Joseph Smith III

Joseph Smith III — Leader of the 1860 "Reorganization" of the Latter Day Saint church.

Joseph Smith III (1832–1914) was the eldest surviving son of Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. Joseph Smith III was the first Prophet-President of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the first person to hold that position following a formal reorganization of the church that took place several years after his father's death. For fifty-four years until his own death, Smith presided over the church. Smith's ideas and nature, including his opposition to polygamy, set much of the tone for the church's development.

Early Childhood

Joseph Smith III was born in Kirtland, Ohio on November 6, 1832 to Joseph Smith, Jr. and Emma Hale Smith. He moved with his parents to Far West, Missouri in 1838, where his father was arrested partially as a result of the events in the Mormon War, a battle between Mormons and the Missouri militia. Young Joseph was able to stay overnight with his father in prison on several occasions. It was later alleged by fellow prisoner and church apostle Lyman Wight, whom at this time had become disaffected toward Joseph Smith Jr.,) that during one of these visits, Joseph Jr. laid his hands upon young Joseph's head and said, "You are my successor when I depart." While his father was still imprisoned in 1839, young Joseph left Missouri with his mother and siblings and moved first to Quincy, Illinois and then to the new settlement of Nauvoo. The elder Smith escaped custody and rejoined the family later that year.

At Nauvoo, the Latter Day Saints created a militia known as the Nauvoo Legion and soon afterward, it is said that 500 of the town's boys created their own junior version of the militia. Young Joseph became general of the boys' militia whose motto was, "our fathers we respect, our mothers we'll protect." As the young Joseph was growing up in Nauvoo, his father was leader of many of the municipal offices, in addition to his roles as church leader. At the same time, evidence indicates that his father was practicing plural marriage. People think it is without question that Joseph had multiple wives; but, as Compton states multiple times in his work, "Absolutely nothing is known of this marriage after the ceremony"—that is, it is unclear how many of the women Smith had sexual relations with. At this time, a handful of men in the Church were called upon to marry pluraly, specifically to care for those women whose husbands had died, or who had no husband. There are allegations that Smith had at least one child born to a plural wife, but this remains unproven. There were many instances when Smith and other plural husbands would not have had sexual relations at all with their plural wives, as the marriages were only intended as a legal means of allowing the women to "lay claim" on their new husbands for sustenance. Dubious and unverified charges of rioting and treason led to the elder Smith's arrest and cold-blooded assassination in 1844. For the 11 year old Joseph III, his father's death was no doubt an experience that affected his later philosophy and actions.

The Red Brick Store in Nauvoo, Illinois.

According to later reminiscences of those who had become dissaffected toward Joseph Jr., young Joseph was blessed by his father at a special council meeting of church officials, held in the second floor of the Red Brick Store in Nauvoo. By some accounts, participants also included Hyrum Smith, John Taylor, Willard Richards, Newel K. Whitney, Reynolds Cahoon, Alpheus Cutler, Ebenezer Robinson, George J. Adams, W. W. Phelps, and John M. Bernhisel. Joseph's father reportedly seated him in a chair and Newel K. Whitney anointed his head with oil. Then elder Smith pronounced a special blessing upon his son's head that supposedly suggested the young Joseph would succeed him as church president if he lived righteously. Emma Smith, young Joseph's mother, also recounted to her family that, indeed, her husband had taught that the President of the Quorum of the Twelve apostles was to be the next natural prophet of the Church. However, she did not like the president of the Quorum at the time, Brigham Young, due to his support of the doctrine of polygamy. Therefore she did not make a fuss when others tried to take over the role of president of the Church when the elder Smith and his brother, Hyrum, were murdered, leaving the movement in temporary disarray without a leader.

Succession Crisis

In the decade before his death, Joseph Smith had indicated at least eight possible means by which to choose this successor. One such possibility was that his son, Joseph Smith III, would assume the role. However, upon the death of Smith, his son had not yet turned twelve years old, and no one else had been chosen as an interim leader of the movement until Smith III was old enough to assume leadership himself. The larger body of believers held the Quorum of Twelve Apostles to be their rightful leaders during this time. Brigham Young, the elder apostle of this group, came to assume the position of leadership, and would eventually lead the Mormon faithful from Nauvoo, Illinois to present day Utah.

