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There is something in the aged woman, in the knowledge of her long and strange experiences, that attracts the attention of all who hear her.
—Reporter from the Kansas City Daily Journal

THE TRAGEDY OF ALVIN'S DEATH paradoxically marked a turning point for Katharine and her descendants. That softening towards the Salisburys was evident in the way neighbors interacted with Katharine and her children in subsequent decades. The religious animosity so evident in earlier years began to subside, allowing the family to fully integrate into their community. Katharine gradually gained esteem with locals due to her connection to the earliest history of Hancock County, and her closing years were the most peaceful of her life. All her children lived within forty miles of her home, and her health was robust enough that she was able to visit regularly. Two of her adult children preceded her in death, Alvin in 1880, and her only surviving daughter Lucy, who died of malaria on October 18, 1892, at age fifty-eight.[1]

Of all her children, she remained closest to her youngest child Frederick and his family, who shared Katharine’s home for the last thirty years of her life; the little home and property Brigham Young and other Latter-day Saint leaders in the West had funded for her. She set up two rooms for herself, a small bedroom just big enough for a rocking chair and her bed, and a larger room where she kept a large loom. A grandson recalled that when they went to Katharine’s home, “we would find grandmother spinning yarn to knit stockings from, weaving linsey-woolsy at her loom, or braiding straw hats.”[2] She also continued to make rugs which she sold for extra income, as she had done in earlier days, and the clothing items she made became treasured heirlooms for her grandchildren.[3] Like her mother, Katharine was said to have recovered her “second sight” in later years, allowing her to read fine print without the aid of glasses.[4] She would meticulously peruse the RLDS Saints’ Herald newspapers, often responding to issues she felt passionate about.

Some of her surviving letters to her posterity during her final years frequently had to do with the ordinary day-to-day activities related to her skill with a needle. “I wish that you would get me some calico to finish my quilt,” she wrote to a granddaughter, “two and half yards of green . . . a half of light calico and one yard of handsome dark to finish my other one [quilt] and one spool of thread.” She hoped to have all these materials before she traveled to a church conference in Lamoni, Iowa where she would work on finishing the quilts.[5]

Perpetuating Faith and Values

After her eightieth birthday, Katharine felt a keen responsibility to perpetuate feminine virtues to the Saints. When she received her patriarchal blessing in 1834, not long after her marriage in Kirtland, she listened to what she held as her father’s heaven-inspired counsel: “Thou shalt teach the young of thy sex virtue and sobriety, and those things which are duties of wives and mothers.”[6] She was apparently intent about fulfilling that charge, which became especially evident once she was afforded a platform to express her values. Far removed from RLDS Church headquarters after her baptism, the primary outlet she had to spread the gospel message was through the medium of letter-writing to the editors of the Saints’ Herald newspaper. While she expressed regret that she was unable to contribute financial support to traveling missionaries, as she picked up her pen and expressed these feminine ideals it fulfilled her desire to assist in building the kingdom. [7]

Quilt made by Katharine Salisbury, ca. 1880. Photograph by Lachlan Mackay, 2024. Courtesy of Community of Christ.

During her final years, Katharine emphasized the virtues that she had learned during her youth, including prayer and scripture reading, an emphasis on supporting missionary work, and even addressing such practical matters as parenting, dress, and hairstyle. Of all these values Katharine extolled in her letters, the theme most repeated in her writings was that of appearance and dress. It was one way of demonstrating her religious piety. Most of the religions that the Smiths affiliated in Katharine’s childhood stressed plainness in apparel and hairstyle. While some were less descriptive than others, the underlying reasoning was similar—maintaining unpretentiousness in appearance reflected one’s devotion to the faith. Some denominations also taught that simplifying material needs demonstrated a willingness to dedicate resources to religious service, such as missionary work, while others stressed that simple dress indicated preparedness to labor in building up the kingdom of God.[8] By the middle of the nineteenth century however, attitudes about dress and grooming were shifting, so that women could now choose more widely how they would implement scriptural teachings about clothing and hairstyle. Despite this shift, many of the older generation, including Katharine, still clung to the more traditional view.[9]

Katharine felt impelled to instruct the younger generation in this more conservative fashion. She believed in dressing simple and remonstrated with those whom she perceived to be caught up in the ever-changing fashions she had witnessed during her lifetime, which spanned the entirety of the nineteenth century. In the early days of the church, all the sisters “dressed plain,” described Katharine in a letter she sent to the Saints’ Herald, directing sisters in the church to adopt a conservative fashion. Citing the New Testament teachings of Paul and Peter (1 Timothy 2:9–10; 1 Peter 3:3–4), Katharine stated that a woman’s hair was to “adorn the woman” and that it was a “shame to cut it off and make bangs to dangle over the forehead and in your eyes.”[10]

Katharine Salisbury, ca. 1894, by Gillett, at Lamoni, Iowa. Katharine presumably had this photo taken when she attended the RLDS general conference held at Lamoni in April 1894. Courtesy of Buddy Youngreen.

