knowledge among the leading elders of the church. James Whitehead, one of the clerks in the office did not attend the meeting in the council room, but recollected that it was freely talked over in the office.⁴⁰ Decades later, when the LDS and RLDS churches were locked in polemical warfare over whether the blessing ever took place, the elderly Whitehead elaborated upon his core-recollections of these discussions. After telling and retelling his testimony to appreciative RLDS audiences, he transformed himself into an eye-witness of the blessing.⁴¹

George J. Adams had a conversation with Emma Smith shortly after the council meeting. According to Emma's later recollection, Adams rejoiced that the matter was settled and they now knew who the prophet's successor would be: "it was little Joseph—he had just seen him ordained."⁴² In 1880, Adams told T. W. Smith that Joseph Smith III was the true and only lawful successor to the presidency of the church, adding:

I know more about that matter than any other man living, for I was present and held the horn of oil while his father laid his hands upon young Joseph's head and prophecied that he should be his successor in the presidency of the church and in the prophetic office, and blessed him to — that end.⁴³

Joseph Smith III, being almost twice as old as he had been when blessed at Liberty Jail, had a much clearer recollection of this latter blessing than of the former. He remembered the anointing, laying on of hands, and blessing by his father and uncle Hyrum, assisted by others, upstairs in the Red Brick Store. He was aware of the significance of the ceremony, but could not recall "the form of words used."⁴⁴

The blessing of Joseph Smith III to succeed his father as president of the church took place on a Wednesday. The following Sunday, January 21st, the Saints gathered for worship next to the unfinished temple. Joseph Smith frequently took his oldest son up into the stand with him. Young Joseph was a bit sensitive about such attention and preferred to sit with his mother in the congregation.⁴⁵ However, on this Sunday he accompanied his father and sat at his right hand while he preached to the Saints. From the stand the prophet addressed his listeners upon the subject, "sealing the hearts of the fathers to the children and the hearts of the children to the fathers," a topic which naturally called forth reference to the blessing of the previous week.⁴⁶ When he had finished preaching, Joseph Smith, Jr. turned to his son, placed his hand upon his head, and said: "This is your prophet. I am going to rest."⁴⁷

This was not the first occasion that the prophet had told Mormons outside his immediate circle that he intended that his son should succeed him. After escaping from Missouri, in 1839, the prophet said in the hearing of George Reals and his wife that he might be killed by his enemies. He then placed his hand on Young Joseph's head and said that if he should be killed, "this boy will carry on," or "finish the work in my place."⁴⁸ However, January 21, 1844 was the first time Joseph Smith made such a public announcement.

James Whitehead was present at the meeting on January 21st. Late in life, he added embellishments to the telling of this story, just as he did in the case of the blessing on January 17th. By 1893 he had added a public vote of acclamation to the proceedings:

The church did take action as a body on the question of the ordination of young Joseph as his father's successor; the church consented to it. That was done first by the indorsement of the High Council, and then it was brought up before the whole body of the congregation, the whole people; and there were thousands there. That was done at the meeting held in the grove at the east end of the temple. I should think there were three thousand (3,000) there. There was a record kept of it, but the record was taken to Salt Lake. I was present on that occasion. There was a vote taken, the congregation voted, and agreed to the appointment of young Joseph as the successor of his father. The vote was taken by raising the right hand I think. A negative vote was taken, but nobody voted in the negative; Joseph Smith had been preaching that day, and at the close of the sermon made the announcement to the congregation that his young son Joseph had been appointed as his successor.⁴⁹

As Michael Quinn has pointed out, Whitehead's embellishments are incredible:

Although it is reasonable that Joseph might have made some verbal reference or physical gesture to young Joseph after the sermon of 21 January 1844, and that the diarists and minute keepers at the meeting failed to record it because of its incidental nature .... It is inconceivable that the minutes of that Sunday meeting in the journals of Joseph Smith and Wilford Woodruff would omit reference to such a dramatic church action, whether or not the minute keepers understood the full significance of such alleged vote. Moreoever, Whitehead testified under oath that the Nauvoo High Council officially endorsed Joseph Smith III as successor prior to the Sunday meeting, when in fact the complete manuscript minutes of the Nauvoo High Council in 1844 make no reference whatever to such action or to the blessing of Joseph Smith III, even though the minutes make at least an oblique reference to the far more explosive action of Hyrum Smith's reading to the high council the revelation on plural marriage. ⁵⁰

