Archives West Finding Aid

The following biographies of members of the Smith family are based on information taken primarily from Andrew Jenson's Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia (Jenson History Company: Salt Lake City, 1901-1936) as well as other sources. Only biographies for the major individuals who have papers in the collection have been included.

George A. Smith (1817-1875)

George Albert Smith, first counselor to President Brigham Young from 1868 to 1875, was the first son of Patriarch John Smith and Clarissa Lyman, and a cousin to the Prophet Joseph Smith. He was born 26 June 1817, in Potsdam, New York, and was brought up in the Congregational Church. In August 1830, the father of Joseph Smith and his brother Don Carlos visited their relatives and brought with them a copy of the Book of Mormon. George A. read a great deal in the "Golden Bible," as it was popularly called, and after discussions with Joseph Smith Sr., George A. was converted. However, he was not baptized until 10 September 1832.

In May 1833, the family moved to Kirtland, Ohio. Immediately upon reaching Kirtland, George A. became interested in the affairs of the church, and was available for any duty required. He spent many nights guarding the houses of the brethren who were in danger from attack, and during the summer and fall, he quarried and hauled rock for the Kirtland Temple, helped the masons, and performed other labors.

The following year, in May 1834, George A. started from Kirtland with Zion's Camp for the State of Missouri, and returned again to Kirtland in the summer. He was ordained a member of the Quorum of the Seventy on 1 March 1835, under the hands of Joseph Smith Sr., Joseph Smith Jr., and Sidney Rigdon. He was the junior member of the First Quorum of Seventy. On May 30 he was appointed to a mission in the East. In the spring of 1836, he received his endowments in the Kirtland Temple, after which he performed a mission in Ohio. In the spring of 1837 he was again on a mission in Ohio and Virginia for about a year.

In 1838, George A. emigrated with his father's family to Daviess County, Missouri, where he was ordained a high counselor on 28 June 1838. That autumn, he was sent on a mission to Kentucky and Tennessee. Upon his return he moved with his father's family to Illinois. In 1839, he returned to Far West, Missouri, and on 26 April 1839, he was ordained one of the Twelve Apostles. He returned to Illinois where he started for England on a mission in September. He remained for over a year and then returned to Nauvoo, Illinois, in July 1841. On the 24th of that month he married Bathsheba W. Bigler.

In the summer and fall of 1843, George A. traveled in the middle and eastern states preaching. In the spring of 1844, he was preaching in Michigan when he heard of the death of Joseph Smith and immediately returned to Nauvoo. Upon returning, he was elected quartermaster of the Nauvoo Legion and was also elected a trustee of the Nauvoo House Association. He participated in erecting the building until the fall of 1845. "Before leaving the Temple of Nauvoo," wrote George A., "my wife, under the law of Abraham and Sarah, gave me five wives, viz: Lucy Smith, born February 9, 1817, at Newry, Maine; Nancy Clement, born October 31, 1815, at Dryden, Tompkins County, N.Y.; Sarah Ann Libby, born May 7, 1818, at Ossipee, Stratford County, N.H.; and Hannah Maria Libby, born June 29, 1828, at Ossipee, Stratford County, N.H." He also married Susan E. West after he reached Great Salt Lake Valley. His wives bore him twenty children, eleven of whom, among them Apostle John Henry Smith, were still living when George A. died. Early in February 1846, George A. Smith crossed the Mississippi River with his family. The ensuing winter he remained with the main camp at Winter Quarters where his third wife and four of his children died of scurvy.

In 1847 George A. accompanied Brigham Young and a company of pioneers to the Great Basin. He planted some crops and built a house for his father in the fort before returning to Winter Quarters. In 1848 he moved to the neighborhood of Kanesville and operated a farm. In 1849 he was in charge of emigration in Council Bluffs, organizing and starting the companies on their journey to Utah. With the last of these he started to Great Salt Lake with his family and arrived on 27 October 1849.