She also stressed the importance of keeping bonnets and dresses simple. Katharine felt clothing should be designed to be comfortable and not ostentatious, emphasizing the utility of such clothing in a pious commitment to work and serve others. At times, Katharine could be uncompromisingly strict in her writings, recommending in one instance that bonnets should be miniature, and that it was excessive to load hats with flowers or other ornamentations. She additionally reproved those who wore ruffled sleeves for being wasteful, and whose dresses had “cloth enough in them to make a child a dress!”[11] She valued the process of producing her own clothing, referencing a revelation proclaimed by her brother Joseph that instructed Saints to “let your garments be plain and the workmanship of your own hands.”[12] She felt that the money saved from the waste of all these “needless trimmings,” could instead be utilized in supporting missionary work.[13] Katharine repeatedly emphasized these strict guidelines regarding dress and grooming in the final decade of her life. Dressing simply was a form of religious commitment that, for her, materially demonstrated a willingness to sacrifice worldly desires and avoid pride.

One can only guess what the response was from younger generations of women in the church when they read her letters containing these strict guidelines. Her own children had grappled with their mother’s conservative values earlier in life, but Katharine’s notoriety and influence within the church was increasing as she moved into her eighties. Her fellow Saints appeared willing to tolerate some of her antiquated standards, which, instead of ostracizing her from the younger generation, appears to have instead had the opposite effect of endearing her to her fellow Saints. That held true within her family as well, as her posterity began looking to her for counsel and direction during her final years. She frequently instructed her grandchildren on how to launch a successful marriage as they arranged to wed, and as they prepared for parenthood, she would often cite the Biblical injunction in Proverbs 22:6, to “train up your children in the way they should go and when they are old they will not depart from it.”[14]

Recollections of Early Mormonism

Community of Christ (RLDS) Stone Church, Independence, Missouri, ca. early 1900s, photographer unknown.

The other theme she most frequently addressed in her letters to the Saints’ Herald was her reminiscences of the early church. Joseph III’s publication of her sworn affidavits on topics such as polygamy, and on other items of early church history that strengthened his claim to leadership, heightened interest in her memories. She was subsequently sought out by fellow Saints and newspaper reporters alike for her recollections of these events. With her brother William’s death in 1893, her last surviving sibling, it prompted her to share more of her recollections as the only surviving member of the family, ensuring that the story of early Mormonism was preserved for her family and fellow Saints. Many of these instances came when she attended the annual RLDS Conference, such as in the year 1894 in Lamoni, Iowa, when she stayed with her nephew Joseph Smith III at his spacious home, Liberty Hall. While staying there that week, she was approached by Hubert and Oscar Case, brothers who had only recently been baptized into the RLDS Church and who were preparing for missionary service.[15] The Case brothers eagerly approached the elderly matriarch, requesting her to share “her personal testimony of the story of the Smith family, and all about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.” According to Oscar, Katharine began by telling the brothers of Joseph’s First Vision, and then shared details of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and the spiritual peace that permeated her childhood home when they had the sacred record in their possession. An interaction with a member of the founding family of their faith was an experience the Case brothers never forgot.[16]

By the 1890s Katharine began traveling to both district and general conferences of the RLDS Church. Despite her age, she especially looked forward to traveling by train to Lamoni, Iowa, or Independence, Missouri for the annual RLDS conference, and fellowshipping with the Saints on these occasions was among her most treasured memories.[17] Her most notable contribution came at the annual conference held at the Stone Church in Independence, Missouri, during the week of April 6–14, 1895. Katharine’s presence was noted by local newspaper reporters who attended the conference, where she conspicuously sat on the front row near the rostrum. Either by previous invitation, or of her own volition, Katharine spoke several times during the week-long conference. The first occasion came on Monday, April 8, and she directed her remarks to the youth who were present, encouraging them to “be faithful and true” and to “lead true and pure lives” to secure their salvation. “I have always found that to be faithful was to be loved by the Lord Jesus Christ,” she reflected. She kept her remarks brief that day, disclosing that “my heart is full to overflowing and I cannot speak further.”[18]

Lucy Mack Smith, painting by Sutcliffe Maudsley, ca. 1840s. Courtesy of the Museum of Church History, Salt Lake City. Lucy has a copy of the Book of Mormon in her right hand.

Katharine, presumably holding a copy of the Book of Mormon in her left hand, photography by A. T. Holmes, Indpendence, Missouri, ca. 1895. Courtesy of Community of Christ Archives.

