Unflagging loyalty and great faith characterized John Smith, the uncle to Joseph Smith and first president of the Salt Lake Stake, who experienced privation and suffering as he traded one frontier for another to follow the Saints.
His life is a thread woven through the tapestry of Church history, from Tunbridge, Vt., to New York, to Ohio, to Missouri, to Illinois, to Iowa and Nebraska, and across the plains to the Great Salt Lake Valley. So frequent were his moves that for 21 years he never planted a garden in the same place twice in a row.Yet the legacy of "Uncle John," as he was known familiarly by the Saints, is significant: He is perhaps the only man ever to serve as president of four stakes in four different states. He became the third patriarch to the Church. During his lifetime, he delivered 5,560 patriarchal blessings. A son, George A. Smith, the influential apostle after whom St. George, Utah, is named, and a grandson, John Henry Smith, served in the Quorum of the Twelve. A great-grandson, George Albert Smith, became president of the Church.
John Smith was born to Asahel and Mary Duty Smith on July 16, 1781, in what is now Manchester, N.H. He spent most of his boyhood years in Tunbridge, Vt., where he and his brothers, including Joseph (Sr.), cleared away a virgin forest to make a large farm. About the turn of the century, Asahel and Mary and three of their sons, including John, moved to western New York and settled in Potsdam in the upper eastern corner of New York. Joseph Sr. also moved to New York but to Palmyra, some 250 miles southwest of Potsdam.
John Smith married Clarissa Lyman on Sept. 11, 1815, when he was 34 and she was 25. Their first child was an unpromising baby of a scant 4 1/2 pounds at birth, whom they named George Albert. (Years later he would jocularly describe himself as "the fattest man in the country" at 238 pounds.)
In 1828, Father Smith (Asael) received a letter from his son, Joseph Sr., regarding "several remarkable visions" that his son Joseph Jr. had received. When the news filtered to John, he was impressed by the information but not ready to receive it. In August 1830, John was briefly visited by his brother Joseph and nephew Don Carlos. They had driven 250 miles to show the Book of Mormon to their relatives in the area.
Within a year, new converts to the Church followed, preaching fearlessly of the restored gospel. Among those who believed the message were John Smith's mother-in-law, Philomela Lyman, and two brothers-in-law, Asa and George Lyman. His wife followed them in baptism in September 1831. John was deathly ill, but soon was baptized anyway. George A. later described his father's frailty: He "had for several years been in very feeble health and for about six months previous to his baptism had not been able to visit his barn.
"I cut a hole in the ice in the creek and broke a road for 40 rods through a crust on two feet of snow," explained George. "His neighbors expecting to see him die in the water, but his health continued improving from that moment."
The family moved to Kirtland, Ohio, in 1833, where John bought a small farm outside of town and hired a newly arrived carpenter by the name of Brigham Young to finish the floors of the cabin. The Smiths hauled the first rock for the Kirtland Temple.
On Feb. 17, 1834, Joseph Smith organized the first high council and called his Uncle John to be one of its members. John and Joseph Sr. were called to the Eastern States Mission in 1836 for four months.
During the period from 1836-38, an intense opposition to the Prophet developed among apostates, and he was often in grave danger. But the loyalty of John and his son, George A., never wavered. In affirmation of this faith and loyalty, John sold his farm and the family packed their belongings into two wagons, and headed to Far West, Mo., then headquarters of the Church. Less than two weeks after their arrival, the Prophet organized the Adam-ondi-Ahman Stake and called John as its president.
But that stake was short-lived. In October 1838, the infamous "extermination order" was issued to expel the Mormons from Missouri. John and his family were driven from their cabin, and found a place to live, in a wagon, near Steer Creek. John's feet were frozen and he was unable to get around. When George A. returned from a mission, he found his parents, and obtained food for the family by returning at night to their property and harvesting corn. During the winter, John traveled to Liberty, Mo., where he visited the Prophet, jailed there from Dec. 1, 1838, to April 16, 1839.
