Joseph Smith’s New England Heritage

1. Joseph Smith’s New England Heritage The ancestry of Joseph Smith is interesting and important people are connected to him. Among the Smith’s ancestors were men and women who sailed on the Mayflower, and those who served in the American Revolution. Joseph Smith Jr. had seven ancestors on the Mayflower.

2. Brigham Young said of Joseph Smith: “It was decreed in the counsels of eternity, long before the foundations of the earth were laid, that he should be the man, in the last dispensation of this world, to bring forth the word of God to the people, and receive the fullness of the keys and power of the Priesthood of the Son of God. The Lord had his eye upon him, and upon his father, and upon his father’s father, and upon their progenitors clear back to Abraham, and from Abraham to the flood, from the flood to Enoch, and from Enoch to Adam. He has watched that family and that blood as it has circulated from its fountain to the birth of that man. He was foreordained in eternity to preside over this last dispensation” (JD, 7:289-90).

3. John Lathrop(one of Joseph’s ancestors) John was a minister for the Church of England who became dissatisfied with points of their doctrine and left. He organized his own followers as the “Independent Seekers.” Forty-two of his group were eventually arrested, including himself, by the Bishop of London. Eventually they were all released from jail except him. His wife became very ill and he was permitted by the Church of England to visit her and attend to her death. After she died, he was put back into prison. His children were left to roam the streets and fend for themselves. When he finally got out of prison he gathered his children and left immediately for America. He was a well beloved man who was honored and loved by many.

4. Asael Smith Joseph’s grandfather was a powerful man in his younger years. He could handle two men at the same time without much problem. Asael’s wife had a sister who could take a barrel of cider, hoist it up on her shoulder and drink from it. Asael’s son, Joseph Smith Sr. was 6 feet two inches and weighed 200 pounds. A tragedy happened in Asael’s life when he was severely burned on his neck. The muscles in his neck healed but were much shorter and tighter on one side than the other which resulted in his head twisting to the side. People cruelly called him “Crooked Neck Smith.”

5. This was one of the statements referred to by detractors of the Prophet Joseph saying that he came from “weird ancestry.” Asael was a religious man though he did not belong to any church. He was a Universalist in his belief as was his son Joseph Smith Sr. Universalist believed in a God that was more interested in saving His children than destroying them.

6. Asael married Mary Duty, who in 1839 at the age of 93 traveled to Kirtland to be baptized into the Church. Mary Duty did not come earlier because her son Jesse was opposed to the Church and she had made a promise to care for him. In Kirtland she wanted Joseph Sr. to baptize her and Joseph Jr. to confirm her. Sadly, she died before the work was done. She is buried in the Kirtland cemetery.

7. Asael prophesied that from his loins would come an individual who would revolutionalize religion. Before Asael died, he was satisfied that person was his grandson Joseph Jr. He died in the fall of 1830. Before he died, he believed in the Book of Mormon which he read nearly through.

8. Asael had an 11th commandment: “Mind your own business” Asael received “7” dreams or revelations in his life relative to religion (in a period of eight years). The last of the seven dreams was received just one month prior to the First Vision.

9. Solomon Mack/ Maternal Side Solomon was forced due to poverty, to be indentured out to another man for wages at the age of four (from 4-21). He was not treated well by the family and was considered their property. Solomon fought in the French and Indian War. One day while walking alone down a trail, he ran into four Indians. He quickly shouted, “There’s only four, charge,” the Indians scattered in every direction.

10. Years later, Joseph Jr. used the same idea in Palmyra when he was trying to keep the plates safe and men were hunting him down. Solomon married Lydia Gates who later taught him how to read and write.

11. Solomon fought with his two sons in the Revolutionary War for --- four years (none were injured). Jason, Solomon’s son, was involved in a sad story. After the war he decided to go out to sea to make money for his future wedding with Esther Bruce. Esther had promised to wait for him. Another man in town also wanted to marry Esther. Jason wrote faithfully for two years while out at sea. The other man who lived in town intercepted all of Jason’s letters at the Post Office and destroyed them. This same man then convinced Esther that Jason was lost at sea and that she should not waste her time waiting for his return and marry him.

12. It was not uncommon for men to be lost at sea, so she determined that Jason was dead and agreed to the marriage. A few days after their marriage Jason returned and found Esther married. It made Esther physically ill when she found out the details of what had happened. Jason left and returned to the sea. He remained single until he was fifty years old. Esther never recovered from the ordeal and died two years later of a broken heart.

13. Another tragedy to Joseph’s Grandfather Solomon Mack: A tree fell on Solomon Mack which broke many of his bones. After his body healed he could not spread his legs wide enough to ride a horse. He had to ride side-saddle. He was given the nick-name of “side-saddle Solomon.” After four months of recuperation from the tree falling on him he fell on a waterwheel. Thereafter he was subject to periods of unconsciousness, or “fits” as he called them.