Lucy Salisbuy Duke, ca. 1870s. Lucy appears to have continued the tradition of being photographed with a copy of the Book of Mormon, held in her right hand. Courtesy of Mary Dennis.

Two days later during a testimony meeting, Katharine removed her shawl from her shoulders and slowly rose from her chair, receiving assistance as she climbed the stairs to the rostrum. She was the first and most notable speaker during the meeting that day, and this time spoke for a full half hour recounting details of Moroni’s visits to her brother Joseph Smith and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. According to a reporter from the Kansas City Times, she was again “several times overcome with emotion during her allusion to former scenes, incidents and characters so dear to her heart and mind,” and the congregation listened with “rapt attention.” While she followed the general outline of Restoration history as contained in her mother’s history, Katharine added unique supplementary details.She shared that when Moroni appeared to Joseph, he wore a girdle about his waist; she recounted that, following the loss of the 116 pages, Joseph fasted for several days to have the plates and Urim and Thummim returned to him; and she stated that her father and two of her brothers were the first to hear Joseph’s recital of Moroni’s visitations. She also identified Alvin and then Emma Hale Smith as the individuals identified by Moroni who were to accompany Joseph to the Hill Cumorah to obtain the Book of Mormon plates,[19] a detail her mother had not included in her history. The congregation was captivated. Her reminiscences made front-page news the next day in the Kansas City Times, and “prayers of thankfulness were offered by many members . . . for allowing the conference the privilege and blessing of having Mrs. Salisbury present.”[20] “There is something in the aged woman,” recounted the reporter who had listened to Katharine’s gripping narrative, “in the knowledge of her long and strange experiences, that attracts the attention of all who hear her.”[21]

Katharine’s experience at the RLDS annual conference was remarkably like her mother’s some fifty years earlier, when Lucy spoke to the Saints in Nauvoo during a general conference of held in October 1845. In both instances, mother and daughter not only recounted the early history of the Restoration from a family perspective but also sought to perpetuate spiritual values to the younger generation of sisters.[22] It was an unusual occurrence for a woman to speak at a general conference meeting in any Restoration branch during the nineteenth century, and it revealed the esteem Saints held for both Katharine and her mother.

During the final decade of her life, RLDS leaders began requesting Katharine sit with them on the stand during conferences. Though she was frail and spoke with a trembling voice, she continued recounting as many details of the early Restoration to RLDS Saints in the ensuing years as her health would allow.[23] In 1896, at the age of eighty-three, Katharine spoke to a congregation of more than two hundred RLDS Saints who had gathered for a district conference in Montrose, Iowa, across the Mississippi River from Nauvoo. She once again related the story of the “early life of her brother [Joseph] in connection with the angel’s visit to him and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, the trials and persecutions that were endured by their family from the very first claims made by her brother.”[24]

By the 1890s Katharine was regarded as a living link between the early church her brother had founded and the Reorganization led by his son. Her presence on the stand was visible evidence that the Reorganization was the true successor to the original church her brother had established. Her photograph, along with images of Lucy Mack Smith and Emma Hale Smith, was even included with photos of RLDS leadership on a large stand-alone print published by the church in 1897, designed to be displayed in meetinghouses and homes throughout the church.[25]

Last member of the Smith Family

Katharine with RLDS Church leaders, ca. 1896, at Burlington, Iowa. Katharine is seated front row, third from left. To her right is Alexander Hale Smith. Courtesy of Mary Dennis.

Katharine had benefited markedly from the support of her sisters after she had settled in rural Fountain Green. Descendants remembered that before Sophronia and Lucy’s deaths, the Smith sisters often traveled together to important events or jointly supported their married children in their activities in their later years. Katharine’s granddaughter Mary Salisbury Hancock recalled one such occasion when Mary’s parents attended a wedding and she and her brother were to be babysat by Katharine and Sophronia. “This arrangement was readily acceptable at the time it was made,” recalled Mary, “but not so later. Seeing me happily occupied with my blocks on the floor, my parents had slipped away. Disturbed by the void and the quiet atmosphere of the room, I looked up. There they were! Those two tall women dressed in black alpaca, hoop skirts reaching to the floor, lace neckerchiefs over their shoulders and clasped at their throats with great cameo brooches above which were the severely chiseled Smith features looking down on us. There were two outside doors in the room, and against each stood one of these black figures as though daring us to run out on them.”[26] Mary thought it best not to test the resolve of her grandmother and great-aunt on that occasion.

