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Joseph
Smith's Successor
By Richard and Pamela Price
While Joseph did not ordain his son to hold priesthood, he did
designate him to be his successor by the laying on of hands at
least four different times. These four times were (1) in Liberty
Jail in 1838; (2) in Joseph's Brick Store in Nauvoo, January 17,1844;
(3) in a public meeting in the grove east of the Temple in Nauvoo;
and (4) in Joseph's home (the Mansion House) on June 24, 1844.
The Liberty Jail Designation
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| The Liberty Jail is where Joseph Smith,
Jr. first designated his son, Joseph, to succeed him. |
While Joseph and several other Church leaders were imprisoned
at Liberty, Missouri, in December of 1838, Young Joseph came to
the jail with his mother, Emma, to visit his father. There at
the age of six, by the laying on of hands, he was designated as
his father's successor in the prophetic office.
In recalling that blessing by his father, Joseph III stated,
There is a memory of accompanying my mother on another visit
to the jail, and it was upon the occasion of one or the other
of these visits that my father, with another, laid hands upon
my head and blessed me, as his eldest son, to the blessings
which had come down to him through the blessings of his progenitors.
It could not be expected that I, a child of but six years, should
remember the phraseology used by Father upon that occasion,
but the circumstance itself was indelibly fastened upon my memory
(Joseph Smith III and the Restoration,
page 13).
Young Joseph mentions "another" who assisted Joseph
in this blessing. This was Apostle Lyman Wight—one of those
imprisoned with Joseph. Four years after Joseph's death, the Gospel
Herald, published by J. J. Strang at Voree, Wisconsin,
August 31, 1848, contained this statement: "Lyman Wight seems
to cherish the idea that is ignorantly held out by some others
that Joseph, the Prophet's son, will yet come up and take his
father's original place in the church, as the prophet to the church
..." (Inez Davis, The Story of the Church,
page 385).
Lyman Wight wrote editors Cooper and Chidester of the Northern
Islander (July 18, 1855), also Strang's publication, saying,
Now, Mr. Editor, if you had been present when Joseph called
on me shortly after we came out of the jail [the dungeon part
of the Liberty Jail] to lay hands with him on the head of a
youth, and heard him cry aloud, "'You are my successor
when I depart," and heard the blessings poured on his head,—I
say had you heard all this, and seen the tears streaming from
his eyes,—you would not have been led by blind fanaticism,
or a zeal without knowledge (The Story
of the Church, page 386).
The Brick Store Designation
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| The upper room of the Red Brick Store is
where Joseph Smith, Jr. designated Young Joseph as his successor
the second time. |
Five years later Joseph III was again designated to be his father's
successor. This occurred in an upper room of Joseph's new brick
store in Nauvoo when Joseph III was eleven years old—on
January 17,1844.
Young Joseph said, "About my selection by my father to
be his successor in office, I remember of being called in his
office, or into a room adjoining his office, and receiving the
laying on of hands, and a prophetic blessing or setting apart,
whatever it may be called" (Temple Lot
Abstract, page 40).
Upon another occasion Joseph III made the following comment
concerning the Brick Store designation:
After we reached Nauvoo and after the brick store was erected,
they used to hold meetings and councils in the upper story of
the store. I remember being called into the large room. My father
and other elders and principal men of the church were there,
of whom I remember Uncle Hyrum, Newel K. Whitney, and George
J. Adams. I was seated in a chair and father and some others
laid hands upon me, oil having been poured upon my head, and
I was again blessed by my father as his son and blessings pronounced
upon me to which I was entitled as his son and successor.
I remember hearing George J. Adams say to my mother in the
hall at the Mansion House, "We now know who the successor
of Bro. Joseph will be if anything should happen to him. I have
just come from the council where your son Joseph was blessed
for that purpose" (Journal of History
2:10–11).
High Priest James Whitehead, Joseph's private secretary, was
present at the meeting at the Brick Store on January 17,1844,
and kept a record of that meeting in his possession until he gave
it to members of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles at Winter Quarters
in December, 1847. Brother Whitehead later testified:
At that meeting Joseph Smith ... was selected by his father
as his successor. He was ordained and anointed at that meeting.
Hyrum Smith, the Patriarch, anointed him, and Joseph his father
blessed him and ordained him, and Newell K. Whitney poured the
oil on his head, and he was set apart to be his father's successor
in office, holding all the powers that his father held.... I
was there too (Temple Lot Abstract,
page 28).
