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I think you & all of the Smith family should look into this matter & see if you are not the successors of Joseph the Prophet & Hyrum the Patriarch & should lead & govern the Church in the last days.
—Arthur and Lucy Smith Millikin to Joseph F. Smith, 1863

IN THE TWENTY-FIVE YEARS since the Saints had left Nauvoo, the three Smith sisters and their families remained unaffiliated with any church. Both Katharine’s and her descendants’ retrospective recollections make it appear that the entire family was eagerly awaiting Joseph III’s appointment as his father’s successor and that they were linked with the Reorganized Church from the first.[1] In fact, it would be more than twelve years after Joseph III was ordained president of the Reorganization until the sisters allied themselves with the RLDS Church. Contemporary letters written by Katharine and her sisters help to sort out their religious leanings and attitudes related to succession in those decades after their brother Joseph’s death. While none of them had lost faith in the Restoration, their brother’s prophetic calling, or the divinity of the Book of Mormon, there was no Restoration branch in the areas they resided where their faith could find expression during the years 1846–72. However, with the traveling Latter-day Saint missionaries now proselyting the family, and Joseph III assuming leadership of the Reorganization, the Smith sisters were now confronted with several competing options.

John Smith, 1832–1911, eldest son of Hyrum and Jerusha Barden Smith. Photograph ca. 1850s and located in Katharine’s photobook. Courtesy of Mary Dennis.

Writing to her nephews living in the Salt Lake Valley in the fall of 1865, Katharine vented her frustration that Joseph III and his brothers had not shown more interest in involving her family with the Reorganization. It had been more than five years since Joseph III had been appointed president, and thus far “they have entirely forsaken us,” wrote Katharine pointedly. “They manife[s]t no interest in our eternal welfare [and] they have never invited us to come and take a helping hand with them.” At that juncture, she appeared open to uniting with the Saints in the West if the circumstances were right. “For my part I would be escedind [exceedingly] glad if all of us the connexcion one and all could live in a Society together and believe in one Lord one Saveioure one faith one baptisem.” The challenge was how to bring that desire to fruition as she seemed unwilling to relocate but emphasized that it was the “sincere desire of my heart” that all the family could “see eye to eye and rejoice in the holy one of isreal.”[2]

Joseph F. Smith, 1838–1918, eldest son of Hyrum and Mary Fielding Smith. Photograph by Edward Martin, ca. 1860s. Courtesy of Church History Library

Arthur and Lucy Millikin also wrote a letter to their nephews in the West in the year 1863 and were even more explicit in disclosing their views on succession. Writing at Lucy’s instigation, and certainly with her input, Arthur directed their letter to John Smith, just after Samuel H. B. and Joseph F. Smith had visited their home upon the completion of their missions to Europe. The Millikins mentioned Joseph Smith III’s modest success since assuming the presidency of the Reorganization and their belief that he would eventually “gather a large church around him.” Then, rather revealingly, the Millikins wrote: “I think you & all of the Smith family should look into this matter & see if you are not the successors of Joseph the Prophet & Hyrum the Patriarch & should lead & govern the Church in the last days. I do not see how you boys can preach Brigham the successor to Joseph or that he has eny more authority than he had when Joseph died. I never believed it nor never shall believe it.”[3] That view doubtless represented the position of all three of the Smith sisters and their families. While they longed for unity in the Smith family, they remained reluctant to accept Young as the head of the Church.

These letters written in the 1860s reveal the Smith sisters’ attitudes toward succession and how their views on succession differed from the Saints who had gone West, before their affiliating with the RLDS Church. What was most important to the Smith sisters was that leadership remain in the Smith line, something their brother William Smith had promoted after he split with Brigham Young’s leadership in the year 1845, and in his attempts to form his own church.[4] Yet the seedbed for the notion of lineal succession probably came much earlier. Joseph Smith frequently installed his family members in positions of leadership, teaching on at least one occasion during the mid-1830s, “my family have been chosen to preside over the quorums of the priesthood.”[5] There was a sense of privilege in being part of the founding family of Mormonism due to the sacrifices they made in helping launch the Restoration, which, at least for some, included an expectation of leadership and church financial support.[6] Thus, it clearly did not matter to the sisters which of their nephews should assume that role, as long as it was a Smith. Joseph III and Joseph F. were the most likely candidates among the succeeding generation due to their leadership abilities and charisma, and the prominent roles their fathers had played in the early church. It wouldn’t come as a surprise to the Smith family then when both men would ultimately be president of their respective churches as the two organizations transitioned to the twentieth century, but the Smith sisters had all died by the time Joseph F. was eventually installed as the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[7]

