Background
Smith was born in Tyringham, Massachusetts.
farmer lawyer leader Missionary Presidents
Smith was born in Tyringham, Massachusetts.
He was a farmer, teacher, and carpenter by trade. Oliver Cowdery ordained him a high priest on October 25, 1831. During 1832, he served as a traveling missionary on a journey from Ohio to Vermont.
Zion"s Camp
The Council, which was presided over by Bishop Newel K. Whitney, determined that Joseph Smith had "acted in every respect in an honorable and proper manner with all monies and properties entrusted to his charge." In September 1834, Sylvester Smith reconciled with the high council and was dropped from the council without protesting.
Kirtland life
On February 14, 1835, Smith attended the meeting where the inaugural Quorum of the Twelve was called, and three days later he was appointed to the Kirtland High Council. Later that month he was ordained a Seventy, and named as one of the inaugural presidents of the Seventies the next day.
He still served on the Kirtland High Council, from which he was released in early 1836. Smith remained very active in the Latter Day Saint community for the next two years.
In 1836 he briefly acted as scribe for the prophet, Joseph Smith.
In Kirtland he attended the Hebrew School, the School of the Prophets, the solemn assembly in January 1836, and the temple dedication. Perhaps because of disputed preeminence between High Priests and Seventies, five of the seven presidents of the Seventy previously ordained as High Priests, including Smith, were released and returned to the High Priests quorum in April 1837. George A. Smith later reported that by 1837 Sylvester was numbered among the dissenters from Joseph Smith and the church.
By 1838 he had left the church.
There he was a lawyer and bought and sold real estate. In the 1850s and 1860s he was the county school fund commissioner and justice of the peace.
Smith died in Council Bluffs at the age of 73.
Smith was a member of Zion"s Camp in 1834, where in the words of Heber C. Kimball he displayed "refractory feelings." During Zion"s Camp he was blamed for "confrontations with Joseph Smith (to whom he was no relation), insubordination, threatening Joseph"s dog, arguing with him, and refusing to share bread." Upon the return of Zion"s Camp to Kirtland, Ohio, Smith"s complaints against Joseph Smith resulted in the only time in church history that the Common Council of the Church has been convened to try a President of the Church. He was a member of the Kirtland Safety Society when it was formed in 1837.