George A. was elected to the senate of the Provisional State of Deseret. In December 1850, he raised a company of 118 volunteers, accompanied by about thirty families, for the purpose of establishing a colony near the Little Salt Lake in Iron County. The company was organized at Peteetneet Creek (Payson), Utah County. They arrived at Centre Creek, 265 miles from Salt Lake City, on 13 January 1851. This place had been designated by Elder Parley P. Pratt and a company of explorers as the most suitable place in Little Salt Lake Valley for a settlement.

The organization of Iron County had been provided for by the General Assembly of Deseret. They had elected George A. chief justice, with the power to proceed with its further organization. An election was held and two associate justices, county recorder, treasurer, sheriff, assessor and collector, justice of the peace, constable, and a member of the House of Representatives of the General Assembly of Deseret were elected. In the winter of 1850 to 1851, the settlers constructed a fort, in which were located homes and a meeting house to serve for meetings, school, and watch tower for the town named Parowan. George A. taught school during the first winter. At the first territorial election in August 1851, he was elected a member of the council of the legislative assembly. He was commissioned postmaster of Centre Creek on O29 ctober 1851, and colonel of cavalry in the Iron Military District on the 29th of November by Governor Brigham Young. Afterward he was placed in command of the militia of the southern part of the territory.

In 1852 George A. left Iron County and was appointed to preside over the affairs of the church in Utah County. He traveled and preached a great deal in all the settlements over which he had care. At the general conference of the church in April 1854, he was elected historian and general church recorder, and immediately went to work compiling the documentary history of Joseph Smith. On 2 February 1855, he was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Utah and received his certificate as an attorney, counselor-at-law, and solicitor in chancery. He was elected a member of the convention and served on the committee which drafted a constitution for admission of Utah into the Union as a state. On 27 March 1856, he was elected by the convention to present (along with John Taylor, a delegate to Congress) the constitution and accompanying memorial to Congress.

In 1856 to 1857, during a journey of about eleven months in the states, and in addition to his duties as a delegate, George A. preached in the states of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, and Missouri. On 11 April 1866, he received from Governor Charles Durkee the commission of brigadier-general and was appointed aid-de-camp to the lieutenant-general of the Nauvoo Legion. At the 1868 October LDS conference, he was appointed to succeed the late Heber C. Kimball as first counselor to Brigham Young. George A. worked to establish the provisional government of the State of Deseret, and afterward to organize and enact laws for the government of the Territory of Utah. He was elected a member of the first legislature and reelected to every succeeding session but one through 1870.

George A. Smith was recognized as the father of the southern settlements, the chief of which, St. George, was named in his honor. He was president of several irrigation canal companies and was foremost in public enterprises leading to the occupation and development of the country, the establishment of home industries, and of commercial relations among the people that would tend to make them free and independent of other communities and at the same time utilize their natural resources.

On 15 October 1872, George A. started on a mission to the various European nations and to Jerusalem. During his absence he was appointed trustee-in-trust for the church, an office he held until his death. After his return he gave considerable attention to the building of the temple at St. George. He was a zealous advocate and laborer in the establishment of the United Order among the people. In the spring of 1875 George A. Smith was attacked by a severe cold which settled in his lungs. He was ill through the summer, and passed away 1 September 1875.

Elias Smith (1804-1888)

Elias Smith, president of the high priests in the church from 1870 to 1877 and president of the High Priest Quorum in Salt Lake Stake from 1877 to 1888, was born 6 September 1804, in Royalton, Vermont, the son of Asael and Elizabeth Schellenger Smith. In 1809, his father emigrated to Stockholm, New York, where Elias was raised on a farm with few opportunities for schooling. At the age of twenty-one, he entered public life and held various offices in the town of Stockholm. He also taught school for several terms.