As Katharine’s sons grew to maturity during the 1850s, they also did not attend any church. Religious discrimination against the Restoration and the family’s known connection to its founder were likely factors as to why her family avoided attending other denominations who held their meetings near Fountain Green. Their primary religious instruction came from their mother in the home. Youngest son Frederick recalled how his mother frequently read and taught the children from the Book of Mormon, recounting to them the role she personally played in protecting the plates in her youth and of her firm belief in her brother Joseph’s role as a prophet.[8] Katharine would similarly perpetuate her faith to her grandchildren, several of whom recorded details of what she shared with them about her faith and participation in the early Restoration.[9]

Yet Katharine’s strict religious upbringing, and the accompanying spiritual values she sought to perpetuate, did not always transfer easily to her boys. Growing up without a father no doubt influenced their developing personalities as Solomon, Alvin, and Don Carlos were eager to chart their own course in life. But Katharine also inadvertently contributed to their religious indifference. She was, at times, too prescriptive in her religious instruction to her children, perhaps a result of trying to overcompensate in the absence of their father. In letters she wrote to the Saints’ Herald, for example, she would repeatedly chide sisters for adopting modern fashions in dress and grooming, urging them to adopt to more traditional style of fashion.[10] Though most of her surviving writings underscoring these values were often directed to female Saints, those strict traditional values from her childhood were undoubtedly directed to her sons as well. This was compounded by the fact that she seemingly had not adjusted to the societal softening of religious norms typical of religious families in the second half of the nineteenth century, as she held rigidly to a more traditional view of religious practice.[11] Like others in the Smith line, her boys were independent, and they would not be coerced into accepting their mother’s faith and values. When Alvin and Don Carlos left for the gold fields of California in November 1864, it only increased Katharine’s anxiety about how that environment might impact their moral rectitude.[12]

The apathy she observed in her boys was part of the reason she was frustrated with Joseph III and his brothers. She thought that if they had shown more interest in proselytizing her boys, “my Sons would be on a mission now instead of hunting for gold.” “For my part,” she confided to her nephews in the West, “I should feel Safer about them if they were in the employ of their hevenly father.”[13] Perhaps Joseph III was consumed with building up the newfound church in other areas of the Midwest during those early years of the Reorganization, preventing him from reaching out to his immediate cousins. Whatever his reasoning for not including the Salisburys, Katharine felt neglected and excluded by Joseph III during the decade of the 1860s. Observing the dedication of her Utah nephews who visited her home as they came and went from their various missionary assignments brought uncomfortable spiritual comparisons to her own boys. Though they respected their mother, her boys viewed their mother’s conservative views outdated. Katharine agonized over their lack of spirituality, especially with her eldest son Solomon, who had been blessed by Joseph Smith Jr. when an infant that he would grow to be a missionary and preach the restored gospel.[14] By the late 1860s, when Solomon was in his thirties, that must have seemed like an impossibility to his family. Attempting to increase his religiosity, Katharine would chide her son by rehearsing the details of the blessing he received from his Uncle Joseph, an approach that was not well received. Solomon’s response to his mother’s lectures on these occasions was that he would “prove to her that her brother was a false prophet.”[15] Solomon was old enough to observe his father’s religious skepticism during his youth, and adopted a similar mindset regarding organized religion. He described himself as a “wild, reckless boy” whose lack of interest in religion continued well into adulthood.[16] Yet even after her sons had married and had families of their own, Katharine was unrelenting in reproving her sons to accept her faith and the values she espoused.

The Salisburys’ RLDS Conversion

Joseph Smith III, 1832–1914, ca. 1870s. Photograph by Charles W. Carter, Salt Lake City. Courtesy of Community of Christ Archives.