Others who witnessed the prophet's public reference to his son as his successor make no reference to a vote being taken. Joseph Smith III himself simply stated, "A public attestation of the same blessing was made from the stand in the grove in Nauvoo, some time prior to the murder in Carthage."⁵¹ John H. Carter stated that Joseph Smith brought his son onto the stand with him, and sat the boy down on a bench at his right hand. Carter recollected that the prophet then got up and began to preach, and "the question he said was asked by somebody, 'If Joseph Smith should be killed or die, who would be his successor?' And he turned around and said, pointing to his son, 'there is the successor."'⁵²

As the last eye-witnesses to this meeting in the grove approached death, the Reorganized Church gathered affidavits of their recollections. The following picture emerges from these affidavits: Not long before his death, Joseph Smith took Young Joseph up into the stand with him. He made a physical gesture toward his son. In doing so, he stated that he had been asked what would happen if something should befall him. The prophet answered that in this case his son would be his successor. ⁵³

Impending Crisis

When Joseph Smith, Jr. designated his son to be his successor, in January 1844, it might have seemed to a casual observer that the Mormon prophet was at the pinnacle of success. He was the undisputed head of his own church. Nauvoo was prosperous and growing. He was mayor of the city, judge of the municipal court, lieutenant general of the Nauvoo Legion, trustee-in-trust of the church, steamboat owner, real estate agent, the husband of plural wives, and the king of the earthly kingdom of God. Shortly, he would send his Apostles throughout the land to campaign to elect him president of the United States.⁵⁴

But in reality Joseph Smith's position was precarious. The non-Mormon population in Hancock County contained growing numbers of Anti-Mormons. The Mormon experience in Ohio and Missouri was being repeated in Illinois. After the initial period of good feeling, conflicts with the Gentiles had arisen. Mormonism's anti-pluralistic spirit, its religious heterodoxy, and its theocratic tendencies produced a certain amount of hostility. In Hancock County, politics was the chief source of conflict. The Mormons held the balance of power in every election, and this caused deep resentments. Civic rivalry between Nauvoo and her smaller neighbors, Warsaw and Carthage, for pre-eminence in the county also played a role. Thomas Sharp, editor of the Warsaw Signal, for years kept up a steady drum-beat of opposition to Joseph Smith and his followers. Fears about the size of the Nauvoo Legion and the martial spirit among the Mormons contributed to Gentile anxiety. Nauvoo's separate municipal government and judicial system made for constant conflicts, because "any Mormon in the county accused of crime could get a Mormon jury which would acquit him, and an anti-Mormon could do the same. Each was entitled to a jury of the county, and the state had no power to change the venue."⁵⁵ This encouraged lawlessness on both sides, as well as providing opportunity for a criminal element which took whichever side suited its purposes. Law enforcement in the rural areas of Hancock County suffered greatly. Joseph Smith's escapes from officers from Missouri with warrants for his arrest—via going into hiding or writs of habaeus corpus from the Nauvoo Municipal Court—led many to conclude that he could not be brought to trial by legal means; by 1844 many of his enemies were beginning to think in extra-legal terms.⁵⁶

A pair of headline-making incidents, in 1842, had added fuel to the fire. First Joseph Smith and John C. Bennett had fallen out. After leaving Nauvoo, Bennett began publishing lurid stories about Mormon polygamy.⁵⁷ For their part, the Saints denied his allegations and charged that Bennett himself had been excommunicated for sexual licentiousness. Then, on May 6, 1842, ex-Governor Lilburn W. Boggs of Missouri was shot and badly wounded by an unknown assailant. Circumstantial evidence led many Anti-Mormons to conclude that Joseph Smith had ordered his friend Orrin Porter Rockwell to assassinate Boggs, but the charges were never proven. ⁵⁸

Young Joseph's View of His Father's Troubles

Young Joseph was aware of some of his father's troubles. He had vivid recollections of seeing his father being taken prisoner in Missouri, visiting Liberty Jail, and the flight across the Mississippi River. In both the Old Homestead and Mansion House, secret compartments had been prepared in which Joseph Smith might hide from his enemies. These naturally aroused Young Joseph's boyish curiosity.⁵⁹ The attempts by Missouri to extradite the prophet impressed themselves upon his memory. He recalled, for example, that in 1842 his father had been harassed by warrants stemming from the shooting of Boggs. His father avoided arrest for a time,

but, growing tired of dodging from place to place, and of the constant harassing by being hunted, he surrendered and was taken to Springfield, where he was tried before Judge Pope and discharged, the judge holding him guiltless . . . and the Governor refusing to grant a writ of extradition . . . , it clearly being contrary to law . . . .⁶⁰

