The following article by Scot and Maurine Proctor first appeared on LDSMag.com on February 1, 2017.

In this article, published yesterday, we talked about how Lucy’s Preliminary Notes were extensively edited before they became the book we have had for years in the Church. Many readers asked, “Did Brigham Young edit Lucy’s book, and if so why?” Here’s the answer.

For the most compelling book on Church history you’ll ever find, you need turn no further than Lucy Mack Smith’s own story about her son, Joseph Smith, captured in The Revised and Enhanced History of Joseph Smith by His Mother. If you love Joseph Smith, this is simply a book you can’t miss. It has always been a treasure to us.

As we explained in an article yesterday, Lucy told her story to a scribe, young Martha Knowlton Coray, in the bleak winter following her sons’ deaths at Carthage.

Then Martha and her husband, Howard, substantially edited Lucy’s raw notes, called the Preliminary Manuscript, into essentially the version that we have had for decades. But you might hear the hesitation in the word “essentially”—because there was a long and somewhat dramatic journey from the Coray’s work to the bookshelf.

Though the publishing of Lucy’s book was important—because the clamor to know everything they could about Joseph was great, two other projects consumed the energies and resources of the Saints in 1845.

Their enemies had never let off the persecution. They had formed “wolf packs” to hunt the Saints; they had burned homes beyond Nauvoo, sending a flood of refugees into the city; they had harassed the Twelve with lawsuits and now Nauvoo had been turned into a workshop to build wagons to flee the city. Packing to leave everything they owned while they continued to build a temple absorbed the Saints that winter, and Lucy’s manuscript naturally took a backseat.

Years before Lucy died, some of her effects were left in the hands of her son, William Smith, among them being the manuscript copy of this history prepared by the Corays. The document fell into the hands of Isaac Sheen, who was at one time a member of the Church, in Michigan. When, in September, 1852, Apostle Orson Pratt went on a mission to England, he called on Mr. Sheen on his way East, and being shown the manuscript copy, he purchased it for a certain sum of money, took it to Liverpool with him, where, without revision and without the consent of knowledge of President Young or any of the Twelve, it was published under his direction in 1853..” ⁽¹⁾

The 1853 edition of Lucy Smith’s history was called Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith, the Prophet and His Progenitors for Many Generations and quite faithfully followed the Coray’s revised manuscript. It was a popular book among the British Saints, and in 1854 became available in Great Salt Lake City to the applause of the Deseret News: “This new and highly interesting work should be possessed by all Saints who feel in the least degree interested with the history of the latter-day work.” ⁽²⁾

But George A. Smith, Lucy’s nephew and the Church historian, had some major reservations about the book. In an 1859 letter to another nephew of Lucy’s, Solomon Mack, he raised his concerns, suggesting that the “shocking massacre” of her two sons had affected her mind. George A. Smith wrote: “Although she endured this privation in a manner truly astonishing to her friends, yet we could not conceal from ourselves, that these terrible blows had made visible inroads upon her mind, as well as upon her bodily strength…In the last fifteen years, she got events considerably mixed up…I would be pleased to learn your opinion of Mother Smith’s history of her family, as far as you are acquainted with it.” ⁽³⁾

Brigham Young and his counselors expressed a similar reservation, saying that when the history was written, “Mother Smith was seventy years old, and very forgetful.” They suggested that “her mind had suffered many severe shocks” and that “she could, therefore, scarcely recollect anything correctly that had transpired.” ⁽⁴⁾

As George A. Smith continued to study the book and compared it to other sources, he began to feel there were factual mistakes, or at least the need to double-check stories for accuracy. For instance, in Lucy’s history she tells a story about how three strangers showed up unexpectedly and spread David Whitmer’s fields with plaster of paris, thus allowing him to leave for Harmony to meet Joseph Smith for the first time. George A. wrote to David Whitmer to verify the story, but received no response. In the early months of 1859, George A. and assistant historian Wilford Woodruff continued to write inquiries to check the details of the book for accuracy.

Thus, questions about the book had been simmering in the minds of the Brethren for several years before 1865, when Brigham Young decided to recall it. In a rather dramatic gesture the First Presidency said, “We wish those who have these books to either hand them to their Bishops for them to be conveyed to the President’s or Historian’s Office or send them themselves, that they may be disposed of.” ⁽⁵⁾ The First Presidency’s worry seemed to be over perpetuating inaccuracies that they were certain dotted Lucy’s history. “We do not wish incorrect and unsound doctrines to be handed down to posterity under the sanction of great names,” they wrote, “to be received and valued by future generations as authentic and reliable.” ⁽⁶⁾ Brigham Young did not wish to suppress the book permanently, but to revise it and reissue it in what he hoped would be a more correct form.

In a journal entry, Wilford Woodruff detailed what President Young’s intent was: “He said he wished us to take up that work and revise it, correct it; that it belonged to the Historian to attend to it; that there was many false statements made in it, and he wished them to be left out, and all other statements which we did not know to be true, and give the reason why they are left out.” ⁽⁷⁾ Though it is not entirely clear what “false statements” leaped out at Brigham Young, many of his concerns clearly came from doubting Lucy’s capacity at her advanced age and given her health to get the story straight.

Time and scholarship would show that this assessment was refutable. Those who visited Lucy in Nauvoo during the last years of her life often reported her to be alert and mentally acute. Artist Frederick H. Piercy, who drew scenes of the Mormon trail still in use today, stopped by the Mansion House, and carefully observed Lucy. “I could not fail to regard the old lady with great interest. Considering her age and afflictions, she, at that time, retained her faculties to a remarkable degree. She spoke very freely of her sons, and with tears in her eyes, and every other symptom of earnestness, vindicated their reputations for virtue and truth.” ⁽⁸⁾

Enoch Bartlett Tripp, visiting her in November 1855 in one of the last months of her life, also commented on her memory: “I called upon the Prophet’s Mother and found her in a lonely room in the eastern part of the house in her bed and very feeble. Upon approaching her bedside and informing her who I was, she arose in her bed and placing her arms around my neck kissed me exclaiming, ‘I can now die in peace since I have beheld your face from the valleys of the mountains.’ She made many inquiries after the Saints and remarked that she took much comfort in riding out with me and my wife in the days that I taught school here.” ⁽⁹⁾

Far more significant than the anecdotal reports, however, are the modern studies conducted by Richard Lloyd Anderson on Mother Smith’s history. Checking other journals, newspaper accounts, non-Mormon church records, vital records, and independent recollections for verification, he found that the great majority of what Lucy states tests very well.