Katharine would greatly miss the companionship of her two sisters as they each preceded her in death. Sophronia passed in the year 1876 of unknown causes.[27] Tragically, Sophronia’s only surviving daughter Mariah, her two daughters and one granddaughter, all died by the year 1884, leaving Sophronia with no posterity.[28] Arthur and Lucy Millikin both died in the year 1882. Arthur of rheumatic brain fever, and Lucy of a respiratory illness. Linking Lucy with the greater Smith family, Solomon Salisbury preached Lucy’s funeral sermon, summarizing her life as a continual round of being “mobbed, hated and reviled, because [she] had feared God more than man. Few have loved them [the Smiths], many have hated them. The world to come will be for them a rest; for here there was none found.”[29] Fortunately for Katharine, she was surrounded by her growing posterity during the last eighteen years of her life after her sisters passed.

Gravestone of Sophronia Smith Stoddard McCleary, Mount Auburn Cemetery, Colchester, Illinois. Photograph by Kyle R. Walker, 2003.

Gravestones of Lucy Smith Millikin and Arthur Millikin, Widow Moore Cemetery, Colchester, Illinois. Photograph by Kyle R. Walker, 2003.

William B. Smith’s gravestone, Bethel Cemetery, Osterdock, Iowa. Photograph by Kyle R. Walker, 2015.

William B. Smith, ca. 1893. Photographer unknown. Courtesy of Gracia Jones.

Katharine’s only surviving sibling after the deaths of her sisters was William, who had also linked himself with the RLDS Church in the year 1878. He spent the final fifteen years of his life supporting his nephew’s leadership, even traveling as a missionary on several occasions in his old age.[30] He occasionally visited Katharine, though those stays were infrequent due to his living hundreds of miles away in northeastern Iowa. When he came to Fountain Green, William stayed at Katharine’s home, where “he and [K]atharine talked long hours day after day reliving the early years of Latter Day Saintism.” The two were united in their support of the Reorganization until the end of their lives, and Katharine’s posterity observed how “in their old age they clung to each other like a couple of children.” When William was in town, Katharine’s boys arranged for him to preach in the Eagle or Hickory schoolhouses, which were within a few miles of Katharine’s home.[31] Katharine lived another seven years after William’s death in 1893.

Katharine also remained close to Emma and her children. The first photograph in her personal photobook was an image of Emma, and atharine’s boys acted as pallbearers at Emma’s funeral in 1879, evidence of the bond between the two families.[32] While Katharine had occasional interactions with Joseph Smith III, both she and her children were closest to Joseph and Emma’s third son, Alexander. Alexander often preached in Fountain Green in response to Katharine’s pleadings and kept connected through writing letters and attending Katharine’s annual birthday celebrations.[33] When Alexander preached in eastern Hancock County, he often shared the pulpit with his cousin Solomon, and Alexander baptized members of the Salisbury family in the decade of the 1890s.[34]

Birthday Picnic Celebrations

During her final years, the Salisburys gathered each year on July 28 for a grand birthday celebration to honor Katharine at her rural home in northeast Fountain Green. As early as 1891, newspaper reporters had learned of the gathering and were eager to interview Katharine about her reminiscences of church history within the state of Illinois. Correspondents noted her tall stature, blue eyes, and her gray hair, “in which there are yet traces of gold.” “The charming old lady is a bright conversationalist,” described a reporter from the Chicago Record, “has an excellent memory and a rich store of historical facts.” She was once again depicted “as a woman who would be noticed anywhere, and in her earlier years was of a commanding presence.”[35]

Katharine’s photobook, housed at the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. Photograph by Kyle R. Walker.

More than fifty relatives would typically gather on these occasions, which expanded to include friends and dignitaries in the ensuing years. “In later years, all the clan gathered,” recalled Katharine’s grandson Herbert S. Salisbury of these memorable birthday celebrations, “with presents for her and baskets filled with cakes, pies, fried chickens etc., for a grand picnic and feast in the house and yard.”[36] The festivities included music and singing, a “bounteous” dinner, concluding with light refreshments while listening to “Aunt Katharine” share her reminiscences.[37]

Katharine prepared weeks in advance for the celebration by making a dozen or more mincemeat pies, which she stored in a thick wooden barrel that doubled as a pie safe, kept in a cool location on her property. Katharine’s granddaughter Mary Salisbury Hancock said that the large oak barrel “took the place of a cave cellar & contained grandmother’s meat as she usually had a well fatted calf or pig butchered each fall or winter for winter’s use.” When Mary peeked into the barrel on one occasion, she saw that it contained not only meat but “a large stove jar of pumpkin butter, & another of apple butter & sometimes a dozen or more mince pies which grandmother made up from the beef scraps & apples in the fall at butchering time. These pies she would always bring in one or two to heat up for our dinner.”[38] If she managed the temperature correctly, these pies and other storable food items could be stored for weeks and be protected from vermin. Mary and her brother Herbert often debated over who was Katharine’s favorite grandchild, largely determined by who received the largest slice of her mincemeat pie.[39] Descendants remember her laboring for days over her large cookstove in preparation for her birthday celebration, which she managed with expert skill.[40] After Katharine passed in 1900, Solomon continued the tradition of a Salisbury gathering on his own birthday, held each year until his death in 1927.[41]

Katharine Salisbury birthday reunion, ca. 1890s. Katharine is seated in the second row, sixth from the left. Alexander Hale Smith, son of Joseph and Emma Hale Smith, is in the third row, fifth from left.

