Sylvester Smith (Latter Day Saints)

Sylvester Smith
First Seven Presidents of the Seventy
March 1, 1835 (1835-03-01) – April 6, 1837 (1837-04-06)
End reason Honorably released because he had already been ordained a high priest[1]
Personal details
Born (1806-03-28)March 28, 1806[2]
Tyringham, Massachusetts, United States[2]
Died February 22, 1880(1880-02-22) (aged 73)[2]
Council Bluffs, Iowa, United States[2]

Sylvester Smith (March 28, 1806 – February 22, 1880)[2] was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and one of the inaugural seven Presidents of the Seventy.

Biography

Smith was born in Tyringham, Massachusetts.[2] He was a farmer, teacher, and carpenter by trade.[3] He was baptized into the Church of Christ some time before May 1831. Oliver Cowdery ordained him a high priest on October 25, 1831. During 1832, he served as a traveling missionary on a journey from Ohio to Vermont.[4]

Zion's Camp

Smith was a member of Zion's Camp in 1834, where in the words of Heber C. Kimball he displayed "refractory feelings."[5] During Zion's Camp he was blamed for "confrontations with Joseph Smith (to whom he was no relation), insubordination, threatening Joseph's dog, arguing with him, and refusing to share bread."[6] Upon the return of Zion's Camp to Kirtland, Ohio, Smith's complaints against Joseph Smith resulted in the only time in church history that the Common Council of the Church has been convened to try a President of the Church.[7] The Council, which was presided over by Bishop Newel K. Whitney, determined that Joseph Smith had "acted in every respect in an honorable and proper manner with all monies and properties entrusted to his charge."[8] In September 1834, Sylvester Smith reconciled with the high council and was dropped from the council without protesting.[9]

Kirtland life

On February 14, 1835, Smith attended the meeting where the inaugural Quorum of the Twelve was called, and three days later he was appointed to the Kirtland High Council.[4] Later that month he was ordained a Seventy, and named as one of the inaugural presidents of the Seventies the next day.[4][10] He still served on the Kirtland High Council, from which he was released in early 1836.[4]

Smith remained very active in the Latter Day Saint community for the next two years. In 1836 he briefly acted as scribe for the prophet, Joseph Smith. In Kirtland he attended the Hebrew School, the School of the Prophets, the solemn assembly in January 1836, and the temple dedication. He was a member of the Kirtland Safety Society when it was formed in 1837.[4] Perhaps because of disputed preeminence between High Priests and Seventies,[11] five of the seven presidents of the Seventy previously ordained as High Priests, including Smith, were released and returned to the High Priests quorum in April 1837.[12] George A. Smith later reported that by 1837 Sylvester was numbered among the dissenters from Joseph Smith and the church.[13] By 1838 he had left the church.[4] At this time many Mormons had left Kirtland, leaving Smith behind in the city until 1853, when he sold his land and moved to Council Bluffs, Iowa. There he was a lawyer and bought and sold real estate. In the 1850s and 1860s he was the county school fund commissioner and justice of the peace. Smith died in Council Bluffs at the age of 73.[14]

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Jenson 1901; "First Council of the Seventy". Church Almanac. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Morning News. 2008. p. 81. ISBN 978-1-59038-900-3.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 The birth on March 28, 1806 at Tyringham, Massachusetts is according to Jessee, Ashurst-McGee & Jensen 2008, p. 441, from research done for the Joseph Smith Papers Project, a large and careful collaboration which can be considered the latest scholarship. However, earlier published sources have widely differed from these details.
    Birth Date: Smith was reportedly born on March 25, 1806 according to Quinn 1994 and Ancestry.com (Kenney). It is stated as sometime in 1805 by Black 1997, Cook 1981, Jessee 1989, Jessee 1992, and Jessee 2002. Hedges 2000 claims he was born on October 15, 1805.
    Birthplace: Smith was reportedly born at Becket, Massachusetts according to Ancestry.com (Kenney), Suffolk, New York (possibly New Suffolk, New York?) according to Hedges 2000, and Connecticut according to Jessee 1989, Jessee 1992 and Jessee 2002. Quinn 1994 agrees that the birthplace was Tyringham, Massachusetts.
    Death: No source has published a known death place or date except Jessee, Ashurst-McGee & Jensen 2008, p. 441 (February 22, 1880 at Council Bluffs, Iowa).
  3. ↑ (Quinn 1994)
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "Biographical Registers - S". BYU Studies. Retrieved 2009-11-05.
  5. ↑ "Extract from the Journal of Elder Heber C. Kimball". Times and Seasons. 6, no. 1 (Jan. 15, 1845): 771–773.
  6. ↑ Kirtland High Council Minutes (December 1832–November 1837). Selected Collections, 1:19. Original, Church Archives, MS 3432, 63-73.
  7. ↑ Joseph Fielding Smith (1953). Church History and Modern Revelation (Salt Lake City: Council of the Twelve Apostles) 2:21.
  8. ↑ History of the Church 2:143.
  9. ↑ Kirtland High Council Minutes (December 1832–November 1837). Selected Collections, 1:19. Original, Church Archives, MS 3432, 74-76.
  10. ↑ (Roberts 1904, p. 204)
  11. ↑ Forty years later Joseph Young remembered this meeting was in November 1835, but he wrote that Joseph Smith made this decision to avoid a controversy over whether Seventies or High Priests were superior.
    "Some of the High Priests and a number of the Seventies introduced a question, as to which is the greatest among them, the Seventies or the High Priests. … After [a council] was assembled he asked the newly organized quorum if any of their number had been ordained to the High Priest’s office, previous to their ordination as Seventies. It was not ascertained how many from the Seventies’ quorums had previously been ordained High Priests; five out of the seven Presidents however, acknowledged that they were High Priests before they were ordained Seventies. These were Hazen Aldrich, Leonard Rich, Zebedee Coltrin, Lyman Sherman and Sylvester Smith. Accordingly, the Prophet invited them to take their places in the High Priests’ quorum again, which was complied with, thus leaving Joseph Young and Levi W. Hancock in the council. He thought that this was the best way to settle the difficulty and remove all feelings, without deciding the question as to which was the greatest.

    Young, Joseph (1878). History of the Organization of the Seventies. Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret News. pp. 4–5. Retrieved 2009-11-09.
  12. ↑ See Jenson 1901. At a solemn assembly on April 6, 1837, Joseph Smith explained that "Seventies are to be taken from the quorum of Elders, and are not to be High Priests", and so five of the seven presidents of the Seventies who were High Priests were released and returned to the high priests quorum. B. H. Roberts wrote that the presidency of the Seventies had improperly begun requiring those ordained as Seventies first be ordained High Priests. (Roberts 1904, pp. 475–477)
  13. ↑ Smith, George A., Salt Lake City Tabernacle, Jan. 10, 1858, Journal of Discourses, 7:111–116.
  14. ↑ (Jessee, Ashurst-McGee & Jensen 2008)

Sources

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