He noted: “The preliminary and finished manuscripts give about 200 names. With the exception of a small percentage of indefinite names, nearly all can be verified, including some spectacular memories clear from her New England childhood. Her percentage on dates is not as good, probably reflecting her interest in people more than calendar years-yet when mistaken, she is typically within a year or two of the precise time.

“Obviously an event itself was more vivid to her mind than the exact point of its occurrence. So Lucy’s history is reliable but not an infallible source. How to tell? To reiterate a critical point, she will be a prime source when speaking from personal observation and only secondary when relaying what others have told her.” ⁽¹⁰⁾

Beyond accuracy, other factors influenced the 1865 recall of the book. Living in a time as we do today when succession in the Church Presidency is calm and orderly, the death of a prophet, signaling a predictable change, it may be difficult to imagine the splintering confusion, and emotion that followed the death of Joseph Smith for the everyday Saint.

Claims and counter-claims to the Presidency divided parts of the Church, and though the vast bulk of the members followed Brigham Young, fragmented groups congregated around others like Sidney Rigdon, James Strang, and Lyman Wight.

Since William Smith, Joseph’s brother, had made his own rival claim to be Joseph’s successor, Lucy Smith’s positive portrayal of him in her history probably concerned Brigham, and stood as just another evidence to him that the book contained distortions. Through Lucy’s eyes we see William as a valiant missionary, a fighter for the restored gospel, and a recipient of revelation in a dire moment in Missouri. In reality, William was volatile, unstable, and controversial. He had a checkered past, having often been at odds with his prophet brother. Disagreeing with Joseph during a meeting in Kirtland, enraged William attempted to throw him out and inflicted him with an injury that Joseph felt occasionally for the rest of his life. During the dark days at Far West when Joseph was taken to Liberty Jail, William exclaimed, “Damn him, Joseph Smith ought to have been hung up by the neck years ago and damn him, he will get it now anyhow.” ⁽¹¹⁾

In his last encounter with Joseph in spring 1844, William asked him to give him a city lot in Nauvoo near the temple. Joseph said he would do it with great pleasure if he would build a house and live upon it there, but he would not give him this lot, worth one thousand dollars, to sell. William agreed to the terms, and within hours an application was made by a Mr. Ivins to the recorder to know if that lot was clear and belonged to William, for the Prophet’s brother had sold it to him for five hundred dollars. Joseph, hearing this, directed the clerk not to make the transfer, and William’s last words to Joseph were threatening.

After the death of his brothers, a somewhat humbled William petitioned to be ordained the Presiding Patriarch of the Church, a position he had legitimate claim to as the oldest lineal descendant of the Smith family. He was ordained to that position on May 25, 1845, but within a few days, he claimed this gave him the right to succeed Joseph as the leader of the entire Church, and by October 1845, he was excommunicated.

An aspiring man has to find a home for his aspirations, and William went looking. Expelled from the Church, he temporarily became a leader with James Strang’s group. Excommunicated there, by 1850 he began teaching that legitimate leadership for the Church had to come from within the Prophet’s immediate family. Since Joseph Smith III was too young, he suggested he should be sustained as president pro tem “guardian of the seed of Joseph,” until the boy came of age. By 1854 he was seeking to be restored to his former position as an Apostle in the Church, and then after 1860, when Joseph Smith III was sustained as president of the Reorganized Church in Plano, Illinois, he hoped to find a high office in the new organization.

Given this background, no wonder the First Presidency’s 1865 recall of Lucy’s book was so strong in singling out William: “Those who have read the history of William Smith, and who knew him, know the statements made in that book respecting him, when he came out of Missouri, to be utterly false.” ⁽¹²⁾ The timing of the recall was probably also significant, coming so soon after Joseph’s sons had newly organized a church and were advancing succession claims. Brigham didn’t want Lucy’s book to bolster their effort. He may have felt the same way about the book’s rosy portrayal of Emma, who supported her sons in the Reorganized Church.

After the recall, President Young appointed a revision committee consisting of Geroge A. Smith and Judge Elias Smith, both cousins of the Prophet and men who were thoroughly knowledgeable in Church history. George A. had been studying the book for years, and Elias had been an editor of the Deseret News. They poured over the book, consulted with others, made deletions and corrections right in the text and in the margins of copies of the book and completed the work to the satisfaction of President Young. Ironically, after that storm that had whirled around Lucy’s history, only a small amount of the material was changed, and then not significantly. She had not been in the great error previously assumed.

According to Howard Searle these changes primarily included the following: “(1) Several favorable references to William Smith were deleted or changed. (2) Six out of eighteen references to Emma Smith were omitted, although the deletions appear rather incidental. A glowing eulogy of Emma…was left intact. (3) Many corrections were made in dates and names, especially in the genealogical data of chapter nine. (4) Some misstatements and misconceptions of Mother Smith were corrected. Her exaggerated role in the construction of the Kirtland schoolhouse…was revised in both copies of the history which were used by the revision committee. (5) Some profanity and gross statements (made by the Missouri persecutors and reported by Hyrum to a court of law) were edited out of the history. (6) Words were changed to clarify meaning and improve the grammar. (7) A few additions were made to expand parts of the narrative…(8) Statements that seemed unfavorable to the image of Joseph Smith or the Church were omitted. (9) Some references of purely family interest were left out.” ⁽¹³⁾

The version containing George A. and Elias Smith’s revisions lay essentially forgotten until 1901, when the General Board of the Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Association sought to publish it in their monthly magazine, the Improvement Era. President Lorenzo Snow gave his permission as Church President just before he died in October 1901, and the series began in the November 1901 magazine and continued through the next year.

Lucy’s grandson Joseph F. Smith, who had become the prophet, wrote a preface for the history: “By the presentation of this work to the public, a worthy record is preserved, and the testimony of a noble and faithful woman-a mother indeed, and heroine in Israel-is perpetuated.“ ⁽¹⁴⁾ A new generation who did not face the pressures and dissensions of the old, brought a new outlook to the history.

Finally, in order to give Mother Smith’s history a wider audience, it was published again in 1945, edited by Preston Nibley, assistant Church historian, who made very few changes but added a few footnotes for the sake of the context. Today’s reader can find both the 1853 and 1945 edition in libraries and bookstores.