These large Salisbury gatherings also afforded Katharine an opportunity to perpetuate her faith. Toward the end of the day’s activities, she would gather her grandchildren around her and rehearse the account of her brother’s First Vision and of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. She included stories about how she personally helped protect the plates during those tense months in the fall of 1827 and recalled the ostracism and animosity that came to the family because of Joseph’s theophany. When Katharine recounted how the minister rejected Joseph’s First Vision experience, it aroused the ire of her posterity. Granddaughter Mary Salisbury Hancock described that when “grandmother told the story we would sit at [in] rapt attention until mention of the unbelieving preacher and the great uproar that followed.” At that juncture in the story, she described how she and the other grandchildren would collectively “straighten our backs and clench our fists” in protest. The rejection of Joseph’s First Vision by a Methodist minister marked the beginning of the Salisbury family narrative of persecution and religious discrimination. Notwithstanding, Katharine remained temperate when recounting the story to her grandchildren. “Now remember, children,” she cautioned, “it is not for us to judge these people. It was a strange thing your uncle [Joseph] was telling them.”[42]

Katharine Salisbury birthday reunion, ca. 1893, at Katharine’s home in Fountain Green, Illinois. Courtesy of Mary Dennis. Katharine is seated in the middle surrounded by her grandchildren.

Toward the end of her life, Katharine enjoyed riding from one end of Hancock County to the other visiting her expanding posterity. One descendant remembered that when Katharine came to visit, she would stay most of the day, and then “about four o’clock in the afternoon she would get her wraps and say to my father, ‘Carry me on home, Jimmy.’” Before bed, she would have “a cup of tea, fix the latch, and go to bed at sundown.”[43] In her elderly years she kept herself busy by regularly baking bread, making apple and pumpkin butter, weaving, sewing, and fixing her own meals. Not long after settling on her property, she had sent Frederick into town to purchase a good milk cow and a few chickens. Not only did the chickens provide eggs for the family, but Katharine would sell the extras to purchase groceries and material for sewing. Her cow became a pet to her, following her around the yard, and she continued the chore of morning and evening milking up to twenty-four hours before her death, an indication of her remarkable physical strength.[44]

Katharine Salisbury gravestone, Webster Cemetery, Webster, Illinois. Photograph by Alexander L. Baugh, 2005.

During the final year of her life, Katharine was suffering from breast cancer. While her family feared the cancer would take her life, Joseph III, learning of her condition, promised her that condition would not lead to her death. In the closing months of 1899, she contracted a cold, which developed into pneumonia and eventually was the cause of her death on February 2, 1900.[45] James McKiernan, a prominent member of the RLDS Quorum of the Seventy, preached Katharine’s funeral sermon two days later at the Webster church. Rather fittingly, her funeral was on the same site as the Saints’ meetinghouse built at Ramus (later renamed Macedonia and then Webster) in the early 1840s, though no longer extant.[46] She was buried just a few blocks away in the Webster Cemetery, next to her husband and her two deceased children, Alvin and Lucy.

Katharine’s life had been riddled with hardships, filled with disappointment, financial poverty, religious discrimination, and the premature death of numerous family members. Despite these overwhelming challenges, she remained remarkably resilient. She managed to raise five children to adulthood as a widow living in rural Illinois, and at the time of her death, her posterity deeply revered her as the matriarch of the family. She had experienced insufferable difficulties due to her familial connection to Joseph Smith but firmly retained her belief in his mission and successfully perpetuated that faith to her descendants.

Unlike the remainder of her siblings, religious prejudice persisted for Katharine and her children long after her brothers were murdered in nearby Carthage Jail. She watched as her sons were gradually trusted to serve in prominent civic positions in the community where they had long resided. Katharine looked on her four sons with admiration and noted the irony as each of them was appointed a justice of the peace in their respective townships and in the same county where she had endured so much injustice.[47] They also served in leadership positions in the RLDS Church, making dozens of converts among their former hostile neighbors and expanding the Pilot Grove RLDS branch to eighty-seven members at its height.[48] Katharine must have been gratified that, despite all the hardships she had endured, she lived long enough to see former prejudice give way to acceptance and admiration of her growing posterity.

Solomon J. Salisbury and Frederick Salisbury in front of the Kirtland Temple, ca. 1915. Courtesy of Carla Duke.