The announcement of a new faith by his cousin, Joseph, drew several members of the Smith family into the new church. Apostle George A. Smith was a missionary at the age of sixteen, but his elder cousin Elias was thirty-one years of age when he joined the LDS Church. After the organization of the church, Joseph Smith Sr., first patriarch of the church, with his son Don Carlos, paid the families of his brothers Asael, Samuel, Silas, and John a visit in August 1830, and brought them the Book of Mormon. They all expressed interest in the new religion, but none of them were baptized until 1835, except John Smith, later patriarch of the church and father of Apostle George A. Smith. In 1835, Hyrum Smith and David Whitmer visited the area and the families of Asael and Silas were baptized, most of them on the first of July. However, Elias was not baptized until 27 August 1835, and the next morning he was ordained an elder. In the town and neighborhood of Stockholm they established a branch of the church, and in May 1836, the families of Asael and Silas Smith, with their converts, started for Kirtland, Ohio.

In 1837 and 1838, Elias Smith taught school at Kirtland. In the latter part of 1837, several of the original Twelve and other prominent men sought to divide the church. Joseph Smith Jr., his brother Hyrum, Sidney Rigdon, Brigham Young, and other leaders fled from Kirtland. A company of over six hundred of the remaining faithful members was organized to follow their leaders to Far West. This company, known as Kirtland Camp, was under seven captains, among them was Elias Smith. They left Kirtland early in July 1838 and arrived at Far West on the second of October. From Far West they went to Adam-Ondi-Ahman, where they disbanded. Scarcely had the company disbanded when the army of Governor Lilburn Boggs marched upon Far West to drive LDS members en masse out of Missouri. Elias Smith was one of the defenders of Far West who were forced to give up their arms and one of the members of the committee chosen to effect removal of the Saints from Missouri to Illinois. He was among the last to leave Far West.

Elias settled in Nashville, Illinois, four miles from Nauvoo. In the organization of the stake in Lee County, he was made a high counselor and subsequently ordained to act as bishop of the stake, a position he held until the stake was disbanded when he moved to Nauvoo. At Nauvoo he was associated with the press and became the manager of the Times and Seasons and the Nauvoo Neighbor. After the assassination of his cousins Joseph and Hyrum, he followed the leadership of Brigham Young, as did Apostle George A. Smith and his father John, who was now chief patriarch of the church.

Elias Smith left Nauvoo with his family in May 1846, intending to go with the body of the church to the Rocky Mountains that year. However, he was unable to do so and moved to Iowaville, Iowa, where his mother died in October 1846 and his father in July 1848. In 1851, he emigrated to Utah and soon after was elected probate judge of Salt Lake County by the legislature. He continued in this office until 1882. In 1852 he was appointed one of the three members of the Code Commission with Albert Carrington and William Snow. Elias was chairman. Their duty was to present to the legislature those laws best adapted to the conditions and character of the people.

In addition to his judicial duties, Judge Smith was business manager of the Deseret News under Willard Richards, and was postmaster of Salt Lake City from July 1854 to 1858. In 1856, he became editor of the Deseret News until September 1862, when he was succeeded by Albert Carrington. Afterwards, he confined himself almost exclusively to his judicial duties. In 1862, he was a member of the Constitutional Convention, and one of the committee members who drafted a constitution for the state.

Elias Smith was a bachelor until the age of forty-one. He married Lucy Brown at Nauvoo on 6 August 1845. She was born in England on 4 January 1820, joined the LDS church in 1842, and arrived in Nauvoo in 1843. She was the mother of Elias A. Smith, who succeeded his father as judge in Salt Lake County. Elias Smith died at his home in Salt Lake City on 24 June 1888.

John Henry Smith (1848-1911)

John Henry Smith, who served in the Council of Twelve Apostles from 1880 to 1910, was the son of President George A. Smith and Sarah Libby. He was born at Carbunca, near Kanesville (now Council Bluffs), Iowa on 18 September 1848. His grandfather, Patriarch John Smith, was one of the sons of Asael and Mary Smith. John Henry was only a little over a year old when he was brought to Great Salt Lake City in October 1849. His mother, who had been an invalid for years, died on 12 June 1851. John Henry was then put into the care of his mother's sister, Hannah Maria, who was also his father's wife. His father, George A., was absent from home when John Henry's mother died. In July 1852, his father moved his wives Lucy and Hannah to Provo, and there John Henry lived under the care of two mothers. His father's family was at this time widely scattered, some living in Salt Lake City, others in Provo, and some in Parowan. George A. spent only a small portion of his time at home, as the duties of his church demanded almost his entire attention. On September 18, 1856, John Henry was baptized and confirmed a member of the church by his father. He attended school in Provo and Salt Lake City.