When Lucy sat down with Martha Jane, she certainly had no idea of the controversy that would sizzle around the simple recounting of her life’s story, and the sets of hands it would pass through before it was enjoyed by a large audience. But it may not have surprised her either. Life had taught her that good things always come with a cost.

1. Joseph F. Smith, Introduction to “History of the Prophet Joseph, by His Mother, Lucy Smith,” Improvement Era 5 ( November 1901): 1-2
2. Deseret News, November 16, 1854
3. George A. Smith to Solomon Mack, in Manuscript History of Brigham Young, February 23, 1859, p. 204
4. Millennial Star27 (October 21, 1865):658
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid. p. 659.
7. Wilford Woodruff Journal, February 13, 1859, LDS Church Archives
8. Frederick H. Piercy, Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley (1855; reprint Cambridge, Mass,: Harvard University Press, 1962), p. 94
9. Enoch Bartlett Tripp’s Journal, vol. 1 to December 31, 1844, BYU Special Collections.
10. Richard Lloyd Anderson, “His Mother’s Manuscript: An Intimate View of Joseph Smith,” Brigham Young University Forum address, January 27, 1976.
11. Wilford Woodruff Journal, February 13, 1859, LDS Church Archives
12. Millennial Star 27, (October 21, 1865), 658
13. Searle, “Early Mormon Historiography,” pp. 420, 422.
14. Smith, Introduction to “History of the Prophet Joseph,” p. 3

Original Source:  Article by Scot and Maurine Proctor. Content link: LDSMag.com. 

Megan Finley

In between writing short stories she’ll never finish and marathoning Marvel movies, Megan Finley is often found missing the loves of her life, her two cats Leia and Loki. Her passion for “geek culture” extends into her passion for academics, as she is an optimistic MA student with plans to be the next Professor X (with hair). Her life’s dream is a simple one—to drink a hot chocolate in every Disney park in the world.

Of the many hardships Joseph Smith Jr. and his wife Emma endured, the one that was perhaps the most difficult, especially for Emma, was losing so many of her precious babies. Only 5 of her 11 children lived past the age of 2, and her only biological daughter died at birth. After her husband was killed in 1844 and the majority of the Saints moved West, Emma was left in Nauvoo to raise their surviving children alone. Find out what happened to each of the Smith children and where the surviving ones ended up in their adult years.

Alvin Smith

The first of many tragic deaths, Joseph and Emma’s first baby was born and died on June 15, 1828, in Harmony, Pennsylvania, during the time that the 116 pages given to Martin Harris were lost. According to the family Bible, the baby was named Alvin, likely after Joseph Smith’s older brother, who died shortly before Joseph received the gold plates. However, the name was recorded by someone other than Joseph and Emma, and the headstone merely states “In Memory of An Infant Son of Joseph and Emma Smith.”

Thadeus and Louisa Smith

These twins lived for only three hours, born on April 30, 1831, in Kirtland, Ohio. Though they were given the names Thadeus and Louisa in the family Bible, the handwriting is not Joseph or Emma’s, and Emma Smith was recorded to have said in 1879 that the twins had not been named.

A set of twins born to John and Julia Murdock the same day were adopted by the Smiths shortly after losing their own when Julia Murdock died after giving birth to them.

Joseph Murdock Smith

One of the twins adopted by Emma and Joseph Smith Jr., he was probably named after his adopted father. Little Joseph died when he was 11 months old. His death was likely the result of a combination of the measles and exposure to the cold air when a mob attacked the Prophet Joseph at the John Johnson farm in Hiram, Ohio.

Julia Murdock Smith

Julia and her twin brother Joseph were adopted by Joseph and Emma when they were nine days old, after their mother died giving birth to them and their father could not care for them. Though her brother did not survive his first year of life, Julia lived to be 49. She was 13 when her adopted father, the Prophet Joseph, was killed in Carthage Jail and she was left with her mother, grandmother (Lucy Mack Smith), and siblings in deserted Nauvoo.

She married Elisha Dixon somewhere between the age of 17 and 18, against the wishes of her family. She soon after moved with him to Texas, where he died a few years later in a steamer ship accident. After his death, she returned to live with her mother, Emma, in Nauvoo. It was there she met and married John J. Middleton in 1856. During her marriage to Middleton, she joined the Catholic Church, of which her new husband was a devout member. They eventually moved to St. Louis, Missouri. After 20 years, in what came to be a very difficult marriage, Julia officially separated from Middleton and moved back to Nauvoo to live with and take care of her ailing mother.

After her mother’s death in 1879, Julia went to live with her brother, Alexander, for a time and later with some of her friends, the Moffitt family. While living with the Moffitts, she died of breast cancer in September 1880, leaving no posterity.

Joseph Smith III

The second namesake of his father, Joseph Smith III was born on November 6, 1832, in Kirtland. He was baptized at age 11, about 7 months before his father was killed. He married Emmeline Griswold on October 22, and had five children with her during their 13 years of marriage.

A strong opponent of polygamy, he started the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (now the Community of Christ) on April 6, 1860, in Illinois and became its first Prophet-President. The followers of the RLDS church believe it to be a continuation of the one Joseph III’s father had established decades before.

After his first wife died, Joseph III married Bertha Madison in 1869. She died in October 1896, leaving him nine more children. He met and married Ada Rachel Clark two years later in January 1898 in Ontario, Canada. They eventually moved back to Missouri and had three children together.

Joseph III died at age 82 on December 10, 1914, and has a large posterity.

Frederick Granger Williams Smith

Named after Joseph’s close friend and first counselor in the First Presidency, Frederick G. Williams, the second surviving son of the Joseph Smith Jr. family was born in Ohio on June 20, 1836. He was only 8 years old when his father was killed and his family forced to flee mob violence yet again. He eventually married Anna Marie Jones in 1857 and had one child with her. He fell ill in his early 20s and died in April 1862. His daughter, Alice Fredericka, never married, leaving no living descendants from this Smith son.

Alexander Hale Smith

Alexander Hale was born in Far West, Missouri on June 2, 1838, at the height of the early Saints’ persecution. Believed to have been named after the Church’s legal counselor and Joseph’s friend, Alexander Doniphan, Alexander Smith was only 6 years old when Joseph and Hyrum were killed and grew up with little memory of his father.

He married Elizabeth Agnes Kendall in June 1861 and was baptized into the RLDS church by his older brother, Joseph Smith III, the following year. He served several missions for that church, and occasionally even traveled to Utah. He held many callings within the RLDS church throughout his life, and was eventually appointed as a counselor to the RLDS church president and later as the RLDS patriarch before he died in Nauvoo in 1909.

