Joseph Fielding Smith Sr. was an American religious leader, the president of the Utah Mormons.
Background
He was born on November 13, 1838 in the town of Far West, Missouri, United States, the son of Hyrum and Mary (Fielding) Smith. His father and uncle, with other Mormon leaders, were in prison at the time. His whole childhood was spent during the period of the violent and bitter conflict between Mormons and non-Mormons in Missouri and Illinois.
In the crisis following the death of his father and uncle at the hands of a mob in June 1844, his mother followed the majority of the Mormons under the leadership of Brigham Young, migrating to Utah in 1848. Two months before Joseph Fielding was fourteen he was left an orphan by the death of his mother.
Education
Joseph had little or no schooling beyond that given him by his mother.
Career
At fifteen Smith was sent on a mission for his church to Hawaii. Recalled in the autumn of 1857 because of the impending "invasion" of Utah by federal troops under General Albert Sidney Johnston, he enlisted in the "Nauvoo Legion" and served in the so-called "Utah War" until a truce was concluded between the Mormons and federal officials. In April 1860, he set out on a mission to Great Britain, where he served until 1863. In March 1864, with other Mormon leaders, he was dispatched on a special mission to Hawaii, where he remained for nearly a year in charge of church interests.
Rising rapidly in the hierarchy of Mormondom, he was made an apostle July 1, 1866, a few months before he was twenty-eight years old. He had been active in various home missions or colonization schemes in Utah for a decade when in 1874-75 he was sent to England to be president of the European mission; in 1877 he filled this position again for some months. Upon his return in September of that year, he was sent to take charge of the Mormon interests in the eastern part of the United States. In October 1880, he was made second counselor to John Taylor, the president of the church.
In the early sixties he became active in politics. He served on the municipal council of Salt Lake City, and for seven consecutive terms (1865 - 74) was a member of the lower house of the territorial legislature. In 1880 and again in 1882 he sat in the upper house, during the second term being president. In 1882, also, he presided over the constitutional convention of Utah, but was legally disqualified under the Edmunds law because of his plural marriages.
Chiefly to prevent his prosecution for polygamy under the federal law, he was sent to Hawaii on another mission and remained there in voluntary exile until the summer of 1887. The next year he was busy in Washington with other Mormon leaders, urging Congress to grant Utah her statehood. On April 7, 1889, he became second counselor to president Wilford Woodruff, and nine years later, on September 13, 1898, second counselor to Lorenzo Snow, who had become president.
On October 4, 1901, he moved into the position of first counselor to Snow, and on October 17, a week after the death of the latter, Smith was chosen president and "Prophet, Seer and Revelator" of his church. The agitation concerning Mormon polygamy did not cease in spite of official pronunciamentos by Mormon officials following the so-called "Manifesto" of 1890, and in February 1904, as president of his church, Smith was subpoenaed to appear in Washington, before the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections.
He made two trips to Europe (1906, 1910), several trips to Hawaii, and one to Canada in 1913, when he dedicated a site for the first Mormon temple to be erected outside the United States.
In his eightieth year his health became enfeebled, and he died six days after his eightieth birthday.
Achievements
Connections
During his lifetime he had six wives. Smith ultimately adopted five children and fathered forty-five children.
On April 5, 1859, Smith married his sixteen-year-old cousin, Levira Annette Clark Smith, daughter of Samuel H. Smith. Smith and Levira had no children. Seven years later (1866), Brigham Young directed Smith to take a plural wife. Levira gave her permission and was present at the marriage of Smith and Julina Lambson (who became the mother of future president Joseph Fielding Smith) - a longtime friend of hers. Levira became disenchanted with the plural marriage arrangement and divorced Smith in 1868 and moved to California.