SMITH, Joseph III

SMITH, HALE, BIDAMON, GRISWOLD, MADISON, CLARK, MCCALLUM, WELD, SALYARDS

Posted By: Sharon R Becker (email)
Date: 2/14/2014 at 14:02:00

Biography ~ Joseph Smith

"Biographical and Historical Record of
Ringgold and Decatur Counties, Iowa"
(Lewis Publishing Company (1887)), Pp. 512-14.

JOSEPH SMITH, of Lamoni, president of the Re-organized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, was born in Kirtland, Land (then Geauga) County, Ohio, November 6, 1832. His parents, JOSEPH and EMMA (HALE) SMITH, were united in marriage in South Bainbridge, New York, January 18, 1827. They removed from Kirtland to Jackson County, Missouri, and soon after was commenced the persecution of the Saints, which finally culminated the death of both JOSEPH, Sr. and HYRUM SMITH, at Nauvoo, Illinois. From Jackson the SMITH family moved to Davis and Clay counties, and thence to Ray and Caldwell counties, Missouri. In Caldwell County JOSPEH SMITH and others were arrested and thrown into prison. While awaiting the trial, his wife and her family moved to Quincy, Illinois, where the husband joined her in the winter of 1838’9. The Saints were expelled from Missouri by order of Governor L. W. BOGGS. The subject of this sketch well remembers being pushed from his father’s side, by a sword in the hands of a guard at the time of the arrest of his father. The result of the trial was in their favor, it being judicially determined that no sufficient cause existed for their arrest or detention, and all were discharge; but persecution had done its work, and the Saints left Missouri. From Quincy the SMITH family moved to Commerce, afterward Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois, in the spring of 1839. Commerce at that time was a very unhealthy place, and the SMITH house was a hospital for fever stricken patients. Every room in the house was occupied, there being at one time ten patients in one room. The mother and her children slept in a tent pitched in the yard, his father at that time being absent on a visit to Washington to place before the authorities the circumstances and facts connected with their expulsion from the State of Missouri. Our subject, then a boy eight years old, was employed in bringing water from a cool spring under that bank by the river to quench the thirst of the sick. He remembers with pleasure, that all who were cared for at that time by his mother not one died. JOSEPH SMITH, Sr., and his brother HYRUM were killed at Carthage, the count seat of Hancock County, June 27, 1844. The widow with a family of three sons, and an adopted daughter, was left to care for herself. Her youngest and fourth son was born on the following November. JOSPEH being the eldest son was called to assume great responsibilities. Taking up the family history after his father’s death, it must not be forgotten that his mother opposed the ambitious schemes of BRIGHAM YOUNG, which opposition her son, JOSEPH SMITH, shared. She would not submit, hence her position among her religious associates was a peculiar one. In the mean time the antipathy of the people against the Saints had increased into animosity, and in the spring of 1846 and exodus of Saints from the State of Illinois took place. Mrs. SMITH did not accompany the migratory host, but remained in Nauvoo until September 12, when for safety she fled with her family, taking passage on the steamer Uncle Toby, Captain GRIMES, commander, for Fulton City, Whiteside County, Illinois. Here the family spent the winter of 1846-’7, and February 19, 1847, returned to Nauvoo, and moved to the hotel, the Mansion House, occupied by them before the father’s death. This hotel Mrs. SMITH, with her family kept. JOSPEH being her chief help, until December 27, 1847, when she married Major LEWIS CRUM BIDAMON, a former resident of Canton, Illinois, with whom she remained as landlady of the same hotel, and also of one on contiguous block of the city, until her death, in April, 1879. JOSEPH SMITH remained with the family until his marriage to Miss EMALINE (sic) GRISWOLD, October 22, 1856. She died in March, 1869, leaving her husband three daughters, all now living, and two are married. His youth was passed amid trials, and sorrows and afflictions that would have embittered one of less noble character against the world. His life has been sadden by the events of those years, but his manhood has not deteriorated, and it may be that the events of his character. No semblance of intolerances has place there. The same liberty of action and thought he exercises himself, he freely accords to all. In religion, loyal to the faith of his father, he recognizes in every worker of good, a brother. As a citizen, no man outranks him in his fealty to the Government. As a man, his character of honor and integrity stands unquestioned. At his stepfather’s solicitation Mr. SMITH began reading law in his sixteenth year, with WM. E. MCLENNAN, a local attorney at law, which he continued, closing with a year’s reading in the office of the HON. WILLIAM KELLOG, of Canton, Illinois, in 1855-'6. Mr. SMITH did not seek admission to the bar, disliking the practice of the law. He was chosen a justice of the peace in 1858, and was re elected in 1862; was a school director for the same period of time, served one term as alderman of the city of Nauvoo, and made an unsuccessful run for the mayoralty. In the year of 1860 he became satisfied that it was his duty to take up the advocacy of the religion of his father, as understood by him, and into the faith of which he was baptized by his father before his death. He felt called to this duty, and in April, 1860, he, with his mother, united with a number of other in a religious movement in opposition to the church in Utah under President BRIGHAM YOUNG. The new movement was called the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and was at its beginning composed of who were members of the church before the death of JOSEPH and HYRUM SMITH, and who, like Mr. SMITH and his mother, would not accept the dogmas of BRIGHAM YOUNG and the church of Utah. At the session of Conference in April, 1860, there were about 150 members represented. Mr. SMITH as appointed editor of the Herald, the church organ, in 1863, but did not take active charge until 1866, when he removed from Nauvoo to Plano, Kendall County, Illinois, with his family, and assumed the editorial control, which he has held uninterruptedly to date. Mr. SMITH’s wife at Plato, and within the year after, he married Miss BERTHA MADISON, who shares his home with him now, with three sons and two daughters. They occupy a very fine residence a short distance wst of Lamoni. During Mr. SMITH’s stay at Plano he served several terms on the Board of Trustees of the town, elected by the people. He removed from Plano to Lamoni in October, 1881, accompanying the office of the Herald, removed at that date. In politics Mr. SMITH was at first an Abolitionist, then, as a consequence, a Republican, but is not a politician, being engrossed in his religious pursuits. From his fifteenth year he has been a strong advocate of the temperance cause, and an uncompromising oppose to licensing the sale of intoxicating drinks, and has lectured in many places in the temperance interests. Of Mr. SMITH’s church work, it may be said, he early conceived the idea that he original faith of the church organized by his father and others, in 1830, was true and defensible on good and honest grounds; that polygamy and its kindred evils were not properly a part of the faith of the church, and that it was nowhere set forth in the published documents of the church during his father’s lifetime; that these obnoxious features were and after-growth for which the original church and faith were not responsible; he was baptized into the original, but not into these hurtful and untrue dogmas. Acting upon this hypotheses, he has persistently opposed President BRIGHAM YOUNG, JOHN TAYLOR, and the Utah church, in public and private, and with his co-workers in the faith has made all the efforts possible to set the matter straight before the world. He has taken more than a casual interest in the nation’s perplexity, the Utah problems; has twice visited the Capital of the nation in efforts to draws the lines between the primitive faith of the church and the polygamous perversion in Utah; and in 1885 he spent six months in an active mission in the interest of his people and faith, and in Utah, Montana and Idaho, among the adherents of the polygamous theory, with excelled success. He has, with others, labored to diligently, and congratulates himself that he has seen the church over which he presides grow form a handful, obscure and unpopular, into a body of persistent workers of many thousands of honest, honorable men, know and loved by their neighbors and loyal to their country.