He had nine children with Elizabeth and has a large posterity today.

Don Carlos Smith

This sweet Smith child, named after Joseph’s youngest brother, lived to be only a little over a year old. He was born on June 13, 1840, and died on August 15, 1841, from an illness that was sweeping through Nauvoo.

Emma Snith Holding One of Her Children

Image of Emma Smith with one of her children. Most likely David Hyrum Smith.

Unnamed Son

The last of Emma’s children to die in infancy, this little boy was stillborn on February 6, 1842, in Nauvoo, just two years before his father would be killed.

David Hyrum Smith

Born in November 1844, nearly 5 months after Joseph and Hyrum’s martyrdom, David never knew his father, or the uncle for whom he was partly named after. He was 3 when Emma remarried and 16 when his brother began the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was ordained an elder in the RLDS church in 1863.

He married Clara Charlotte Hartshorn in May 1870 and had one child, a son, with her. He was called to serve as the second counselor to his brother Joseph Smith III in the RLDS church presidency, but his declining mental health led his family to place him in the Illinois State Hospital for the Insane in 1877. He remained a patient there until he died in August 1904 at age 59.

Lead image and all portraits from Wikimedia Commons. Alvin Smith gravestone image from findagrave.com.

Guest Author

The Cause and Effects of the Strange Phenomenon

The chain of events that developed into what would become known as “Year without a summer” were a result of a series of volcanic eruptions. Crop harvests in the areas of New England, Atlantic Canada, and parts of Western Europe had been poor for several years. The final devastating blow came in 1815 with the eruption of Mount Tambora located in Sumbawa, Indonesia.

History records that on 10 April 1815, Mount Tambora produced the largest eruption known on the planet during the past 500 years, erupting about 50-150 cubic kilometers of magma and measuring 7 on the Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) scale. The eruption produced global climatic effects and killed more than 120,000 people, directly and indirectly.

According to an article in The Economist magazine dated 11 April 2015 titled “After Tambora”:

On the 10th and 11th [of April 1815] it sent molten rock more than 40 kilometres into the sky in the most powerful eruption of the past 500 years. The umbrella of ash spread out over a million square kilometres; in its shadow day was as night. Billions of tonnes of dust, gas, rock and ash scoured the mountain’s flanks in pyroclastic flows, hitting the surrounding sea hard enough to set off deadly tsunamis; the wave that hit eastern Java, 500km away, two hours later was still two metres high when it did so. The dying mountain’s roar was heard 2,000km away. Ships saw floating islands of pumice in the surrounding seas for years.

The year after the eruption clothes froze to washing lines in the New England summer and glaciers surged down Alpine valleys at an alarming rate. Countless thousands starved in China’s Yunnan province and typhus spread across Europe. Grain was in such short supply in Britain that the Corn Laws were suspended and a poetic coterie succumbing to cabin fever on the shores of Lake Geneva dreamed up nightmares that would haunt the imagination for centuries to come.

Mixed in with the 30 cubic kilometres or more of rock spewed out from Tambora’s crater were more than 50m tonnes of sulphur dioxide, a large fraction of which rose up with the ash cloud into the stratosphere. While most of the ash fell back quite quickly, the sulphur dioxide stayed up and spread both around the equator and towards the poles. Over the following months it oxidised to form sulphate ions, which developed into tiny particles that reflected away some of the light coming from the sun. Because less sunlight was reaching the surface, the Earth began to cool down.

At that time, Europe was still recovering from the Napoleonic Wars and suffered from massive food shortages. There were food riots in the United Kingdom and France, and grain warehouses were looted. Conditions in Switzerland, which had become landlocked, were worse as the famine caused such violence that the government had to declare a national emergency. In addition to those catastrophic events, huge storms and abnormal rainfall caused major European rivers to flood, including the Rhine River. Rainfall over the planet as a whole was down by between 3.6% and 4% in 1816. Between 1816 and 1819, a major typhus epidemic occurred in Ireland induced by the famine caused by the “Year without a summer” claiming the lives of approximately 100,000 Irish. An approximate European fatality total for the year 1816 was 200,000 deaths.

The crop failure in New England at that time is also attributed to the eruption of Mount Tambora. Prior to the eruption, the corn crop was flourishing. By the summer of 1816, it was reported that the corn crop had ripened so poorly that only about a quarter of it was useable as a food source. As a result of the crop failures in New England, Canada, and parts of Europe, the price of wheat, grains, meat, vegetables, butter, milk, and flour rose significantly.

It is further reported that the eruption of Tambora also caused Hungary to experience brown snow. Italy’s northern and north-central region experienced something similar, with red snow falling throughout the year. The cause of this is believed to have been volcanic ash in the atmosphere.

The Devastating Effects of the Phenomenon in North America

This strange turn of events which historian John D. Post has called “the last great subsistence crisis in the Western world” resulted in an agricultural disaster with major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere. As aforementioned, most of New England, Atlantic Canada, and parts of Western Europe were the areas most affected.

It is recorded that in May 1816 frost killed off most crops in the higher elevations of New England and New York, and on 6 June 1816, snow fell in Albany, New York, and Dennysville, Maine. In July and August, lake and river ice was observed as far south as northwestern Pennsylvania. A Massachusetts historian summed up the disaster:

Severe frosts occurred every month; June 7th and 8th snow fell, and it was so cold that crops were cut down, even freezing the roots …. In the early Autumn when corn was in the milk it was so thoroughly frozen that it never ripened and was scarcely worth harvesting. Breadstuffs were scarce and prices high and the poorer class of people were often in straits for want of food. It must be remembered that the granaries of the great west had not then been opened to us by railroad communication, and people were obliged to rely upon their own resources or upon others in their immediate locality (William G. Atkins, “History of Hawley” (West Cummington, Massachusetts (1887)), 86.)

For those accustomed to long winters, the weather itself was not as much a hardship as the effect that it had on crops, and thus on the food and firewood supply. During this period the prices for corn and grain rose significantly. The price of oats, for example, rose from 12¢ a bushel in 1815 (equal to $1.55 at today’s prices) to 92¢ a bushel in 1816 (equal to $12.78 at today’s prices).