Not all Mormons approved of Young's leadership, however, including Joseph Smith's widow. Emma Smith's chief discontent was with the persistent practice of plural marriage, and Young's idea that it was a doctrine which had been veraciously taught by Joseph Smith. In addition, Young and Emma Smith disagreed over the settlement of Joseph Smith's estate, including the manuscript of Smith's revision of the King James Version of the Bible. In the wake of these contentions, much distrust developed between the two, which eventually deteriorated to hatred. Some of Young's followers even went so far as to make attempts to forcibly banish the Smith family from Nauvoo. This imperious treatment no doubt had an effect at the way in which Joseph Smith III perceived Brigham Young, and gave him the impetus to steer the church in a different course.

Although many Latter Day Saints believed that young Joseph should succeed his father, at age 11 the boy was clearly too young. A succession crisis ensued which resulted in Brigham Young taking lead of the Church, as his position as "president" of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles gave him authority to do. Months later, he was ordained of God as the prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. (During a meeting over the situation, as Brigham Young spoke, some people who were well aquainted with both Brigham and Joseph, saw Joseph Smith Jr.'s countenance and heard his voice in place of Young's.) Relations between Young and the Smith family were strained and Joseph's uncle William, whose relationship with Young was very strained, chose to recognize James J. Strang as church president. Young and the majority of the Latter Day Saints departed Nauvoo in 1846, leaving the Smith family in a mostly empty city. Smith's mother Emma attempted to make a living renting out rooms in the family home. She and Brigham Young had never gotten along due to personality differences. In 1847, Emma married a second husband named Lewis Bidamon.

In the late 1840s and early 1850s, the bulk of the Latter Day Saints either aligned themselves with Brigham Young and emigrated to Utah or they remained in the Midwest and looked to James J. Strang as church president. Strang gave indications that he believed that a son of Joseph Smith, Jr. would one day lead the church and made overtures to the Smith family. Emma and her sons, however, remained aloof. Many Midwestern Latter Day Saints were adamantly opposed to plural marriage and when Strang began to openly practice the doctrine in 1849, several key leaders including Jason W. Briggs and Zenas H. Gurley broke with his church. Later, when Strang was mortally wounded by assassins, he refused to name a successor, and when he died he left his church leaderless.

Meanwhile, other dissenters were organizing rebellions against Young. The Midwestern or Prairie Saints began to call for the need to establish a "New Organization" of the church and many likewise believed that Joseph Smith III should be at its head. In 1848, Jason W. Briggs, leader of the branch of the church located in Beloit, Wisconsin, also rejected the leadership of Brigham Young and became affiliated with a number of anti-Young movements over the next three years. However, he became discontented by most of these movements as well due to the fact that they too espoused polygamy. On November 18, 1951, Briggs claimed to receive a divine revelation which elucidated the future of the church, and his followers promptly distributed disseminations of this account. The most important purports of the document insisted that the next leader of the church would come from the line of Joseph Smith. During the winter of 1852, a group of Latter-day Saints followers in Wisconsin and Illonois lead by Briggs began to etch out the plans for what they considered to be the genuine continuation Smith's original church, many of which were put into effect at the church's first official conference on June 12-13, 1852. Elders repeatedly visited Smith and asked him to assume his father's position as prophet-president of the church, but his reply was that he would only assume the church presidency if he were inspired by God to do so. In the meantime, he took up the study and eventually the practice of law. In 1856 he married Emmeline Griswold and the couple moved into the old Smith brickhouse (Smith's parent's first residence in Nauvoo). Finally, in 1860, Smith said that he had received this inspiration and at an conference in Amboy, Illinois on April 6, 1860, he was sustained as President of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. At the time both this new organization and Young's Utah-based church claimed to be the true Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. (While retaining use of this original name, this church for legal purposes later was incorporated as the "Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" and today is known as the Community of Christ.)