14. This also contributed to the fact that people thought Joseph Smith Jr. came from “weird ancestry.” Solomon died just three weeks before his eighty-eighth birthday, several months after his grandson’s remarkable vision of the Father and the Son of which he was probably unaware.

15. Joseph Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith They met in Tunbridge Vermont. Joseph Sr. was six years older than Lucy (Joseph Sr. twenty-five and Lucy Mack nineteen). Joseph Sr. farmed and taught school. The qualifications for being a teacher in those days were that you could read and write.

17. Joseph Sr. and Lucy Mack’s children: (The Smith Family) 1. Son: Their first born son died prematurely at birth (unnamed, about 1797). 2. Alvin: Joseph would later say that Alvin was the most handsome man he had ever seen, save Father Adam and his son Seth (died at 25). His was born on Feb. 11, 1798. 3. Hyrum: Joseph thought that Hyrum had the most tender heart of any man on earth (D&C 11:10; 124:15, martyred at 44). 4. Sophronia: Did not remain faithful (RLDS, died at 73).

18. 5. Joseph Jr.: “The Prophet” (38) 6. Samuel Harrison: Faithful, (1st missionary, 36). 7. Ephraim: Lived for only eleven days 8. William: Left the Church and did not return (82). 9. Catherine: (RLDS, 88). 10. Lucy: (RLDS, 51). 11. Don Carlos Faithful and loyal (25)

19. During the first twenty years of Joseph’s and Lucy’s marriage they relocated nine times. Three years of crop failure in Norwich, Vermont precipitated the family’s eventual move to Palmyra, New York. 1816 was known as “the year without a summer.” Temperatures dropped, crops failed and people starved.

20. In 1815, the eruption of the volcanic Mount Tambora on the island of Sumbawa, east of Java, caused changes in the atmosphere. The volcanic ash and debris shaded the sun’s rays, and many believed that this caused snow to fall in June and July in the New England states (Bellville, “Year without a Summer,” 65). The prophet wrote that he was born of “goodly parents who spared no pains to instruct him in the Christian religion” (Backman, First Vision, 155).

21. Joseph Smith Sr. was six feet two inches tall, very straight, and remarkably well proportioned. His ordinary weight was about 200 pounds. He was very strong and active. In his younger days he was famed as a wrestler, and, Jacob like he never wrestled with but one man whom he could not throw (HC, 4:191). Lorenzo Snow made the following observation: “Anyone seeing Father Smith as he then appeared and having read of old Father Abraham in the scriptures, would be apt to think that Father Smith looked a great deal like Abraham must have looked; at least, that is what I thought. I do not know that any man among the Saints was more loved than Father Smith; and when anyone was seriously sick Father Smith would be called for, whether it was night or day. He was as noble and generous a man as I have ever know” (LeRoi C. Snow, “How Lorenzo Snow Found God,” 84).

22. His lack of worldly possessions is evident from his comment during a conference on October 25, 1831, when many priesthood brethren had expressed willingness to consecrate all that they possessed to the Lord. Father Smith responded that he “had nothing to consecrate to the Lord of the things of the Earth, yet he felt to consecrate himself and family” (Minutes of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1830-1844, in Far West Record, Donald Q. Cannon and Lyndon W. Cook, eds. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1983), 22).

23. Joseph Smith Junior Born December 23rd, 1805. He Contracted typhus fever in 1812. Typhoid fever swept through the upper Connecticut River Valley beginning in 1812 and left six thousand dead. The doctor lanced a large sore on Joseph’s shoulder which discharged a full quart of matter. The pain shot down to the left side of his body into his leg which caused it to swell up and cause excruciating pain.

24. Three weeks later Dr. Nathan Smith made an eight inch incision on the front side of his leg between the knee and the ankle. The surgery was performed without anesthesia. Three holes were drilled into the infected bone and nine large pieces were removed. Long after the operation 14 small pieces of bone worked their way out of the wound. By 1816, three years after the operations, Joseph was still on crutches when his family moved to Palmyra.

25. After a period of time Dr. Nathan Smith brought eleven other doctors to the Smith home to show them how to perform an amputation. Joseph Jr. and his mother refused to even consider it. The “council of surgeons” were from Dartmouth Medical School. During this time period Dr. Nathan Smith also operated on a young boy by the name of Nathanial Hawthorne.