In one interview with a newspaper reporter during her birthday celebration in the year 1894, Katharine remarked that there had been both newspaper reporters and historians that “have not always treated us right in their stories of Mormon times.” Her judicious statement grossly underestimated all she had endured as a sister of the Latter-day Saint founder. She might have elaborated on the mistreatment she and her family had experienced in Fountain Green since the 1840s but chose instead to avoid the antagonism that this might have created with her neighbors. Experience had taught her to speak temperately of the past. “All we ask is justice,” Katharine implored of the reporter.[49]

Solomon shared in the experience of overcoming religious discrimination in common with his mother, eventually winning over his neighbors. Initially viewed with skepticism and fear, his exemplary life ultimately led to respect for his character among neighbors. Warren H. Orr, a Hancock County attorney who later served as a judge on the Illinois Supreme Court, encapsulated the Salisburys’ experience in the county in a tribute he wrote to Solomon some twenty-five years after Katharine’s death. “Your life exemplifies the truth of the sometimes doubted statement that right will prevail in the end,” wrote Orr. “When one reads of your early hardships and the persecutions and impositions you suffered at the hands of ignorance and poison-minded intolerance, and yet sees that you had courage enough to stand up and tolerate the weaknesses of others and finally conquer their love and respect by your own good living, it gives one greater hope for the future.”[50] Illinois state senator Orville F. Berry, who had been at the Salisbury home on numerous occasions, similarly wrote, that “the world would be wonderfully well off if everyone was as good as [K]atherine Smith Salisbury.”[51] These tributes evidence the way Katharine and her children eventually won the respect of their neighbors through decades of steady living. For Katharine, it was her faith that had seen her through life’s challenges. She had earlier counseled Saints, “Be faithful, for there is a crown laid up for them that come up through great tribulation and faint not by the way.”[52] It was a paradigm that enabled her to endure the unrelenting adversity of her remarkable life.

Notes

[1] ��ྱ���—W�󲹱����,” Saints’ Herald 39, no. 47 (November 19, 1892): 756; “Mrs. Lucy Whalen,” Upper Des Moines (Algona, IA) 27, no. 31 (October 26, 1892): 1.

[2] Herbert S. Salisbury, “History of Salisburys, Part II, Life of Don Carlos [Salisbury] after His Return to Illinois [1866], Including Herbert’s Description of His Own Life (1870 up to 1945),” unpublished typescript, ca. 1945, 4, copy in author’s possession.

[3] Warren L. Van Dine, “Catharine Smith Salisbury,” unpublished typescript, 1972, 34, Hancock County Historical Society, Carthage, Illinois.

[4] Herbert S. Salisbury, “The Prophet’s Sister Testifies She Lifted the B. of M. Plates,” Messenger (Berkeley, CA) (October 1954): 1, 4. Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet and His Progenitors for Many Generations (Liverpool: S. W. Richards, 1853), 208–9.

[5] Katharine Salisbury (Fountain Green, IL) to unnamed granddaughter, February 11 [no year], original in possession of Estel Neff, Nauvoo, IL, copy in author’s possession.

[6] H. Michael Marquardt, comp., Early Patriarchal Blessings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Salt Lake City: Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2007), 18.

[7] Katherine Salisbury (n.p.) to Sister Frances, December 24, 1886, Saints’ Herald 34, no. 6 (February 5, 1887): 84.

[8] Mary Anne Caton, “The Aesthetics of Absence: Quaker Women’s Plain Dress in the Delaware Valley, 1790–1900,” in Quaker Aesthetics: Reflections on a Quaker Ethic in American Design and Consumption, ed. Emma Jones Lapsansky and Anne A. Verplanck (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 257–58; Matthew Simpson, Cyclopedia of Methodism (Philadelphia: Everts & Stewart, 1878), 311; William B. Sprague, Annals of the American Pulpit (New York: Robert Carter & Brothers, 1858), 139; Norman Fox, “George Fox and the Early Friends,” Baptist Quarterly 11, no. 4 (October 1877): 437.

[9] Miss Hannah Frances Rumball, “The Relinquishment of Plain Dress: British Quaker Women’s Abandonment of Plain Quaker Attire, 1860–1914” (PhD thesis, University of Brighton, 2016), 132–40, 163; Caton, “The Aesthetics of Absence,” 262; Karen J. Kriebel, “From Bloomers to Flappers: The American Women’s Dress Reform Movement” (PhD diss., Ohio State University, 1998), 2–4.

[10] Salisbury to Sister Frances, December 24, 1886.

[11] Katharine Salisbury (n.p.) to Dear Sisters, July 2, 1895, Saints’ Herald 42, no. 30 (July 24, 1895): 473.