The Joseph Smith Sr. Family – Joseph’s Leg Operation

Joseph Smith, Jr. was born on 23 December 1805, in Sharon, Vermont. He was the son of Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith. Shortly after Joseph’s brother, William, was born in 1811, the Smiths moved to the small community of West Lebanon, New Hampshire. Before long, typhoid fever came into West Lebanon and “raged tremendously.” The epidemic which affected the Smith children one by one, swept the upper Connecticut valley, leaving six thousand people dead.

Joseph Smith, Jr was seven years old at that time. After two weeks he recovered from his fever, but suffered major complications which eventually required four surgeries. The most serious complication involved a swelling and infection in the tibia of his left leg, a condition that today would be called osteomyelitis, leaving Joseph in agony for over two weeks. In her history, his mother recorded the love and tenderness that Joseph’s older brother, Hyrum, showed towards him during that two week period:

Hyrum sat beside him, almost day and night for some considerable length of time, holding the affected part of his leg in his hands and pressing it between them, so that his afflicted brother might be enabled to endure the pain (Smith, History of Joseph Smith, p. 55.)

When the first two attempts to reduce the swelling and drain the infection in Joseph’s leg failed, the chief surgeon recommended amputation, but Lucy refused and urged the doctors, “You will not, you must not, take off his leg, until you try once more” (Smith, History of Joseph Smith, p. 56.)

The student manual for “Church History in the Fullness of Times” in chapter two of that manual titled “Joseph Smith’s New England Heritage” gives the following account of the operation on Joseph’s leg:

Providentially, “the only physician in the United States who aggressively and successfully operated for osteomyelitis” in that era was Dr. Nathan Smith, a brilliant physician at Dartmouth Medical College in Hanover, New Hampshire. He was the principal surgeon, or at least the chief adviser, in Joseph’s case. In his treatment of the disease, Dr. Smith was generations ahead of his time.

Joseph insisted on enduring the operation without being bound or drinking brandy wine to dull his senses. He asked his mother to leave the room so she would not have to see him suffer. She consented, but when the physicians broke off part of the bone with forceps and Joseph screamed, she rushed back into the room. “Oh, mother, go back, go back,” Joseph cried out. She did, but returned a second time only to be removed again. After the ordeal Joseph went with his Uncle Jesse Smith to the seaport town of Salem, Massachusetts, hoping that the sea breezes would help his recovery. Due to the severity of the operation, his recovery was slow. He walked with crutches for three years and sometimes limped slightly thereafter, but he returned to health and led a robust life.

The Joseph Smith Sr. Family – Norwich, Vermont

The family moved to Norwich, Vermont, about 1813. Joseph’s brother, Don Carlos, the ninth child in the Smith family, was born on 15 March 1816.

Most LDS writers accept the date of 1816 as the time the Smith family arrived in Palmyra, New York. Respectively, they place the duration of the Smiths’ stay in Norwich, Vermont (the town from which they departed for Palmyra) during the years 1814, 1815, and 1816.

This is based on Lucy Mack Smith’s historical account. In that history she recounts the family’s move to Norwich, Vermont, where they lived on a farm belonging to Esquire Murdock. She stated that the crops failed the first year, yet they were able to sustain themselves by selling fruit from the farm. The crops also failed the second year, but Joseph Smith, Sr. was determined to plant crop for a third year vowing that if he had no greater success than the previous two years, he would move to the state of New York, where wheat was raised in abundance. The third year the crops were destroyed by an untimely frost and he made preparations to go to New York. He left Norwich, Vermont, for New York with a Mr. Howard after making sure that his affairs were in order, leaving his family behind to pack and to get ready to vacate (Lucy Mack Smith, History of Joseph Smith by His Mother (R. Vernon Ingleton, 2005), 99-100).

According to Craig N. Ray’s FAIR article titled “Joseph Smith’s History Confirmed”:

With careful investigation of the extant Vermont and New Hampshire documents, these dates can be verified. The Smiths were in Lebanon, New Hampshire in May 1814, as the township tax rolls verify. Of equal importance, the Norwich town records report that Joseph Smith and his family were “warned out of town” in March 1816. This record, the only one found for a “Joseph Smith and family” found in the town’s “Warning Out” book, shows that the town’s selectmen issued the warrant on March 15, and it was served on the family on March 27, 1816. A “warning out of town” should not be thought of as a prejudicial treatment of the Smiths, because almost every family settling in a Vermont town in those days received such a warning. These warnings reminded strangers “that it was time for them to ‘depart this town. These “Warning Outs” consisted of two parts. The first part was the notification of the selectmen when strangers had been taken in. (This included information of arrival date and the previous town from which they could be sent back to.) The second part consisting of the warning out (meaning it was time to “depart said town hereof.”

As Ray points out in his article, a “warning out of town” by no means rendered any type of prejudicial treatment of the Smith family. “Warning out of town” was a widespread method in the United States for established New England communities to pressure or coerce “outsiders” to settle elsewhere. As Ray also points out, almost every family settling in Vermont at that time received such a notification. It is also interesting to note that the law was changed to disallow “warning out” in 1817.

Ray’s FAIR article also points out:

Rev. Wesley Walters found the second part of the notification, the warning out of town for 1816, for the Smith family. It is a paper on which the selectmen ordered the constable “to summon Joseph Smith and family now residing in Norwich to depart said town hereof.” This was dated “15th day of March AD 1816.” It was served on the Smith home on March 27, 1816.

The fact that three crop failures in a row caused the Smiths to be in a poor and destitute situation was probably a key in the selectmen deciding it was time to require the Smiths to “depart their town.”

The weather pattern for 1816 also helps to substantiate the final crop failure of 1816 that forced the Smith family to leave Vermont and move to Palmyra, New York. It was reported that the month of February was warmer than usual and crops were planted. However, by March, the weather took a turn for the worse, and “the people were visited by a piercing northeast wind, with a hail or drizzling sleet during the day. By the next day “the bloom of apricot and peach trees [were] covered with icicles” (C. Edward Skeen, “The Year without a summer: A Historical View,” Journal of the Early Republic (Spring 1981)).

The Joseph Smith Sr. Family – The Journey to Palmyra, New York

In his own history, the Prophet Joseph Smith does not state any reasons such as crop failure or unreasonable weather, for the family’s move to Palmyra. He only states, “My father, Joseph Smith, Sen., left the State of Vermont, and moved to Palmyra, Ontario (now Wayne) county, in the State of New York, when I was in my tenth year, or thereabouts” (Joseph Smith History 1:3).