26. Dr. Smith was 50-100 years ahead of anyone else who was operating on diseased bones. The disease that Joseph contracted was called osteomyelitis. It was a bacterial, fungal, or rickettsial infection within the bone and the marrow of the bone that was commonly related to infections located elsewhere in the body. From the pain in his shoulder to his final operation on his leg, the passage of time was between fifty and sixty-four days.

27. Alvin Smith Alvin was taken very sick with bilious colic on November 15th, 1823. The Smith’s regular doctor was not in town so they received the services of Doctor Greenwood who administered a heavy dose of calomel to Alvin even though Alvin objected. The calomel lodged in Alvin’s stomach, and all the powerful medicine which was afterwards prescribed by skillful physicians could not remove it. Finally Dr. McIntyre, the favorite of the family and a man of great skill and experience came to the Smith home with four other professors of medicine. Alvin told them that the calomel was still lodged in the same place in his body and that they would not be able to move it and that it would take his life.”

28. Before he died, Alvin told Hyrum to take care of their parents and make them comfortable. He told him to finish the house (frame house) and not to let their parents work hard anymore. He told Joseph to be a good boy and do everything that lied in his power to obtain the record and always be kind to their parents (this was a couple of months after Joseph’s first visit to Cumorah). Alvin’s main concern was that his siblings would take care of his aging parents.

29. After Alvin’s death Dr. McIntyre performed an autopsy and spoke long and earnestly to the younger physicians upon the danger of administering powerful medicine without the thorough knowledge of the practice. Dr. McIntyre later said, “Here is one of the loveliest youth that ever trod the streets of Palmyra destroyed, murdered as it were, by him at whose hand relief was expected, cast off from the face of the earth by a careless quack who dared to trifle with the life of a fellow mortal.”

30. There was one person that felt the Smith’s grief possibly more deeply than even they did. She was a lovely young woman who was engaged to be married to Alvin. As far as Lucy Mack Smith knew the young woman never recovered her animation and good spirits. Everyone who knew Alvin was swallowed up in grief, so much that it seemed impossible for them to interest themselves about the every day concerns of life.

31. Alvin had ever manifested a greater zeal and anxiety, if it were possible, than any of the rest of the family in regard to the record which had been shown to Joseph. Joseph said Alvin was one of the noblest of the sons of men. “Shall his name not be recorded in this book (the Book of the Law of the Lord?). Yes, Alvin, let it be had here and be handed down upon these sacred pages for ever and ever. In him there was no guile. He lived without spot from the time he was a child…He was one of the soberest of men, and when he died the angel of the Lord visited him in his last moments” (HC 5:126-27).

32. Lucy’s Dream of Two Trees (1803) Lucy dreamed of two beautiful trees by a very pure and clear stream in a magnificent meadow. The interpretation given to Lucy was that these trees personated her husband Joseph Sr. and his oldest brother Jesse Smith. Jesse was the only one of four living sons of Asael and Mary Smith who did not accept the restored gospel.

33. Lucy wondered what the meaning of all this was. She felt that the stubborn and unyielding tree was Jesse and that the more pliant and flexible tree was Joseph her husband. The breath of heaven that passed over them was the pure and undefiled gospel of the Son of God, which gospel Jesse would always resist, but which Joseph Sr. when he was more advanced in life, would hear and receive with his whole heart and rejoice therein; and he would have added intelligence, happiness, glory, and everlasting life.

34. Lucy’s Sickness and Near Death at Randolph, Vermont: They had lived in Randolph about six months when Lucy took a heavy cold which caused a severe cough. A hectic fever set in which threatened to prove fatal and the physician believed her case to be tuberculosis, the illness her older sisters, Lovisa and Lovina had died from.

35. Joseph Smith Sr. exclaimed amidst sobs and tears, “Oh Lucy! My wife you must die. The doctors have given you up, and all say that you cannot live.” Lucy then covenanted with God that if He would let her live that she would endeavor to get the religion that would enable her to serve him right, whether it was in the Bible or wherever it might be found, even if it was to be obtained from heaven by prayer and faith.

36. After her miraculous healing Lucy was almost in total despair, and had a grieved and troubled spirit. She returned home with a saying in her heart that there was not on the earth the religion which she sought. She then committed to turn to her Bible to seek for the truth. She pursued that course for many years, till at last she concluded that her mind would be easier if she was baptized. She found a minister who was willing to baptize her and leave her free from membership in any church.

37. Joseph Smith Junior I am like a rough stone rolling down hill (Joseph Smith, May 21, 1843). I am a rough stone. The sound of the hammer and chisel was never heard on me nor never will be. I desire the learning and wisdom of heaven alone (Joseph Smith, June 11, 1843). This is the case with Joseph Smith. He never professed to be a dressed smooth polished stone but was rough out of the mountain and has been rolling among the rocks and trees and has not hurt him at all. But he will be as smooth and polished in the end as any other stone, while many that were so vary polished and smooth in the beginning get badly defaced and spoiled while they are rolling about (Brigham Young, September 9, 1843).

