The Making of the Presidents of the Church - Part 4

Written by Stephen Thompson
Canada West Mission Centre Historian
[email protected]

Photo Credit: The Memoirs of President Joseph Smith III (1832-1914), Richard Howard, ed. (Herald House, Independence, MO; 1980). Photos from front and back covers. Left: Joseph Smith III, circa 1860, age 28 years / Right: Joseph Smith III, circa 1912, age 80 years

Historians Corner
Vol. 2 | No. 2d

I will dispense with my usual introduction concerning past columns in this series. To see the previous three parts in this series please consult the column archive here: Historians Corner.
 
Joseph Smith III (Prophet-President 1860 to 1914). Joseph Smith III was the second Prophet-President of the church in its full history (succeeding his father, Joseph Smith, Jr., following his assassination in 1844), and the first Prophet-President of the “Reorganized Church.” The basics of this story are:

• Joseph, Jr., is murdered in June 1844 leading to a leadership crisis in the church in Nauvoo, Illinois;
• there was a generally accepted narrative that he had indicated his son should succeed him in church leadership, but young Joseph is only 12 years old at that time;
• a struggle for leadership ensues;
• Brigham Young eventually makes his case to succeed Joseph, Jr., and in 1846 leads a large proportion of members west, from Nauvoo to the Great Salt Lake basin in what was then Mexico and later to become the state of Utah;
• other church leaders take smaller groups of members to other parts of the country;
• some members remain unaffiliated with any splinter group;
• finally in 1860, 16 years later and at the age of 28, Joseph III accepts the leadership of a portion of members who had been waiting for him, and thus begins the continuing saga of the church as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

If that was really all there was to the story I would end the column here – but, of course, there is much more to the process than is contained in those bullet points. In fact, there is far more involved than I am going to be able to appropriately describe in the next few paragraphs.

There once was a tendency in the way we traditionally, and somewhat informally, re-told this story to ourselves (meaning: church members, in good faith, re-telling the story to other church members or to non-church-members) that there was an identifiable group (or maybe two or three groups) who were set “adrift” from the church sometime after 1844 who very intentionally and purposely believed that young Joseph was supposed to eventually lead the church and they just waited for 16 years until he came to an appropriate age to follow that call and come back to them to lead them. Well – not really.

Both Mark Scherer in his Journey of a People (see volume 2, pages 3 to 106) and Richard Howard in his The Church Through the Years (see volume 1, pages 303 to 379) are very clear that the people who eventually coalesced into that group in 1860 experienced different journeys to get there. Some were individuals or families who had little or no contact with the church after 1844 and may or may not have actively practiced their faith. Some were members of small congregations who continued to meet and worship with no affiliation with any splinter group. Others were members who followed one (or more!) of the splinter-group leaders for a period of time then became disenchanted for any number of reasons. This included some who returned from Brigham Young’s group, and many who became disenchanted with leaders of other groups such as Sidney Rigdon (who lead a group to Pennsylvania in 1844, but it fell apart after about 2 years)[1], James J. Strang (who lead a fairly large group to, first, Voree, Wisconsin, and later to Beaver Island, Michigan; Strang’s group began to lose large numbers of members when he crowned himself king of the Kingdom of God, declared a belief in polygamy, and took 4 wives)[2], and, William B. Smith (younger brother of Joseph, Jr.; led his group to Palestine, Illinois, and later to Covington, Kentucky)[3]. This is just a selection of leaders and groups as listed by Richard Howard in The Church Through the Years.

In 1851 and 1852 two men who had been part of the church in Nauvoo independently had spiritual experiences that confirmed for them that Joseph III would eventually come to lead the church. Jason Briggs and Zenos Gurley were leaders in their own congregations in Beloit, Wisconsin, and Yellow Stone, Wisconsin. As they shared their respective experiences there came to be a desire among their congregations and a small number of others to come together to initiate a church organization to which they could invite Joseph Smith III to lead. The congregations met together at the Newark Branch near Beloit, Wisconsin, in June 1852 and, in conference actions, approved motions that set a framework and a set of priorities as a church. This was the beginning of the Reorganized Church. Eventually it was this group that sent a delegation to Joseph Smith III in 1856 to invite him to join them and to lead them. Joseph declined their invitation.[4]

Over the next three years the new organization began to attract members, including others who had been leaders in the church in Nauvoo and earlier. One of these was William Marks, a “venerable leader from Kirtland days,”[5] Marks was well-known to Joseph III and a good friend of the Smith family. It was to Marks that Joseph wrote in March of 1860 to indicate his intention to attend the special conference planned for early April 1860 in Amboy, Illinois.[6]
 
Joseph travelled to the Amboy conference from Nauvoo with his mother, Emma. Together they committed to the Reorganization. The words most frequently quoted from Joseph’s greetings to the conference on April 6, 1860, are:

“I would say to you, brethren, ... I came here not of myself, but by the influence of the Spirit. For some time past I have received manifestations pointing to the position which I am about to assume.
“I wish to say that I have come here not to be dictated by any men or set of men. I have come in obedience to a power not my own, and shall be dictated by the power that sent me.”[7]

With that, Joseph Smith III finally accepted the role of leader of the church he believed to have been founded by his father. Emma’s presence was significant in her support of her son following in her deceased husband’s footsteps. The conference voted unanimously to accept the motion that: “Brother Joseph Smith be chosen prophet, seer, and revelator of the church of Jesus Christ, and the successor of his father.” “He was then ordained ‘President of the High Priesthood of the Church by Brothers Z. (Zenos) H. Gurley and Wm. (William) Marks.’”[8]

Thus began an active, challenging, and “pragmatic” term of leadership of the church that lasted for 54 years until Joseph’s death in 1914.

Next column: How Joseph Smith, Jr., came to be the prophet-president of the church.

​Please feel free to contact me with any comments or questions.

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[1] Richard Howard, The Church Through the Years, Volume 1 (Herald House, Independence, MO. 1992) p. 312-313
[2] Ibid, p. 313-314
[3] Ibid, p. 323
[4] Ibid, p.349
[5] Ibid, p. 351
[6] Ibid, p. 369
[7] Ibid, p. 371
[8] Ibid, p. 375