Why would anybody go to the trouble of researching the activities of
the siblings of Joseph Smith? After all, according to the Mormons, these
family members were apostates -- who left the One True Church...
So, the LDS will not be interested in what the Smith family members did
after, say, about 1846-47, when they refused to move to Utah and there
support Brigham Young and his theocratic rule in "Deseret."
During the late 1840s and into the 1850s the Mormon leaders in Utah
continued to pay some attention to Joseph's brother William Smith --
perhaps because they blamed him for interfering with the statehood
process and keeping Utah in the territorial status for many years.
And, when those Utah leaders unloaded upon William Smith, the picture
they rhetorically painted in their discourses was one of a terrible, vile
impostor of an "Apostle" -- a knave deserving of no respect or honor.
But they had previously sustained him as a "special witness for Jesus
Christ" -- as a saint ordained to be a "prophet, seer & revelator." So
long as Joseph Smith was still alive, his brother William was seated with
the "Lord's Anointed," recognized as holding the same holy "keys" as
did the rest of "The Twelve" -- and blessed to be their chief Patriarch.
So -- who was telling lies?
That is the question I keep asking myself, when looking back at the
words and acts of family members such as William Smith and his
sister Katherine Smith. I try to use reports on their behavior to
help provide me with insight into the "royal" Smith family -- and thus,
perhaps, also some insight into the motives and methods of Joseph.
Joseph was a far, far more accomplished con man, than were his siblings.
He could tell a lie and make it stick for decades -- William, Katherine
(and their mother, Lucy) were lesser liars, and their fabrications and
whitewashes of early Mormonism never held up as well as Joseph's.
So, I think we can look at William and Katherine, to gain some knowledge
about how the Smith family's religious con game functioned. They say
that "the apple does not fall far from the tree" in such cases, and I
think that the activities of this long-lived brother and sister can help
us understand how Joseph Smith, jr. himself operated in deluding folks
and in covering up his lies and crimes.
In April of 1895, Katherine Smith Salisbury testified at the RLDS Conference
that an angel had appeared to her, carrying a message to the members of
that Church -- my church; the religion I grew up in; within the same Missouri
chapel where I myself attended Reorganized LDS General Conferences.
The leaders of 1895 had sense enough to suppress the old lady's lies
and/or delusions -- before they could harm other members. Would to heaven
that they might have done the same with William Smith's Mormon lies --
and admitted also the deceptions of Emma Smith and her infamous husband.
I've left Community of Christ -- but I can't leave it alone. My coming to grips
with the Smith family's religious con game was painful.... and it still is.
Uncle Dale