She and her boys might have remained at an impasse but for an unexpected event that occurred in the fall of 1872. During an episode of severe illness where he was confined to his bed for the better part of a year, Solomon related how he was visited by a heavenly messenger during one particularly difficult night. The angelic visitor questioned him as to whether he wanted to get better, and that if he were to be healed, what he wanted to live for. Solomon answered, “I would like to live to raise my family.” The Spirit pressed him further, “is that all you want to live for?” “No,” responded Solomon, “I would like to do some good in the world,” adding, “I think I never have.” The messenger then directed him to send immediately for Joseph Smith III, who would provide him further direction. Learning of his cousin’s sickness, Joseph III came directly to Solomon’s home, gave him a healing blessing, and instructed him to get baptized in the RLDS faith. The following day, on October 23, 1872, before his health had even recovered, Solomon was baptized in nearby Crooked Creek by his ministering cousin. His health soon improved.[17] The experience was life-altering for Solomon and set him on a different course for the rest of his life.

Katharine was elated at this turn of events as she also embraced her nephew’s leadership during the year 1872 and lent her full support for her son Solomon, who began to preach in the area and accepted leadership responsibilities in the RLDS Church in the ensuing months. She came to accept the Reorganization as the answer to her pleadings to unite her family around her long-held religious valuesSome twelve years after accepting the presidency of the RLDS Church, Joseph III finally reached out to the three Smith sisters and their families, which was formalized during a preaching tour through Hancock and McDonough Counties during the week of December 9–17, 1872. Don Carlos Salisbury carried Joseph III in his wagon on a preaching tour through the countryside to visit all his Smith relatives, and Arthur Millikin arranged for him to use the Christian Church when they arrived in his hometown of Colchester, Illinois. All three Smith sisters, with several of their children, attended the services that were held throughout that week.[18] The influence of Joseph III’s preaching during that week, along with Solomon’s conversion and Katharine’s abiding faith in the Restoration, influenced Don Carlos and Frederick to accept the Reorganization. They were both baptized the following spring, in May 1873. Though already an adherent, Katharine formally demonstrated her belief in the Reorganization by requesting baptism and confirmation under Joseph Smith III’s hands the following month, which occurred on June 17, 1873.[19] She was just a month shy of her sixtieth birthday.

RLDS Pilot Grove Branch

Joseph R. Lambert, a newly installed apostle in the RLDS Church, supervised the organization of the Pilot Grove Branch of the RLDS Church near Fountain Green that same summer, on July 13, 1873. The expanding Salisbury family made up the core of the branch’s membership, with Solomon being appointed the branch’s first president at the meeting, and Don Carlos being ordained a deacon. Solomon had some success in those early years, eventually building up the branch to eighty-seven members by the end of the decade.[20] Considering the animosity that persisted toward the Saints in Hancock County, Solomon’s success in building up a thriving branch in the area was a remarkable accomplishment. His success brought Solomon some notoriety in the county and within the RLDS Church, and his church role was later expanded to district president, which included Nauvoo. Though he was always modest about his achievements, Solomon was celebrated as a respected church and community leader and a capable preacher.[21]

Over the next decade, Katharine continued to be influential in ensuring the rest of her children and their families united with the RLDS Church.[22] She was also the only one of the Smith sisters who was formally rebaptized, an expression of her devotion to the Reorganization for regenerating her faith. Sophronia and Lucy expressed their support of their nephew’s leadership by being received on their original baptisms in April 1873, a common practice among those who were members of the earlier church organization before Joseph Smith’s death in 1844.[23] The extent of their involvement was limited to hearing an occasional RLDS sermon in their community and securing a location where traveling RLDS ministers could preach on those infrequent visits to their hometown of Colchester. The closest RLDS congregation was the Salisburys’ Pilot Grove Branch that had been organized in the year 1873. That was still likely too far for Sophronia and Lucy’s families to make the thirty-mile round trip with any regularity, and neither of their names appear on the Pilot Grove Branch membership roster. Sophronia died in 1876, only three years after being received into the church, and both Arthur and Lucy in the year 1882.[24]

The Pilot Grove Branch went through its own ebbs and flows of activity, peaking at eighty-seven members, then dissolving at one point in the 1880s due to lack of interest, only to be revived a few years later in 1890 through Solomon’s labors.[25] Seeing her growing posterity unite around a common belief system brought Katharine great satisfaction.