38. Facts about Joseph Twice he was brought to trial before one of his own church councils for scolding offenders too severely. He so dominated the rooms he entered that some thought him arrogant. But it was his iron will that brought the church, the cities, and the temples into existence. The doctrine of plural marriage drove a wedge between he and Emma and was the great sorrow of his life.

39. His teachings came primarily through revelations he had received. His most powerful thoughts were assertions delivered as if from heaven. Doctrine attracted the early converts, most of whom had not met Joseph Smith before joining the Church, and remained a significant reason for the survival of Mormonism after his death.

40. The Joseph Smith Family Lucy Mack Smith, in her narrative of the early life of Joseph Smith calculated that six martyrs had fallen because of persecution: Joseph Sr.; sons Don Carlos, Hyrum, and Samuel; William’s wife Caroline; and Joseph the Prophet.

41. Lucy Mack Smith measured the early years not by happy friendships or childish adventures but by deaths and illness. Depressed and restless, Lucy sought comfort in religion. She determined to obtain a “change of heart.” Lucy said that all of her religious instruction came from her “pious and affectionate” mother.

42. Lucy’s oldest brother became a lay preacher at twenty. They were both seekers. The Mack religion was family religion, and nothing outside the family satisfied her. Lydia, Lucy’s mother had charged Stephen Mack, Lucy’s brother, with looking after her in Tunbridge, Vermont. Stephen became Asael Smith’s intimate acquaintance though twenty-two years separated the two. The result was Lucy meeting Joseph Smith Sr. at the local store.

43. Asael and Mary Duty Smith Until Asael’s generation scattered to the north and west, the Smith ancestors of Joseph Smith, were rooted in Topsfield, Massachusetts. Twelve year old Robert Smith had sailed from England in 1638 at the height of the Puritan migration, and his descendants settled in Topsfield, a farm village ten miles north of Salem. Robert Smith’s son, the first Samuel Smith was among the accusers of a witch at the famous trials. Asael was the fourth generation of Smith’s in the town.

44. Asael scrambled for a toe hold in the sparse New England economy, much like Solomon Mack, who began life with nothing. In 1767, at twenty-two, Asael married Mary Duty of New Hampshire. Asael and Mary began twenty years of suffering from farm to farm in eastern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire. In 1830 Joseph Sr. wrote about the visions of his son to his family members and later personally visited each member and gave them a Book of Mormon.

45. Four of five of the surviving sons of Asael and Mary Smith became Mormons. Asael and Mary were well disposed to the gospel. Asael died in 1830 and Mary Duty Smith would take the five hundred mile journey to Kirtland to join the Mormons when she was ninety-two-years old. The switch to Mormonism was not difficult for Asael. He was a Universalist and believed in a God that was nice and would save sinners, not destroy them.

46. Joseph and Lucy Smith After having been cheated by a man named Stevens with ginseng (a wild root prized in China for its supposed capacity to prolong life and restore virility) Joseph Sr. found that he had $2,000 in debts from his customers and nothing to pay the $1,800 he owed in Boston. Lucy contributed their $1,000 wedding gift, and the farm sold for $800. Lucy said they made the sacrifice to avoid the “embarrassment of debt,” but they soon knew the “embarrassment of poverty.”

47. Joseph Sr. taught school in Sharon in the winter and farmed in the summer. Joseph Jr. probably had no memories of the sloping hill farm that now bears a monument to his name (his family moved when he was barely two). Despite the moves and occasional sorrows, there is no evidence of excessive stress in the Smith family during Joseph Jr. early years. Over the next fourteen years the Smith’s moved seven times (1803-1811).

48. Joseph Smith’s birth place

49. Lucy and Joseph Sr. knew that they were unprepared for two great economic challenges of every nineteenth-century farm family: • Provision for children as they came of age. • Provision for their own old age. Adult life was a race to accumulate sufficient goods to give the children to start, and still have enough to be independent and comfortable in old age. They needed to own property to clear both hurdles.

50. Joseph Smith Sr. was not lacking in religion. He spontaneously knelt with his wife to pray for Sophronia in her illness and insisted on morning and evening family prayers. What he could not embrace was the institutional religion of his time. The reason became clear in one of his prophetic dreams (the barren field). Asael’s Grandfather was a Congregationalist, Asael was drawn to Universalism, and Joseph Smith Sr.’s dreams linked him more to radical Protestantism with its taste for spiritual manifestations. Buffeted by these currents, the family was marginalized religiously, but in a peculiar way.