Joseph Smith, Sr. - Early Life

Early Life

Joseph Smith, Sr. was born on July 12, 1771 in Topsfield, Massachusetts to Asael Smith and Mary Duty. He married Lucy Mack in Tunbridge, Vermont on January 26, 1796, and had eleven children with her.

Smith tried his hands at several professions, including farmer, teacher, shop-keeper, none of which proved very successful. He moved his family to Palmyra, New York in 1816 and began to make payments on a farm located on the edge of neighboring Manchester Township. He was raised to the degree of Master Freemason on May 7, 1818 in Ontario Lodge No. 23 of Canandaigua, New York. Work on a frame house at the farm was halted by the unexpected death of Smith's eldest son, Alvin, in 1823. Smith subsequently failed to make payments on the farm. Lemuel Durfee purchased it as a favor to the family and allowed the Smiths to continue there as renters through 1830.

Though a spiritual man, Smith showed little interest in organized religion and was content to allow his wife control over the religious upbringing of their children. This indifference bothered Lucy very much. After much prayer, she said she had received a divine witness that her husband would some day accept "the pure and undefiled Gospel of the Son of God."

Smith professed that he had visionary dreams with highly symbolic content, perhaps related to his ambivalence about religious faith and sometimes presaging events to come. These dreams continued after the family's move to Palmyra, New York, until he had had seven in all; Lucy remembered five well enough to quote in detail.