Brother Whitehead also explained what happened to his record
of the Brick Store designation:
I ... had certain records in my possession as private secretary
all the time until 1847, when they were turned over by order
of Joseph Smith's administrator, to the "Twelve" at
Omaha. And at Omaha, in 1847, I helped to repack the church
records, and left them in the possession of the "Twelve"
... the history or minutes of the meeting all went to Salt Lake
City ... I cannot say what became of them after they left my
hands (Temple Lot Abstract, pages
31–32).
The Grove Designation
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| The grove in Nauvoo is where Joseph III
was designated by his father, Joseph Smith, Jr., as his successor
the third time in front of 3000 people. |
The designation which is least known today is the one which was
most widely known at Nauvoo because some three thousand saints
witnessed it.
Joseph III has testified, "I was also present at a meeting
in the grove near the temple, and I remember my father laying
his hands on my head, and saying to the people that this was his
successor, or was to be his successor" (Temple
Lot Abstract, page 41).
Not only was Joseph III designated by his father in a public
meeting in the grove, but the Church accepted him as the Prophet-designate
by vote.
Brother James Whitehead explained this in these words:
The church did take action as a body on the question of the
ordination of young Joseph as his father's successor; the church
consented to it. That was done first by the indorsement of the
High Council, and then it was brought up before the whole body
of the congregation, the whole people; and there were thousands
there. That was done at the meeting held in the grove at the
east end of the temple. I should think there were three thousand
(3,000) there.
There was a record kept of it, but the record was taken to
Salt Lake. I was present on that occasion. There was a vote
taken, the congregation voted, and agreed to the appointment
of young Joseph as the successor of his father.... A negative
vote was taken, but nobody voted in the negative (Temple
Lot Abstract, page 33).
The Mansion House Designation
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| The Mansion House is where Young Joseph
was designated the last time by Joseph Smith, Jr. to succeed
him. |
The last time that Joseph III was designated by his father was
on June 24,1844—the day that Joseph left Nauvoo to go to
his death at Carthage, Illinois. He knew that he would be assassinated.
It is most significant that his last official act at Nauvoo as
the Prophet-President of the Church was to bless and designate
his son once again as his successor.
Joseph the Prophet could not go to Carthage in peace until he
had blessed Joseph III one last time. W. W. Blair has stated,
In 1866 ... Sr. Emma related to us that when her husband was
getting ready to go ... to Carthage, ... he exhibited much anxiety
and uneasiness, starting and returning twice or thrice, remarking
in the meantime that he was not yet at liberty to go. On returning
the last time he requested Emma to call the family together,
when he told them he should never see them again in the flesh,
that his work was done. After this he prayed with them, blessed
them one after the other, and predicted that Emma would bear
a son (The Saints' Advocate, July,
1882, pages 223–224).
It was at this time, that Joseph gave his last blessing and
designation to Joseph III, divinely prophesying that he would
succeed him.
Joseph III testified, "I ... remember that just before
his departure for Carthage, with a number of others, I was called
into a room in the Mansion House, and there again received the
laying on of hands, and the blessing" (Temple
Lot Abstract, pages 40–41).
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Joseph III
as a Child |
Joseph III explained that the blessing which his father pronounced
upon his head then was the same as the one given in the Brick
Store. He said, "Upon two occasions was the same blessing
confirmed by Joseph Smith, once in the council room in the brick
store ... once, in the last interview Joseph Smith held with his
family before he left Nauvoo to his death" (RLDS Church
History 3:506).
With this last mission of prophetic blessing accomplished, Joseph
rode on to Carthage. All perplexity and confusion had left him.
He was at peace. With his work completed, and his mind assured,
he turned to the men riding with him and declared, "I am
going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer's
morning."
Yes, the saints knew, and many people throughout the world knew
that Joseph Smith the Prophet had designated his oldest son to
be the next prophet. Newspapers from St. Louis to New York to
Glasgow, Scotland, reported Joseph's death and his appointed successor.
Sixteen years later, Joseph Smith III accepted the responsibility
for which he was designated as a boy. In April of 1860 he and
his mother met in conference with a group of saints in Amboy,
Illinois.
Young Joseph's address to the conference included these words:
"I have come in obedience to a power not my own, and shall
be dictated by the power that sent me ... if the same Spirit which
prompts my coming, prompts also my reception, I am with you"
(The True Latter Day Saints Herald
volume 1:102–104 and The Story of the
Church, pages 404–406).
Joseph Smith III was received and was then ordained President
of the High Priesthood, thus fulfilling the blessings he was given
as a boy which designated that he should become Joseph Smith's
successor. |
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