He proudly recalled his mother's defiant refusal to allow a deputy sheriff named Pitman to search their home without a warrant.⁶¹ Most of all he remembered the family's visit to relatives in Lee County, Illinois, in June 1843, when the prophet was arrested at the instigation of the governor of Missouri. After gaining entry to the house by posing as visiting Mormon elders, the officers seized Joseph Smith at gunpoint, without serving writ or warrant. They cursed him, threatened him, abused him, and had every intention of taking their prisoner to Missouri. The injustice of the scene struck Young Joseph: "Here, as in Missouri, Joseph Smith was taken from the presence of wife and children without explanation, and without opportunity to bid the agitated and tearful wife good bye." Young Joseph rejoiced in his father's subsequent rescue from the high-handed officers.⁶² Young Joseph also spent time with his father in seclusion at Bishop Hunter's, staying out of the way of officers with warrants.⁶³

A sense of foreboding hovered over the family, however. Neither the prophet nor his family experienced much peace. Joseph Smith III recalled that his father was:

. . . always on the alert, frequently away from home, and when there he was under constant surveillance of both friends and enemies. His wife, sharer of his joys, his companion, his helpful mate in times of sorrow, lived in continual consciousness of his peril, and in the shadow of her possible loss, should he be taken from her by violence of wicked men.⁶⁴

Young Joseph never entertained the slightest doubt that his father was a good and guiltless man, unfairly persecuted by his enemies. Of his father's involvement in plural marriage he knew nothing. He was acquainted with a number of his father's plural wives, but knew them not as wives but simply as boarders at the Mansion. He observed his parents' deep love for one another but was shielded from their conflict over polygamy. To Young Joseph, his father was loving, kind-hearted, buoyuant, strong, and generous.⁶⁵ The lad was uninitiated into the mysteries of the kingdom and not privy to the conflicts arising therefrom.

The Prophet's Final Crisis

By 1844 the ingredients for another Mormon-Gentile war were in place. But the catalyst which precipitated the final crisis in the prophet's life came from within Nauvoo, not without. In the spring of 1844, a group of Saints became more and more dissatisfied with Joseph Smith's leadership. The most prominent dissident was William Law, a counselor in the First Presidency. Law and the other dissenters were alarmed at the introduction of plural marriage. Likewise, they were disgusted at the prophet's high-handed concentration of economic and political power within his own hands. Matters came to a head when William Law, his wife Jane, his brother Wilson, and Dr. Robert D. Foster were excommunicated. William Law and Foster had accused the prophet of making sexual advances to their wives under the guise of spiritual wifery. Joseph Smith denied the charges and claimed that Jane Law had tried to seduce him.⁶⁶

Unlike John C. Bennett, the Laws and Foster did not leave Nauvoo. They had valuable business interests in the city which they did not wish to abandon. Also, they had not given up their faith in Mormonism. They felt that Joseph Smith was not a false, but a fallen prophet. They wished to reform Mormonism, not to destroy it. To that end, they established a reformed church, with William Law at its head. Plans were laid to proselytize within the Mormon ranks. Their most fateful action was to launch an opposition newspaper within the city. Its name was the Nauvoo Expositor. On June 7, 1844, the first and only issue of the Expositor was published.

Rather than sensational and lurid attacks such as those of John C. Bennett, the Expositor laid out the dissenters' complaints with relative care and restraint. They described how a young woman might be initiated into the mysteries of the kingdom by the prophet, after arriving in Nauvoo from England. William Law, Jane Law, and Austin Cowles submitted signed affidavits testifying that they had seen or heard read the revelation granting elders the privilege of marrying ten virgins. Not only polygamy, but Joseph Smith's union of church and state and his financial maneuvers came in for criticism, as well as his alleged abuse of the privileges granted by the Nauvoo charter.

The paper created a sensation within the city, both among the initiated and the uninitiated. Outside of the city, a furor also ensued. Joseph Smith faced a crisis. His problems were compounded by the fact that William Law had gotten the grand jury in Carthage to indict him for adultery and polygamy, and Foster had brought a charge against him for false swearing. The prophet had only a few options. In the end, he chose the worst possible strategy. He brought the matter before the city council. On June 10th the council denounced the Expositor for publishing libels, declared it a nuisance, and directed Mayor Joseph Smith to abate the nuisance. The prophet ordered the city marshal and a contingent of the Legion to destroy the press.⁶⁷