Adopting RLDS Beliefs: Antipolygamy and Lineal Succession

Katharine and her sisters were unaware that their brother Joseph had introduced plural marriage at Nauvoo prior to his death. None of their spouses ever served in any significant leadership capacities, and both Sophronia and Katharine lived in remote branches of the church during the Nauvoo period, far removed from the day to day happenings at Nauvoo. Additionally, for the Salisburys, Jenkins was outside the faith during those years and would not have been aware of teachings which were reserved only for Joseph’s most trusted followers. While Katharine may have heard or read about the rumors of plural marriage during the early 1840s, to her they were simply hearsay. Katharine confirmed her lack of knowledge about plural marriage in later years, attesting that it wasn’t until after she moved her family to Nauvoo in the summer of 1845 when she first learned that church leaders were engaging in the practice in the city. “I heard nothing of such a doctrine existing until a year after his [Joseph’s] death,” she recounted, and that on “coming to Nauvoo, I was informed that Brigham Young and others were practicing that system.”[26]

Masthead of the Saints’ Herald. Note the scripture on marriage quoted on each issue of the newspaper, a defining tenet of the RLDS Church.

The source of her information was likely her brother William, because his excommunication from the Church coincided with Katharine’s return to Nauvoo and his subsequent expose of polygamy in his writings and sermons that fall during the time he and Jenkins attempted to gather adherents in St. Louis, Missouri. William attempted to place responsibility on Brigham Young for inventing polygamy to bolster a lineal claim to leadership in the mid- to late-1840s. William knew better because he had taught and practiced plural marriage during the Nauvoo period before his brother’s death,[27] but neither Jenkins or Katharine knew that, and they accepted William’s statements as further evidence that Joseph never adhered to that practice. Once Joseph III revived the idea that Young had invented plural marriage, a claim that became a founding tenet of the Reorganization, that idea aligned with Katharine’s and her sisters’ understanding because of what they had already been taught by their brother William. If Katharine was familiar with Emma Hale Smith’s later denials of plural marriage, it served only to reinforce that belief.[28] Joseph III was determined to establish a church free of polygamy and clear his father’s name from any connection to the practice, something which clearly differentiated the RLDS faith from the Saints headquartered in Salt Lake City.[29]

As the Salisburys began to affiliate more extensively with the RLDS Church in the 1870s, animosity toward Brigham Young and the Saints in the West was at its height. Katharine could not personally reconcile the perception that Young had denigrated her brother’s name and teachings surrounding polygamy in an apparent attempt to strengthen his claim to leadership. “Brigham Young invented polygamy after my brother’s death,” Katharine succinctly summarized of her understanding of the history of the practice, “and then tried to saddle its authorship upon my brother.”[30] Descendants recounted hearing that sentiment expressed by Katharine on various occasions. That perceived slander repeated in RLDS circles rekindled her animosity towards Young, despite her positive interactions with Young, LDS missionaries, and family members from the West. Among succeeding generations of Salisburys, resentment toward Young over polygamy and the perception that he had betrayed Joseph overshadowed the Salisburys’ gratitude for his generous financial gifts during the 1870s. Antipathy toward Young grew to such an extent that veiled statements Joseph had made about enemies existing within the church, just before his death, were reattributed to Brigham Young by the Salisburys.[31] Katharine and her descendants sometimes took that a step further, insinuating that Brigham Young played a role in both Joseph and Samuel H. Smith’s demise.[32]

Print of RLDS Church leadership, including images of Lucy Mack Smith, Emma Hale Smith, and Katharine Smith Salisbury, by William Crick, ca. 1897. Courtesy of Community of Christ Archives.