NOTE: Joseph Smith was the President of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from April 6, 1860 until his death on December 10, 1914. He was interred at Mound Grove Cemetery, Independence MO.

Emmeline (Griswold) Smith was born March 12, 1838, and died March 25, 1869. She was interred at the Smith Family Cemetery, Nauvoo IL

Bertha (Madison) Smith was born July 16, 1843, LaSalle Co. IL, and died October 19, 1896, Lamoni IA. She was interred at Rose Hill Cemetery, Lamoni IA

Ada R. (Clark) Smith, Joseph's third wife, was born July 23, 1871, and died October 20, 1915. She was interred at Mound Grove Cemetery, Independence MO.

Of Joseph and Emmeline's three daughters:
Emma Josepha (Smith) McCallum, born 28 Jul 1857, Nauvoo IL; died 30 Nov 1937; married Alexander McCallum (1848 - 1928); interred Mound Grove Cemetery
Carrie Lucinda (Smith) Weld, born 15 Sep 1861, Nauvoo IL; died 27 Apr 1944, Independence MO; married Francis M. Weld (1858 - 1938); interred Rose Hill Cemetery, Lamoni IA
Zaide Viola (Smith) Salyards, born 25 Apr 1863, Nauvoo IL; died 08 Jan 1891, Lamoni IA; interment Rose Hill Cemetery, Lamoni IA; married Richard S. Salyards (1857 - 1944)

Submission by Sara LeFleur, Decatur County Historical Society Museum, January of 2014

Note by Sharon R. Becker, February of 2014

Decatur Biographies maintained by Constance McDaniel Hall.
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