The family traveled with few possessions to Illinois in the spring of 1839, and soon settled in Nauvoo. There they managed to build a log cabin from a broken down stable but all were ill. The Prophet came to visit them "the first time that any person had made us a visit since we had been sick," wrote John in his journal. "One thing. . . will never be forgotten by me: Joseph took the shoes from his feet and gave them to me, and rode home without any, seeing our unhappy condition."
After recovering, John was appointed later in 1839 to head the Saints in Lee County, Iowa, as president of the Zarahemla Stake. He moved to Nashville, just over the river from Nauvoo, where he stayed for a year before moving to Hawley and then Keokuk, Iowa. In 1843 he was directed to move to Macedonia, Ill., and preside over a branch of the Saints there. He was ordained a patriarch by his nephew, Joseph Smith, on Jan. 10, 1844, following a request by the members of the branch. Mob violence led to the imprisonment in Carthage, Ill., of the Prophet the following June. John visited an hour with his beloved nephew in the Carthage Jail on the day before the Prophet's martyrdom.
In Nauvoo, John was called again as stake president on Oct. 7, 1844. While president of the Nauvoo Stake, he gave many patriarchal blessings as well. But as opposition increased, the Smith family, which included George A. and his wife, Bathsheba, was forced to leave.
Despite the fact that he suffered a great deal of ill health in 1845, John, now 63, and his family were among the first to cross the Mississippi.
"We leave in the city of Nauvoo a good house of brick and stone, and a quantity of good furniture, without making a sale of any," he wrote in his journal.
A few days later as the wagons pulled along near Farmington, Iowa, his team gave out and his wagon tipped over and Clarissa was badly shaken up. She soon recovered. Over the next 31/2 months, the Smith family suffered the widely recorded travails of the Saints who crossed Iowa during an extremely cold winter and wet spring.
On Dec. 1, 1846, George A. completed a log cabin and John and his family gratefully moved into it. George built another next door. A few months later George A. was selected to be a member of the pioneer vanguard company.
"Another year has rolled away and I thank the Lord that He has preserved my life and pray that I may live and have my health, to see the Saints settled in peace," John wrote on New Year's Day, 1847.
On June 9, 1847, after a winter of much illness, and the death of a baby born to Bathsheba and George A., John and his family headed west with the Daniel Spencer Company. When crossing the Big Sandy, just west of the continental divide in Wyoming, George A. and Brigham Young and the returning pioneer company met the Spencer company. George A. informed his father that he had built a cabin for him in the fort in Great Salt Lake City. Brigham Young had important news for John as well. He called the venerable man, now the patriarch of the Smith family, to preside over the Salt Lake Stake.
On Sept. 23, the company reached the fort, and John Smith was duly sustained on Oct. 3, 1847.
His short term as stake president was during a most difficult period. Hastily planted crops by the pioneer company failed to provide any food so the pioneers spent another winter on meager sustenance. They lived in dirt-roofed shelters that leaked badly and were infested by mice.
As the winter of 1847-48 wore on, people ate thistles and sego roots and boiled cowhides into a glue soup. A few leaders pleaded with John Smith to report conditions to Brigham Young and ask him to stop all immigration.
"The Lord led us here and He has not led us here to starve," replied the stake president.
The following summer, as fields turned green in the promise of grain, and the satisfaction of peoples' hunger for bread seemed near at last, hordes of hungry crickets began devouring the crops. In the midst of this crisis, Pres. Smith told one discouraged mill builder:
"We are not going to be broken up, and I entreat you to go ahead with your mill; and if you do so, you shall be blessed and it shall be an endless source of joy and profit to you."
Shortly afterwards, the "miracle of the seagulls" saved the settlers from starvation.
That October, John was released as president. Three months later, on Jan. 1, 1849, he was ordained the third Presiding Patriarch to the Church. He held this position until his death May 23, 1854, at age 72. His wife, Clarissa, preceded him in death by three months.
"Uncle John" lived to see his dream fulfilled: more and more Saints arriving, dwelling in ever increasing rows of log cabins, and settled in peace.
(Taken from Youngest Modern Apostle, a biography of George A. Smith published in weekly installments in Church News beginning Jan. 4, 1950, and The Story of the Salt Lake Stake, published by the Salt Lake Stake.)