[12] Katharine wrote “workmanship,” while the revelation read “work.” Salisbury to Dear Sisters, July 2, 1895; Michael Hubbard MacKay et al., eds., Documents, Volume 1: July 1828–June 1831, vol. 1 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Dean C. Jessee et al. (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2013), 252; Doctrine and Covenants 42:40.

[13] Salisbury to Dear Sisters, July 2, 1895; Salisbury to Sister Frances, December 24, 1886.

[14] Van Dine, “Catharine Smith Salisbury,” 33; Katharine Salisbury (Fountain Green, IL) to Dear Sisters, March 10, 1886, Saints’ Herald 33, no. 17 (May 1, 1886): 260.

[15] Earlier that same year, at an RLDS meeting held in Logan, Iowa, an elderly man arose from the audience who was seated just behind Hubert and Oscar Case. Speaking in tongues, the unnamed man laid his hands upon the two brothers and prophesied the two brothers would “be sent to far places” to preach the gospel.” Hubert served a lengthy mission to French Polynesia that next year, and both Hubert and Oscar were renowned missionaries in the RLDS faith. Alice Montague Case, “A Missionary of the Church: The Life of Hubert Case,” Saints’ Herald 100, no. 1 (January 5, 1953): 10; “Oscar Case Preaches at Campus—He’s Only 96,” Saints’ Herald 115, no. 17 (September 1, 1968): 606.

[16] Oscar Case Reminiscence, unpublished typescript, ca. 1894, Tom and Carla Duke Papers, Burlington, IA, copy in author’s possession.

[17] Mary Salisbury Hancock, “The Three Sisters of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Part III,” Saints’ Herald 101, no. 4 (January 25, 1954): 23.

[18] “Says He Saw Christ,” Kansas City Times 50, no. 99 (April 9, 1895): 1.

[19] Only Katharine and early supporter and convert Joseph Knight Sr. recounted the details about both Alvin and Emma being designated by the Angel Moroni to accompany Joseph to the Hill Cumorah. Dean C. Jessee, “Joseph Knight’s Recollection of Early Mormon History,” BYU Studies Quarterly 17, no. 1 (1976): 31.

[20] “An Angel Told Him,” Kansas City Times 1, no. 101 (April 11, 1895): 1; See also, Kyle R. Walker, “Katharine Smith Salisbury’s Recollections of Joseph’s Meetings with Moroni,” BYU Studies Quarterly 41, no. 3 (2002): 4–17.

[21] “Awaiting a Revelation—Story of a Winter Journey,” Kansas City Daily Journal 37, no. 304 (April 12, 1895): 3; see also, “The Saints Don’t Agree,” Kansas City Times 50, no. 102 (April 12, 1895): 5. Katharine continued sharing her thoughts and spiritual impressions during the week-long conference. On April 13 she recounted the miraculous way the branch of Saints completed their journey from New York to Ohio in the year 1831 under the leadership of her mother Lucy. One of the issues that was debated during conference was a question regarding the authority of the Twelve Apostles and Joseph III. Katharine went so far as to publicly censure the Saints over this debate, claiming she was visited by an angel during the previous night, who told her the church was in the wrong, and that “unless the church shall follow the prophet [Joseph Smith III] in all things the Lord would certainly send His avenging angel and punish His undutiful and disobedient people. “No Prophecies This Year,” Kansas City Daily Journal 37, no. 306 (April 14, 1895): 3.

[22] Jennifer Reeder and Kate Holbrook, eds., At the Pulpit: 185 Years of Discourses by Latter-Day Saint Women (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2017), 3–5.

[23] “Awaiting a Revelation—Story of a Winter Journey,” 3.

[24] “Latter Day Saints—The Meeting at Montrose, Ia.—A Sister of Joseph Smith Speaks,” Sioux Valley News 15, no. 16 (September 3, 1896): 1.

[25] Standalone print of RLDS Leaders, William Crick, 1897. Thanks to Lachlan Mackay for sharing with me the details and date of this print.

[26] Mary Salisbury Hancock, “The Three Sisters of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Part I,” Saints’ Herald 101, no. 2 (January 11, 1954): 10.

[27] Jessie Salisbury, “Died,” True Latter Day Saints’ Herald 23, no. 19 (October 1, 1876), 607.

[28] “W�ǴDZ������,” Saints’ Herald 43, no. 47 (November 18, 1896), 768. Sophronia’s only surviving daughter Mariah Stoddard Woolley, and her husband Nathaniel, had two daughters named Flora (1853–1881) and Ella (1857–1872). Ella died at the age of 17. Flora married Samuel Park, and died from complications due to childbirth two weeks after delivering her only daughter, Flora Isabelle Park. Flora Isabelle died at the age of three. See gravestones of Ella Woolley, Flora Park, and Flora Isabella Park, all in the Mount Auburn Cemetery, Colchester, IL.