In the final decades of her life, Joseph III used Katharine’s recollections in the early church to strengthen RLDS ideology. On several occasions he solicited sworn affidavits on topics that included her denying the Smith family knew Sidney Rigdon until after the Book of Mormon was published, that her brother Joseph ever practiced polygamy, and repudiating that the Smith family ever supported James J. Strang’s leadership. Katharine’s denial that the family had known Rigdon prior to the latter part of the year 1830 helped the RLDS Church undercut theories that Rigdon helped to compose the Book of Mormon text.[33] In her sworn statement on plural marriage, Katharine recounted, “I was at his [Joseph Smith’s] house in Nauvoo a great many times, . . . but I never heard him at any time mention such a thing as the plural-wife system or order.”[34] It was a conversation to which Katharine would not have been privy, because plural marriage was not spoken of openly during the Nauvoo period and the Salisburys were not among Joseph’s trusted inner circle. Regarding Strang’s leadership, Katharine denied that she and her mother and sisters ever signed a certificate supporting his movement, something her brother William Smith claimed in several letters he sent to Strang in 1846.[35] Such statements strengthened Joseph III’s claim to leadership, underscoring that he was the rightful successor of his father. Joseph III ensured that her sworn statements were distributed to church members via the church’s newspaper—the Saints’ Herald.[36] Her affidavits regarding polygamy and about Strang were again used in the twentieth century by RLDS tour guides, who used her statements to strengthen the church’s position on these issues.[37]

During the final twenty years of her life, Katharine was quickly becoming an influential voice in RLDS circles, most especially in her counsel directed to women and with her recollections of the early Restoration. Her greatest contributions to the Reorganization would come during the final decades of her life, after she had reached her seventieth birthday.

Notes

[1] In a letter written just a year before her death, Katharine stated that she knew her husband “looked forward to Joseph Smith [III] taking his father’s place,” and that she and her family all “waited patiently for him to take his place.” Katharine Salisbury (Fountain Green, IL) to Editors Herald, March 26, 1899, reproduced as “Testimony of Katharine Salisbury,” Saints’ Herald 46, no. 17 (April 26, 1899): 261. Katharine’s youngest son Frederick similarly recorded that “when young Joseph took his father’s place at the head of the church . . . at Amboy, Illinois, in 1860, my mother and her two sisters . . . joined the movement of reorganization. They had waited from June 27^th 1844 until the year 1860 for young Joseph to take his father’s place.” Frederick was also mistaken in assuming that the three Smith sisters had been present when Joseph III was ordained president. Frederick V. Salisbury, “The Teachings and Testimonies of My Mother,” 1926/1928, unpublished typescript, 14–16, Hancock County Historical Society, Carthage, IL.

[2] Katharine Salisbury (n.p.) to Dear Nephews [Joseph F. Smith, John Smith], September 11, 1865, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.

[3] Arthur Millikin (Colchester, IL) to Dear Nephew [John Smith], July 25, 1863, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT.

[4] In the year after his brother Joseph’s death, William’s view on succession had shifted from fully supporting Brigham Young’s leadership, to advocating that Joseph Smith III was the rightful successor, to then promoting his own right to leadership. Kyle R. Walker, “William B. Smith and the ‘Josephites,’” Journal of Mormon History 40, no. 4 (Fall 2014): 73–83. As early as August 1845, William was began explicating the idea of lineal succession, when he wrote to a friend, “Emma is well and also little Joseph his fathers successor although some people would fain make us believe that the Twelve are to be the perpetual heads of this church to the exclusion of the Smith family, but everyone who has read the book of Doctrine and Covenants must be aware that Priesthood authority is hereditary and descends from father to son and therefore Josephs oldest son will take his place when he arrives at the age of maturity.” William Smith (Nauvoo, IL) to Jesse C. Little, August 20, 1845, Jesse C. Little correspondence, 1845–1846, CHL.

[5] Joseph Smith made this statement during a debate about whether Joseph’s brother Don Carlos should be appointed as president of the high priests in Kirtland when he was only age nineteen. After making the statement, Don Carlos was unanimously sustained. Erastus Snow quoted in John Henry Smith, Church, State, and Politics: The Diaries of John Henry Smith, ed. Jean Bickmore White (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990), 84.

[6] Kyle R. Walker, “Looking After the First Family of Mormonism: LDS Church Leaders’ Support of the Smiths after the Martyrdom,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 32, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2012): 20–26; Herbert S. Salisbury, “Reminiscences of Joseph Smith as Told by his Sister, Catherine Smith Salisbury, to her Grandson, Herbert S. Salisbury,” Saints’ Herald 60, no. 41 (October 8, 1913): 983–84; Katharine Salisbury (Fountain Green, IL) to Orson Pratt, December 20, 1877, Historian’s Office correspondence files, 1856–1926, CHL.