The time came when Joseph Sr. sent for his family to join him in Palmyra. By the time that Lucy and the rest of the family had things sold and the rest of their debts settled, she only had $60 to $80 dollars left for the journey from Vermont to Palmyra. It was a 300 mile trip and the family faced many challenges along the way, such as the team master threatening to take the family wagon and team and throw the family belongings onto the street when Lucy ran out of money. Joseph Jr. who had surgery on his leg in 1812-1813, limped in the snow for most of the journey. It should be noted that the journey took place in the summer, thus the snow was an unusual occurrence. The journey itself lasted three to four weeks before the family was finally happily reunited in Palmyra.

Keith L. Brown

Keith L. Brown is a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, having been born and raised Baptist. He was studying to be a Baptist minister at the time of his conversion to the LDS faith. He was baptized on 10 March 1998 in Reykjavik, Iceland while serving on active duty in the United States Navy in Keflavic, Iceland. He currently serves as the First Assistant to the High Priest Group for the Annapolis, Maryland Ward. He is a 30-year honorably retired United States Navy Veteran.

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In the fall of 1838, during the Missouri Persecutions, Joseph’s father became ill. In spite of that illness, he made the forced exodus from Missouri to Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1839 and died there on 14 September 1840. He was considered a martyr for the cause.

Joseph, like his father for whom he was named, would also die as a martyr at the age of 38 when he was assassinated in the Carthage Jail in Carthage, Illinois by an angry mob on 27 June 1844. But, what happened to his brothers?

Alvin Smith – Faithful Supporter of Joseph’s Work

Alvin Smith, the eldest of the Smith sons, was born on 11 February 1798 in Tunbridge, Vermont. When the family moved to upstate New York, he made the offer to leave home to find work, where he would be paid higher wages to help the family pay their debts and build a home. His mother, Lucy Mack Smith would later write:

By my son’s persevering industry he was able to return to us after much labor, suffering and fatigue with the necessary amount of money for all except the last payment. In two years from the time we entered Palmyra, strangers, destitute of friends, home or employment, we were able to settle ourselves upon our own land in a snug, comfortable, though humble habitation, built and neatly furnished by our own industry (“History of Joseph Smith by His Mother”).

Being a loyal and devoted son, Alvin always wanted to care for his parents, and had a desire to build them a larger and better home in which they could enjoy their later years of life. However, he did not live to fulfill his dream. In mid-November 1823, at the young age of 25, engaged to be married and looking forward to a bright future, he became very ill. His doctor gave him a heavy dose of calomel which lodged in his stomach, and he passed away on Wednesday, 19 November 1823, as a result of mercury poisoning from the calomel he had been given.

As he lay dying, his mother recorded his final words to his young brother Joseph concerning the work which he had been called to do:

Do everything in your power to obtain the record. Be faithful in receiving instruction and in keeping every commandment that is given you … your brother Alvin must now leave you, but remember the example which he has set for you” (“History of Joseph Smith by His Mother”).

On 21 January 1836, in a vision given to Joseph Smith in the temple at Kirtland, Ohio, he saw his brother Alvin in the celestial kingdom. From that vision, Joseph was taught the doctrine of salvation for the dead. Modern-day revelation records the vision and doctrinal teaching in Doctrine and Covenants 137:

The heavens were opened upon us, and I beheld the celestial kingdom of God, and the glory thereof, whether in the body or out I cannot tell. I saw the transcendent beauty of the gate through which the heirs of that kingdom will enter, which was like unto circling flames of fire; also the blazing throne of God, whereon was seated the Father and the Son. I saw the beautiful streets of that kingdom, which had the appearance of being paved with gold. I saw Father Adam and Abraham; and my father and my mother; my brother Alvin, that has long since slept; and marveled how it was that he had obtained an inheritance in that kingdom, seeing that he had departed this life before the Lord had set his hand to gather Israel the second time, and had not been baptized for the remission of sins. Thus came the voice of the Lord unto me, saying: all who have died without a knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God; also all that shall die henceforth without a knowledge of it, who would have received it with all their hearts, shall be heirs of that kingdom; for I, the Lord, will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts. And I also beheld that all children who die before they arrive at the years of accountability are saved in the celestial kingdom of heaven.

Hyrum Smith – By His Brother’s Side in Life and in Death

The second eldest son, Hyrum Smith, was born in Tunbridge, Vermont on 9 February 1800. He was as close a brother to Joseph as Alvin had been. Their bond grew even closer when as a boy, Joseph suffered excruciating pain from an abscessed infection in his leg. For hours Hyrum would sit by Joseph’s bedside and hold his leg as tight as he could to help alleviate the pain.

He lived a life of humble service and obedience, and was ordained Patriarch of The Church of Jesus Christ following his father’s death. Throughout his lifetime, he remained a true friend, confidant, counselor, and support to his younger brother in his role as Prophet of the Restoration. Joseph said of Hyrum:

I could pray in my heart that all my brethren were like unto my beloved brother Hyrum, who possesses the mildness of a lamb, and the integrity of a Job, and in short, the meekness and humility of Christ; and I love him with that love that is stronger than death, for I never had occasion to rebuke him, nor he me (Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, comp. and ed. Dean C. Jessee, 2nd ed. rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002), 138.)

Mary Ann Stearns Winters recalled:

I rejoice in my acquaintance with the Prophet Joseph, and with his brother Hyrum also, for one is not complete without the other—they were nearly always together, and are inseparably connected in mind—Joseph and Hyrum— names ever dear to the faithful (Mary Ann Winters, “Joseph Smith, the Prophet,” Young Woman’s Journal December 1905, 557, quoted in Jeffrey S. O’Driscoll, Hyrum Smith: A Life of Integrity (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2003), 227.)

The two brothers were inseparable in the work of the Lord. Hyrum said of Joseph, “There were prophets before, but Joseph has the spirit and power of all the prophets” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, 2nd ed. rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957), 6:346.) At the time that Hyrum was called to serve as the Patriarch of the Church, the Lord said to him:

And from this time forth I appoint unto him that he may be a prophet, and a seer, and a revelator unto my church, as well as my servant Joseph. That my servant Hyrum may bear record of the things which I shall show unto him, that his name may be had in honorable remembrance from generation to generation, forever and ever (Doctrine and Covenants 124:94,96.)