[29] S. J. Salisbury, “Died—Millikin [December 9, 1882],” Saints’ Herald 30, no. 2 (January 13, 1883), 23; “Died—Millikin,” Saints’ Herald 29, no. 11 (June 1, 1882), 180; Nathan H. Williams, “Lucy Smith Millikin,” in Kyle R. Walker, United by Faith: The Joseph Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith Family (American Fork, UT: Covenant Communications; Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 2006), 422–23. The Millikins were married for forty-two years and raised eight children.

[30] Kyle R. Walker, William B. Smith: In the Shadow of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2015), 513–27.

[31] Van Dine, “Catharine Smith Salisbury,” 29; The History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, vol. 4, 1873–1890 (Independence, MO: Herald House, 1952), 719. Also see Joseph Smith III’s account of preaching in these two schoolhouses when visiting William’s sisters near the Hancock and McDonough County line, in Joseph Smith, “Hail the New Year,” True Latter Day Saints’ Herald 20, no. 1 (January 1, 1873): 17–18.

[32] Richard P. Howard, ed., The Memoirs of President Joseph Smith III (1832–1914) (Independence, MO: Herald House Publishing, 1979), 186.

[33] Catherine Salisbury (Fountain Green, IL) to Dear Sister Walker, February 27, 1888, Saints’ Herald 35, no. 11 (March 17, 1888): 164; Alexander H. Smith (Lamoni, IA, and Blue Rapids, KS) to Fred Salisbury, June 2 and June 5, 1897, Community of Christ Library-Archives, Independence, MO.

[34] Alex[ander] Hale Smith (Kewanee, Ill.) to Editors Herald, June 9, 1890, Saints’ Herald 37, no. 25 (June 21, 1890): 407–8.

[35] “Sister of a Prophet,” reprinted from the Chicago Record in the Saints’ Herald 40, no. 36 (September 9, 1893): 1.

[36] Salisbury, “History of Salisburys, Part II,” 4.

[37] “Sister of a Prophet,” 1.

[38] Autobiography of Mary Salisbury Hancock, 2, holograph in possession of Mary Dennis, copy in author’s possession.

[39] Salisbury, “History of Salisburys, Part II,” 4.

[40] Van Dine, “Catharine Smith Salisbury,” 34.

[41] “Celebrated S. J. Salisbury’s 89th Birthday, Sunday,” Carthage Republican 71, no. 38 (September 17, 1924): 2.

[42] Hancock, “Three Sisters, Part I,” 11–12.

[43] Ila Salisbury, “My Ancestors,” Carthage Republican 75, no. 5 (February 1, 1928): 6.

[44] Autobiography of Mary Salisbury Hancock, 2; Van Dine, “Catharine Smith Salisbury,” 34. Warren L. Van Dine, “Information of the Smith and Salisbury Families, 1966–1975,” unpublished typescript, 1966–1975, CHL.

[45] “Aunt Katharine Salisbury Dead,” Saints’ Herald 47, no. 6 (February 7, 1900): 83; “Died. Salisbury,” Saints’ Herald 47, no. 7 (February 14, 1900): 112; Frederick V. Salisbury, “The Teachings and Testimonies of My Mother,” unpublished typescript, 1926–1928, 18, Hancock County Historical Society, Carthage, Illinois; Van Dine, “Catharine Smith Salisbury,” 35–36; Solomon J. Salisbury, “Old Nauvoo Days Recalled,” Autumn Leaves 37, no. 4 (April 1924): 153.

[46] This meetinghouse was built by members of the Ramus Stake and was one of the earliest church houses built by the Saints. LaMar C. Berrett, Keith W. Perkins, and Donald Q. Cannon, Sacred Places: Ohio and Illinois (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2002), 202–3.

[47] Solomon J. Salisbury, Reminiscences of an Octogenarian (self-pub., ca. 1926), 10; Salisbury, “Teachings and Testimonies of My Mother,” 24.

[48] Pilot Grove Branch Minute Book, 122, Community of Christ Library-Archives.

[49] “Anniversary at Carthage,” Salt Lake Tribune 44, no. 57 (June 24, 1894): 16.

[50] Warren H. Orr (Carthage, IL) to Solomon J. Salisbury, September 15, 1922, in Salisbury, Reminiscences of an Octogenarian, 18.

[51] Orville F. Berry, “The Mormon Settlement in Illinois,” Transactions of the Illinois State Historical Society, for the Year 1906 (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Society Library, 1906), 93.

[52] Katherine Salisbury (Fountain Green, IL) to Dear Sister Walker, December 29, 1888, Saints’ Herald 36, no. 4 (January 26, 1889): 53.