There was a furious public reaction against the destruction of the Expositor's press. Joseph Smith and seventeen others were charged, at Carthage, with instigating a riot. But Joseph Smith managed to have the case tried in Nauvoo and was immediately acquitted. Soon the county was turning into an armed camp. Governor Thomas Ford intervened, and attempted to find a legal resolution of the conflict. Briefly, Joseph Smith, his brother Hyrum, Willard Richards, and Orrin Porter Rockwell fled across the Mississippi, only to return shortly thereafter. Despite his awareness that he might never return alive, the prophet decided to go to Carthage and face all the charges against him.⁶⁸

Joseph Smith went home to his wife and children. At 6:30 A.M., Monday, June 24th, the prophet and seventeen others charged with riot in destroying the press of the Expositor set out for Carthage. About 10:00 A.M., when four miles west of Carthage, the party encountered a company of mounted militiamen, commanded by Captain Dunn, with an order from Governor Ford. The order directed that all state arms held by the Nauvoo Legion be surrendered. Joseph Smith countersigned the order. At the request of Captain Dunn, the prophet returned to Nauvoo to facilitate compliance with the order.⁶⁹

Back in Nauvoo, the Legion surrendered three cannons and approximately two hundred firearms which had been issued by the state. But Joseph Smith ordered that all personal arms be stored secretly in a warehouse, to be ready in an emergency.⁷⁰

Before leaving this time, he again said farewell to his family. He would never see them again. In the north room of the Mansion House, he placed his hands upon the head of Young Joseph and blessed him. Years later, Joseph Smith III remembered the import of this blessing:

Just before his leaving Nauvoo for the trip to Carthage, from which he did not return; he called me to him, in what was called the north room of the Hotel Nauvoo Mansion, and there, laying his hand on my head, solemnly said to those present, "If anything should happen to me, you will know who is to be my successor. This, my son, has been blessed and set apart, and will in time succeed me."⁷¹

John P. Greene, the city marshal, witnessed this blessing, according to a statement of his widow in 1880. Then living in Utah, she related the details to RLDS missionary Joseph Luff, who sent an account of the conversation to Joseph Smith III:

In a late conversation with the widow of John P. Green, I was informed by her, that on the day when your father left Nauvoo for Carthage, he & others returned, after proceeding a short distance, and on his coming to your mother and the family, he took you and the rest up into the attic room, and blessed each in turn. He also ordained you as Prophet, Seer & Revelator, to succeed him in the Presidency of the Church. She says that none but John P. Green knew of this matter. She knew of the other annointing and setting apart; but this one was done on the very day he left for Carthage.⁷²

About 6:00 P.M. the prophet and his party remounted and started again for Carthage. Upon arrival, they were greeted by whooping and cursing from their enemies. After spending the night in a hotel, the Mormons had a preliminary hearing on the 25th and were released on bail. At 8:00 P.M. Joseph and Hyrum Smith were surprised to be served with a writ of mittimus to be held in jail upon a charge of treason, signed by a local justice of the peace. The procedure was illegal, but nevertheless the prisoners were taken to Carthage Jail.⁷³

On the afternoon of June 27th, Joseph Smith found himself housed in the second story of the county jail. With him were his brother Hyrum, and the only two members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles then in Illinois, John Taylor and Willard Richards. Governor Thomas Ford, who had been trying by some means to find a peaceful solution to the crisis, had left Carthage and had gone to Nauvoo to address the Saints about the situation. He left the jail guarded by the Carthage Greys, among whom were some of the prophet's worst enemies, and who proved to be no protection at all.⁷⁴

About 5:00 P.M. a mob of approximately four hundred men with blackened faces stormed the jail. The four jailed men attempted to bar the door, but with only limited success. Richards and Taylor used their canes to try to deflect the muskets which bristled through the partially opened door. Hyrum Smith prepared to shoot his pistol—which had been smuggled into the jail—at the mob, but was felled by a shot in the left side of his nose. He collapsed to the floor, exclaiming, "I am a dead man."

Seeing that his brother was dead, Joseph Smith discharged his six-shooter into the mob, wounding three or four of his attackers. This gave the mob a moment's pause, but soon they renewed their assault on the door. John Taylor could hold back the gun barrels no longer and attempted to leap out of the window. He was hit by shots from inside and outside the building, and fell to the floor severely wounded. Remarkably, three-hundred pound Willard Richards was unscathed. Richards was caught behind the door when it was forced completely open.

Joseph Smith now attempted to spring from the window, but he too was hit by shots from both directions and fell to the ground a dead man.⁷⁵ The Saints had lost their prophet. In Latter Day Saint history, June 27, 1844 would go down as the date of the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.