[7] Joseph F. Smith served as president of the church from 1901 to 1918. Katharine, the last surviving member of the Smith family, died on February 2, 1900.

[8] Salisbury, “The Teachings and Testimonies of My Mother,” 14.

[9] Herbert S. Salisbury, “Reminiscences,” 982–84; Mary Salisbury Hancock, “The Three Sisters of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Part 1,” Saints’ Herald 101, no. 2 (January 11, 1954): 10–12.

[10] Katherine Salisbury (n.p.) to Sister Frances, December 24, 1886, Saints’ Herald 34, no. 6 (February 5, 1887): 84; Katharine Salisbury (n.p.) to Dear Sisters, July 2, 1895, Saints’ Herald 42, no. 30 (July 24, 1895): 473.

[11] Kyle R. Walker, “Katharine Smith Salisbury: Purveyor of Women’s Values in the Early Restoration,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 40, no. 2 (Fall/Winter 2020): 91–92.

[12] Alvin and Don Carlos spent the winter of 1864–65 in Council Bluffs. Don Carlos made the overland journey that next year, while Alvin returned home to Fountain Green, Illinois. Herbert S. Salisbury, “The Western Adventure of Don Carlos Salisbury,” unpublished typescript, 1945, 2, CHL; Katharine Salisbury to Dear Nephews.

[13] Katharine Salisbury to Dear Nephews.

[14] Salisbury, “Teachings and Testimonies of My Mother,” 20.

[15] Salisbury, “Teachings and Testimonies of My Mother,” 20–21.

[16] Solomon J. Salisbury, Reminiscences of an Octogenarian (self-pub., ca. 1922), 8.

[17] Salisbury, Reminiscences of an Octogenarian, 10–11; Salisbury, “Teachings and Testimonies of My Mother,” 20. The episode is reminiscent of his namesake great grandfather, Solomon Mack, who was similarly converted to the Christian faith in later life after experiencing a painful illness. Solomon Mack, Narraitve [sic] of the Life of Solomon Mack (Windsor, VT: self-pub., 1811), 18–24.

[18] “Hail the New Year!,” True Latter Day Saints’ Herald 20, no. 1 (January 1, 1873): 17–18; History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 8 vols. (Independence, MO: Herald House, 1973), 3:719–20.

[19] Pilot Grove Reorganized Branch Minutes, holograph, 5–25, Community of Christ Library-Archives, Independence, MO.

[20] Pilot Grove Reorganized Branch Minutes, 122; History of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, 8 vols. (Independence, MO: Herald House Publishing, 1952), 4:698.

[21] Salisbury, Reminiscences of an Octogenarian, 11–12; “Tells of Solomon Salisbury’s Life,” Saints’ Herald 74, no. 5 (February 2, 1927): 136–37.

[22] Alvin was baptized on January 19, 1878, but was cut off for apostasy a year later. He was outside of the RLDS faith at the time he was murdered in 1880. Though no record exists documenting the baptisms of Samuel and Lucy Duke, Katharine’s daughter and son-in-law, there are records documenting the baptism of their children into the Pilot Grove Branch and evidence that Lucy attended RLDS conferences with her mother. Pilot Grove Reorganized Branch Minutes, 49, 120; Fred Salisbury (Fountain Green, IL) to Editors Herald, November 7, 1891, Saints’ Herald 38, no. 48 (November 28, 1891): 763.

[23] At the RLDS general conference held in April 1873, “Sophronia McClary, Arthur Millikin, and Lucy Millikin, were received on their original baptisms.” History of the Reorganized Church, 4:4.

[24] Jessie Salisbury, “Died,” True Latter Day Saints’ Herald 23, no. 19 (October 1, 1876): 607; “Died—Millikin,” Saints’ Herald 29, no. 11 (June 1, 1882): 180; S. J. Salisbury, “Died—Millikin,” Saints’ Herald 30, no. 2 (January 13, 1883): 23.

[25] Alex[ander] Hale Smith (Kewanee, IL) to Editors Herald, June 9, 1890, in Saints’ Herald 37, no. 25 (June 21, 1890): 407; Pilot Grove Reorganized Branch Minutes, 122.