Modern-day revelation also tells us that not only were Joseph and Hyrum inseparable in life, but they were also inseparable in death. Doctrine and Covenants 135:3 reads:

Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it. In the short space of twenty years, he has brought forth the Book of Mormon, which he translated by the gift and power of God, and has been the means of publishing it on two continents; has sent the fulness of the everlasting gospel, which it contained, to the four quarters of the earth; has brought forth the revelations and commandments which compose this book of Doctrine and Covenants, and many other wise documents and instructions for the benefit of the children of men; gathered many thousands of the Latter-day Saints, founded a great city, and left a fame and name that cannot be slain. He lived great, and he died great in the eyes of God and his people; and like most of the Lord’s anointed in ancient times, has sealed his mission and his works with his own blood; and so has his brother Hyrum. In life they were not divided, and in death they were not separated!

Don Carlos – Similar in Personality to Joseph

Don Carlos, the youngest brother of Joseph Smith and similar to him in personality, was born in Norwich, Windsor, Vermont on 25 March 1816. He was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ on 9 June 1830 at the age of 14. He bore a strong testimony, and throughout his life, he was a leader, missionary, and periodical editor. On 15 January 1836, he was called to serve as the first president of the High Priests Quorum (today is referred to as the Stake President). He was also a member of the construction crew for the Kirtland Temple, and participated in the ceremony of laying the cornerstones for that temple in early 1841.

In 1839, he became the first editor of the Nauvoo, Illinois-based Latter-day Saint newspaper Times and Seasons. As a printer and editor, he was involved in the printing of the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, several editions of the Book of Mormon, and also served as the publisher and editor for the short-lived periodical Elders’ Journal.

Don Carlos also served on the Nauvoo, Illinois, city council, and as brigadier general of the Legion. On 7 August 1841, at the age of 25, after complaining of pain in his side, he died quite suddenly of uncertain causes, sometimes described as a form of pneumonia, sometimes as quick consumption, in Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois.

According to a 22 February 2015 Deseret News article:

In January of this same year, Samuel Smith’s wife died, and Robert B. Thompson, Hyrum’s brother-in-law and joint editor of the Times and Seasons, died of the same complaint a month after Don Carlos. September 1841 also saw the death of Joseph and Emma’s youngest son, also named Don Carlos, and the death of Hyrum’s son, named Hyrum.

Samuel Harrison Smith – A Witness of the Book of Mormon

Samuel Harrison Smith was born in Tunbridge, Vermont, on 13 March 1808. He moved with his family to western New York by the 1820s. When his father missed a mortgage payment on the family farm on the outskirts of Manchester Township, near Palmyra, a local Quaker named Lemuel Durfee purchased the land and allowed the Smiths to continue to live there in exchange for Samuel’s labor at Durfee’s store.

Samuel was one of the original members of The Church of Jesus Christ. He was baptized by Oliver Cowdery on 25 May 1829. He was also one of the eight witnesses of the Book of Mormon and joined their testimony that “we did handle [the golden plates] with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon”.

He is considered to be the first missionary of the Church. As a missionary, he distributed copies of the Book of Mormon to anyone who would receive one, including the brother and brother-in-law of Brigham Young. In June 1832, he and Orson Hyde became the first Latter-day Saint missionaries to preach in Connecticut. They also preached in Boston in June 1832, and as a result of their efforts, branches of the Church were established in Boston and New Rowley, Massachusetts. In July 1832, they went to Providence, Rhode Island, where they baptized two people, but due to threats of violence, they were forced to leave after being there only twelve days. In September 1832, they became the first missionaries to preach in Maine. They also baptized people in Spafford, New York, during their 1832 mission.

When the first High Council of the Church—at the time the chief judicial and legislative body of the Church—was organized on 17 February 1834, Samuel was one of twelve men chosen as a member. In 1835, he was made a general agent for the firm in charge of publishing a Latter-day Saint hymnal and school books for children, working closely with Emma Smith and W. W. Phelps.

According to the 22 February 2015 Deseret News article:

On June 27, 1844, the day Joseph and Hyrum Smith were martyred, sounded a death knell for Samuel Smith as well. He was living several miles outside of Carthage, Missouri, and determined to ride in and see if he could help. But he was pursued and shot at, escaping only because of his endurance and superior horsemanship. He arrived too late but took his place in guarding the bodies of his brothers on their grim journey back to Nauvoo.

However, unable to even sit up because of weakness, he confided to his mother that “he had suffered ‘a dreadful distress in my side ever since I was chased by the mob, and I think I have received some injury which is going to make me sick.’” He died one month later [30 July 1844], truly one of the martyrs to the truth (“Joseph Smith’s Brothers: Nauvoo and after,” by Richard B. Anderson, Ensign, September 1979).

William Smith – The Dissenter among the Ranks

William Smith was the eighth child of Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith. He was born on 13 March 1811 in Royalton, Vermont. He was baptized by David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, on 9 June 1830, the same day as his brother Don Carlos. He was ordained an Apostle on 15 February 1835, and became one of the original members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.

At the time of the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum, William was living in the East. Because of his wife’s poor health, he returned to Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1845. On 24 May 1845, he was called to serve as Presiding Patriarch of the Church in Hyrum’s stead. Shortly after being ordained as Presiding Patriarch, Brigham Young printed a clarification in a church newspaper that stated that William had not been ordained as patriarch over the church, but rather as patriarch to the church. William took offense to the clarification, and the growing tension between himself and Brigham was increased. Smith was patriarch to the church until 6 October 1845 when his name and positions were read at General Conference. Fellow Apostle, Parley P. Pratt, expressed objections based on William’s character and delinquent practices. Those attending General Conference unanimously voted against William being sustained as both an Apostle and as Patriarch and he was disfellowshipped from the Church. He responded by submitting a lengthy statement to the anti-Mormon newspaper the Warsaw Signal in which he compared Brigham Young to Pontius Pilate and Nero and accused him and other members of the Twelve of secretly keeping multiple “spiritual wives.” As a result of his statement he was excommunicated from the Church on 19 October 1845 on the grounds of apostasy.

As a result of his excommunication, he did not follow Young and the majority of Latter-day Saints who settled in Utah Territory and established The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but rather he followed the leadership of James J. Strang and was involved with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Strangite).

In 1847, William announced that he was the new president of the Latter-day Saint church and that he held a right to leadership due to the doctrine of lineal succession. He excommunicated Young and the leadership of the LDS Church and announced that the Latter-day Saints who were not in apostasy by following Young should gather in Lee County, Illinois. In 1849, he gained the support of Lyman Wight, who led a small group of Latter-day Saints in Texas. However, his church did not last, and within a few years it dissolved.

