Doctrine and Covenants Historical Resources: John Smith, Doctrine and Covenants Historical Resources (2025)
John Smith, Doctrine and Covenants Historical Resources (2025)
John Smith
(1781–1854)
John Smith, photograph, Church History Library, PH 4820.
John Smith, a younger brother of Joseph Smith Sr., was born in Derryfield (later Manchester), New Hampshire, in 1781. He married Clarissa Lyman in 1815. In January 1832, he was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and ordained an elder. From 1833 to 1838 he lived in Kirtland, Ohio, where he became a member of the Church’s first high council (Doctrine and Covenants 102:3). He was later president of the high council and a stockholder of the Kirtland Safety Society. In 1836 he accompanied Joseph Smith Sr. on a mission to the eastern United States. He moved to Far West, Missouri, in April 1838, and just over two months later, he was appointed president of the stake at Adam-Ondi-Ahman, Missouri. After the Saints were expelled from Missouri, he relocated to Nauvoo, Illinois, in June 1839. The following October, he moved to Lee County, Iowa Territory, to serve as the branch president there. In 1844 Smith was ordained a patriarch and appointed as the Nauvoo stake president. He migrated with the Saints to the Salt Lake Valley in Utah Territory in 1846–1847, where he was ordained patriarch of the Church on 1 January 1849.
References in the Doctrine and Covenants