[26] “Aunt Katharine Salisbury’s Testimony,” Saints’ Herald 40, no. 18 (May 6, 1893): 275.

[27] William Smith, “A Proclamation,” Warsaw Signal 2, no. 32 (October 29, 1845): 1, 4; Mary Ann [Covington Sheffield] West, Testimony, in United States Testimony 1892, Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit, 495–96, MS 1160, CHL. William was sealed to Mary Elizabeth Jones by Brigham Young during the summer of 1845. Ibid., 497, 509. Under the date of August 8, 1845, Brigham Young recorded in his journal, “In the evening went to Wm. Smiths and sealed [him] to Miss [Henriette] Rice.” Brigham Young Office Files 1832–1878, Brigham Young Journals, 1832–1846, CHL. For more information on William’s sanctioning plural marriages as president of the eastern branches of the Church, see Kyle R. Walker, William B. Smith: In the Shadow of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2015), 180–207.

[28] “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” Saints’ Herald 26, no. 19 (October 1, 1879): 1.

[29] Contemporary Community of Christ [formerly RLDS] histories acknowledge Joseph Smith’s teachings and involvement in plural marriage. Mark A. Scherer, The Journey of a People, 2 vols. (Independence, MO: Community of Christ Seminary Press, 2013), 1:398–409. See also Richard P. Howard, “The Changing RLDS Response to Mormon Polygamy: A Preliminary Analysis,” in Maurice L. Draper and Debra Combs, eds., Restoration Studies III: A Collection of Essays About the History, Beliefs, and Practices of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1986), 145–62.

[30] Salisbury, “Reminiscences of Joseph Smith as Told by His Sister,” 983.

[31] In his history, Frederick Salisbury recorded a story that had been perpetuated in the Salisbury line about his Uncle Joseph Smith, which stated that if Brigham Young “ever became the leader of the church that he would lead it to hell.” Salisbury, “Teachings and Testimonies of My Mother,” 12. See also Katharine Salisbury (Fountain Green, IL) to Dear Friend [unknown], February 26, 1889, Community of Christ Library-Archives. Katharine’s grandson Herbert Salisbury, whose own resentment toward Brigham Young appears to have been greater than his grandmother’s, recounted that Katharine remained very angry at Young “for claiming that her brother authorized polygamy,” implying the two had a strained relationship throughout her later years. Salisbury, “Reminiscences of Joseph Smith as Told by His Sister,” 983–84.

[32] Gay Davidson, “Anniversary of Carthage,” Salt Lake Daily Tribune 44, no. 57 (June 24, 1894): 16; Salisbury, “Teachings and Testimonies of My Mother,” 12–13. See chapter 10 for a discussion on the cause and circumstances of Samuel’s death.

[33] “Testimony of Katherine Salisbury,” Saints’ Herald 28, no. 11 (June 1, 1881): 169. For sources on Sidney Rigdon helping to manufacture the Book of Mormon, see, for example, Pomeroy Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism (New York: D. Appleton, 1867), 121–25; Benjamin G. Ferris, Utah and the Mormons: The History, Government, Doctrines, Customs and Prospects of the Latter-day Saints (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1854), 50–55.

[34] “Aunt Katharine Salisbury’s Testimony,” 275.

[35] “Testimony of Katharine Salisbury,” 261; Josephine Salisbury (Fountain Green, IL) to George Lambert, February 10, 1899, Community of Christ Library Archives; William Smith (Nauvoo, IL), to James J. Strang, March 1 [date incorrect], 1846, Voree Herald 1, no. 7 (July 1846): 3; “Opinions of the Smith Family,” Voree Herald 1, no. 6 (June 1846): 1.

[36] “Aunt Katharine Salisbury’s Testimony,” 275; “Testimony of Katharine Salisbury,” 261.

[37] Both the following sources were used by RLDS tour guides in the twentieth century and are contained in a folder at the Community of Christ Library Archives titled “For the Guides[,] Library at the Auditorium, Independence, Missouri”: Salisbury to Lambert, February 10, 1899 (denying that the Smith sisters or Lucy Mack Smith ever signed a letter that supported James J. Strang leadership); and a copy of “Aunt Katharine Salisbury’s Testimony” (quoted exactly the same as “Aunt Katharine Salisbury’s Testimony,” 275, cited above).