William Smith (Mormon)

William Smith (Mormon)
Name	William Smith
Caption	William Smith, c. 1860s
Birth date	August 8, 1811
Birth place	Royalton, Vermont, United States
Death date	November 13, 1893
Death place	St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Occupation	Carpenter, printer, politician, Mormon leader
Relatives	Joseph Smith Sr. (father), Lucy Mack Smith (mother), Joseph Smith (brother), Hyrum Smith (brother), Samuel Smith (Mormon) (brother)

William Smith (Mormon) was an early member of the Latter Day Saint movement and one of the younger brothers of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint tradition. He served briefly as an apostle, acted in prominent roles during the Nauvoo period, and later staked a controversial claim to leadership after the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. His life intersected with major figures and events in the 19th-century American religious and political landscape, including interactions with Brigham Young, Sidney Rigdon, John C. Bennett, Illinois, and the wider debates over succession within the Latter Day Saint movement.

Early life and family

William Smith was born in Royalton, Vermont to Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith, members of a large frontier family that included siblings Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, and Samuel Smith (Mormon). The Smith family moved within the context of early 19th-century New England and Upstate New York migration patterns; William's upbringing involved occupations such as carpentry and printing, professions common among the Smith kin. The family household in Palmyra, New York and later Harmony, Pennsylvania and Kirtland, Ohio became central locales for the emergence of the Latter Day Saint movement and the family's social networks involving figures like Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, and Emma Hale Smith.

Conversion and early involvement in the Latter Day Saint movement

William became affiliated with the nascent Latter Day Saint movement during its formative years in New York and Ohio. Influenced by his brother Joseph Smith and family members, he participated in early communal activities alongside leaders such as Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Parley P. Pratt. William engaged in printing and publishing endeavors connected to the movement's texts and periodicals, intersecting with printers and advocates including E. B. Grandin and W. W. Phelps. His conversion was bound to the Smith family's centrality in the prophetic claims and institutional development that produced the Book of Mormon and the organizational structures of the Church of Christ.

Role during Joseph Smith's leadership and Nauvoo period

During Joseph Smith's leadership, William served in various civic and ecclesiastical roles in Nauvoo, Illinois, a site that became the movement's principal gathering place after expulsions from Missouri and Kirtland, Ohio. He became associated with municipal and militia arrangements in Nauvoo that overlapped with figures like Council of Fifty, Joseph Smith's 1844 presidential campaign, and the controversial entanglements involving John C. Bennett and William Law. William's involvement placed him in proximity to events culminating in the Martyred Prophet episode—the assassination of Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith at the Carthage Jail—and in internal Nauvoo disputes with actors such as William Law and Wilford Woodruff.

Apostleate, conflicts, and claims to leadership

In the aftermath of the deaths of Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith, William briefly asserted a senior role among the remaining leadership and was at times referenced in succession controversies that included Brigham Young, Sidney Rigdon, and James J. Strang. William had been ordained to the Quorum of the Twelve during the movement's early expansion but engaged in sharp disputes over authority, doctrine, and property that mirrored wider schisms. His claims to leadership drew on familial legitimacy and on appeals to concepts present in earlier Smith-era councils, leading to clashes with Brigham Young's leadership faction and with emergent claimants like James J. Strang and Alpheus Cutler.

Later life, excommunication, and political activities

Following persistent conflicts with other Latter Day Saint leaders, William experienced disciplinary actions including excommunication. He relocated periodically, living in places such as Iowa, Illinois, and ultimately St. Louis, Missouri, where he pursued political and journalistic activities and aligned at times with local political figures and presses. William engaged in public disputes over succession, property, polygamy debates associated with Brigham Young's leadership, and contests involving legal claims, echoing broader 19th-century controversies over religious liberty and territorial governance in areas that included Utah Territory concerns. His later correspondence and publications brought him into contact with critics and supporters among American politicians, journalists, and former Latter Day Saint adherents.

Legacy and historical assessment

Historians assess William Smith as a contentious and complex figure whose prominence derived from kinship to Joseph Smith and participation in formative controversies of the Latter Day Saint movement. Scholars cite his role in succession disputes alongside analyses of primary sources held in repositories associated with RLDS Church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and independent collections influenced by historians such as Fawn M. Brodie, Richard L. Bushman, and D. Michael Quinn. William's life illustrates tensions between familial claims, charismatic authority, and institutional consolidation that characterized the movement's mid-19th-century transformations, intersecting with major themes involving American religious history, westward migration, and partisan politics of the antebellum and postbellum United States.

Category:American Latter Day Saints Category:1811 births Category:1893 deaths