His relationship with Young remained strained until Young’s death in 1877. He believed that Young had arranged for his older brother Samuel to be poisoned in 1844 to prevent his accession to the presidency of the church. Yet, in 1860, he wrote a letter to Young and stated that he desired to join the Latter-day Saints in the Salt Lake Valley. However, shortly thereafter he became a soldier in the American Civil War, and after the war he did not show any interest in moving to Utah Territory.

In 1878, William became a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (RLDS Church) which was organized in 1860 with his nephew, Joseph Smith III, as its leader. He died on 13 November 1893 at the age of 82 in Osterdock, Iowa.

A Loving Mother Responds to Death of Sons

I was left desolate in my distress. I had reared six sons to manhood, and of them all, only one remained … as I entered the room and saw my murdered sons … it was too much; I sank back, crying to the Lord in the agony of my soul, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken this family!’ A voice replied, ‘I have taken them to myself, that they might have rest.

As I looked upon their peaceful, smiling countenances, I seemed almost to hear them say, ‘Mother, weep not for us, we have overcome the world by love; we carried to them the gospel, that their souls might be saved; they slew us for our testimony, and thus placed us beyond their power; their ascendancy is for a moment, ours is an eternal triumph’ (“History of Joseph Smith by His Mother”).

Additional Resources:

Joseph Smith’s Challenging Brother – William B. Smith

Keith L. Brown

Keith L. Brown is a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, having been born and raised Baptist. He was studying to be a Baptist minister at the time of his conversion to the LDS faith. He was baptized on 10 March 1998 in Reykjavik, Iceland while serving on active duty in the United States Navy in Keflavic, Iceland. He currently serves as the First Assistant to the High Priest Group for the Annapolis, Maryland Ward. He is a 30-year honorably retired United States Navy Veteran.

of-common-sense.site123.me/

By this time, Joseph had already been the victim of a series of financial setbacks, and he looked at the opportunity of investing in ginseng as a sure way of ending that series of bad luck. After he worked hard to obtain a substantial amount of the root, he was offered $3,000 for his crop by a Mr. Stevens who resided in Royalton, which offer Joseph declined, expecting to get more elsewhere.

Joseph travelled to New York to arrange for the shipment of his product, but Mr. Stevens followed him to find out on which ship Joseph had placed his ginseng. Then Mr. Stevens sent his son to represent himself as well as Joseph in selling the ginseng, unbeknownst to Joseph. Mr. Stevens’ son sold the ginseng at a good profit, but lied about how much he had received for the product, and gave Joseph only a chest of tea in return. After Joseph discovered Stevens’ deception, Stevens fled to Canada with the money. His desertion left Joseph with an $1800 debt. Joseph was forced to sell his farm, which was worth $1500, for a mere $800 to help cover the debt. Lucy then had to sacrificed the $1000 she had received as a wedding present to cover the rest. This covered the Smiths’ debt, but left them with nothing.

Despite several hardships such as this, Joseph Smith Sr. and his wife, Lucy, never despaired. They always trusted in the Lord and had faith that things would work out for them, which they always did, though perhaps not in the way they would have chosen. It is little wonder that two such wonderful and faithful people were chosen to be the parents of the Lord’s chosen prophet in the latter-days.

Lucy and Joseph Smith, Sr., spent nearly all their savings on medical care for their affected children. Joseph was ill for two weeks, but after recovering from the fever developed a serious infection in his shoulder. It struck him forcefully one day, and he cried out in such pain that they immediately sent for the doctor. The doctor concluded the pain must have come from a sprain, but Joseph knew he had done nothing that would make that possible. The doctor anointed Joseph’s shoulder with some bone liniment, but to no affect.

Lucy gives a detailed description of the events that transpired:

“When two weeks of extreme suffering had elapsed, the attendant physician concluded to make closer examination, whereupon he found that a large fever sore had gathered between his breast and shoulder. He immediately lanced it, upon which it discharged fully a quart of matter.

“As soon as the sore had discharged itself the pain left it, and shot like lightning (using his own terms) down his side into the marrow of the bone of his leg and soon became very severe. My poor boy, at this, was almost in despair, and he cried out ‘Oh father! the pain is so severe, how can I bear it!’

“His leg soon began to swell and he continued to suffer the greatest agony for the space of two weeks longer. . . .

“At the end of three weeks, we thought it advisable to send again for the surgeon. When he came he made an incision of eight inches, on the front side of the leg, between the knee and ankle. This relieved the pain in a great measure, and the patient was quite comfortable until the wound began to heal, when the pain became as violent as ever.”

The wound was cut a second time, but with the same result, and then the bone became infected. Doctors told Lucy they would have to amputate, but Lucy refused to let them until they had tried one more time to operate on the bone. This they did successfully, though at great pain to Joseph, who refused any alcohol as an anesthetic. Full recovery took about three years, but Joseph was able to keep his leg. After these incidents, however, the Smith family savings had been entirely used. Lucy said, “When health returned to us, as one would naturally suppose, it found us in quite low circumstances. We were compelled to strain every energy to provide for our present necessities, instead of making arrangements for the future, as we had previously contemplated.”  Thus their children were not able to attend as much school as they had hoped to, and the family was not financially prepared for the calamity that struck soon after.

While Joseph was still healing the family moved to Norwich, Vermont, in 1813. The Smiths worked a farm on the property of Esquire Murdock. The first two years the family spent in Norwich their crops failed. The first year they were able to sell enough fruit to get by, but the second year was the same. Joseph Smith, Sr., decided he would try to plant one more year, and if the crops failed again, they would go to New York and raise wheat. The third year, however—1816—proved to be the worst of all. Known as the year without a summer, or as “eighteen hundred and froze to death,” a short spring came, but was replaced by more winter-like weather, with four successive frosts between June and August that killed nearly all the crops in the state.

The bizarre weather conditions, it was discovered much later, were due to an enormous volcanic eruption on the other side of the world. Mount Tambora, in Indonesia, exploded in the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history, emptying twenty-five cubic miles of debris into the atmosphere. The ash covered the sun and travelled thousands of miles, affecting the weather pattern for an extended period. Many people left Vermont in a mass exodus, looking for more fertile ground. The Smiths also moved. However, two such catastrophic events crippled the family financially and they had to work extremely hard and go into much debt in order to survive.