Prophet-Presidency

The Joseph Smith "Homestead" — the residence of Joseph Smith III in Nauvoo.

As church president, Smith's biographer has named him a "Pragmatic Prophet." Many of the followers of the Reorganized church were, in fact, dissidents from what they felt were the excesses of a theocracy established by Smith's father, and which they also felt were continued under Brigham Young in Utah. From the start, Smith attempted to steer a middle course. Rather than deny the later teachings of Smith's father, such as baptism for the dead, the Book of Abraham and the concepts of "eternal progression" and the "multiplicity of gods," Smith taught that these doctrines should not be emphasized. Smith also resisted calls from his followers to announce a new gathering place or to quickly "redeem" and build up "Zion" (Independence, Missouri).

During Joseph Smith III's term as prophet president, the RLDS began to distinguish itself from so-called "Utah Mormonism" of Brigham Young. Smith III was influenced by his mother's vehement opposition to polygamy, and repudiated the idea that it had ever been considered doctrinal by his father. Joseph Smith III was an ardent opponent of the practice of plural marriage throughout his life. For most of his career, Smith denied that his father had been involved in the practice and insisted that it had originated with Brigham Young. He served many missions to the West, however, where he met with and interviewed associates (and wives) of his father who attempted to present him with evidence to the contrary. In the end, in the face of overwhelming evidence, Smith concluded that he was "not positive nor sure that [his father] was innocent" and that if, indeed, the elder Smith had been involved, it was still a false practice. However, a minority of the current members of the Community of Christ, and some of the groups that were formerly associated with it are still not convinced that Joseph Smith III's father did indeed engage in plural marriage, and feel that the "evidence" that he did so is largely flawed.By the end of the nineteenth centuy, the RLDS had also rejected numerous LDS doctrines such as the plurality of the Godhead, and the exclusion of black people from the priesthood, all in an attempt to distance themselves from the larger, mainstream sect.

In the 1860s and 1870s, Smith began to rebuild the structure of the church, establishing a new First Presidency, Council of Twelve Apostles, seven quorums of the Seventy, and a Presiding Bishopric. Zenas H. Gurley, Sr. became President of the Council of Twelve. Smith presented a revelation which called William Marks, former Stake President of the church's presiding central stake under Smith's father, to be First Counselor in the reorganized First Presidency. After Marks' death, Smith called W. W. Blair and his brother David Hyrum Smith to be his counselors in the First Presidency.

In 1866, Smith moved from Nauvoo to Plano, Illinois, where the church's printing house had been established. He personally took over the editorship of the Saint's Herald, and Plano became the headquarters of the church. Meanwhile Latter Day Saints adhering to the Reorganization established a colony in Lamoni, Iowa, where they attempted to practice the "Law of Consecration" or "Order of Enoch." In 1881, Smith decided to move to Lamoni which became the new headquarters of the church. Although the practice of the Order of Enoch proved a failure, the town of Lamoni continued to grow. The church established a college in the town which is now known as Graceland University.

Final Years

In his final years, members of the church began to move to Independence, Missouri, which Smith's father had designated as the "centerplace" of the "City of Zion." Latter Day Saints had wanted to return to this theologically important ground since their expulsion in 1839. In 1906, at the age of 73, Smith moved to Independence and entered a state of semi-retirement. His eldest son, Frederick Madison Smith, remained in Lamoni and took over active leadership of the church. Finally on December 10, 1914, at the age of 82, Smith suffered a heart seizure in his home and died. He had been president of the church for more than fifty years and he was admired and mourned by thousands, and his life's work still lives on in the RLDS, renamed the Community of Christ in 2001, a movement which currently has 200000 members worldwide.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Roger D. Launius, Joseph Smith III: Pragmatic Prophet. Chicago: University of Illinois Press: 1995, ISBN 0-252-01514-2
• Richard P. Howard, The Church Through the Years. Independence, MO: Herald House: 1992, ISBN 0-8309-0629-0

External links

• The Memoirs of President Joseph Smith

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