On 29 October 1866, John Henry married Sarah Farr, daughter of Lorin and Nancy Chase Farr of Ogden. After their marriage, the young couple moved to Provo where John Henry worked as a telegraph operator. Some time during the summer of 1867, he was chosen by Bishop W. A. Follett to be his counselor and aide in the government of the Fourth Ward. He remained in this position until the time the Pacific Railroad was nearly completed. Then, he left Provo and worked for Benson, Farr, and West, aiding them in the building of two hundred miles of the Central Pacific Railway. When the work was completed, John Henry spent a number of years in his father's employ. During the 1872 session of the territorial legislature, he was assistant clerk of the House of Representatives, and also acted as assistant clerk in the Constitutional Convention.

At the general conference of the church held in May 1874, John Henry was called on a mission to Europe. He arrived in Liverpool on July 26 of that year, visited a few days with his cousin President Joseph F. Smith, and was appointed to the Birmingham conference. Subsequently, he visited most of the conferences in Great Britain, and in 1875, in company with President Joseph F. Smith and other elders, visited Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, and France. John Henry was ordered home in July 1875 when his father became sick. He arrived in time to spend fifteen days at his father's bedside before he died 1 September 1875.

John Henry then spent several years in the employ of the Utah Central Railway Company while continuing with his duties in the church. On 22 November 1875, he was ordained a high priest and bishop by President Brigham Young, and was set apart to preside over the Seventeenth Ward of Salt Lake City. In February 1876, he was elected a member of the City Council from the Third Precinct. He was reelected twice and served six years altogether. In August 1882, he was elected a member of the territorial legislature. During the excitement attending the passage of the first Edmunds law, he and Moses Thatcher were dispatched to Washington, D.C., to work with Elder George Q. Cannon in using their influence against the law's passage. They found it impossible, however, and after about a month returned home. In April 1877, John Henry married his second wife, Josephine Groesbeck, a daughter of Nicholas Groesbeck. He was ordained an apostle on 27 October 1880, and two years later was sent to preside over the European Mission.

In addition to his ecclesiastical duties, John Henry figured prominently in political affairs. He served on the Salt Lake City Council and, as a member of the territorial legislature, he was an active Republican from the time the People's party and Liberal party divided along national political lines. He was president of the convention that formed the constitution under which Utah was admitted as a state. When he became an apostle, John Henry devoted almost all of his time to public duties. A number of times he attended the sessions of the Irrigation and the Trans-Mississippi Congresses as a delegate. He was also summoned to Washington, D.C., in 1904 to appear as a witness before the Senate committee on Privileges and Elections in the case of Senator Reed Smoot. Because his time was so devoted to public affairs, Apostle Smith did not engage personally to any great extent in business enterprises, although he was connected with a number of leading business institutions of the state as an officer or director.

President Joseph F. Smith selected John Henry Smith as his second counselor in April 1910. The duties pertaining to his office were discharged by John Henry until his death in Salt Lake City 13 October 1911.

George Albert Smith (1870-1951)

George Albert Smith, eighth president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was born on 4 April 1870, in Salt Lake City, Utah, the son of John Henry and Sarah Farr Smith. He received his early education in the Salt Lake City public schools and later attended Brigham Young Academy. When his father (an apostle in the church) left on a mission to Europe in 1883, "George A.," as he was often called, returned to Salt Lake City and was employed by Zion's Co-operative Mercantile Institution (ZCMI). Subsequently, he took a position with the Co-op Wagon and Machine Company and later took courses at the University of Utah. Graduating from this institution, he returned to ZCMI where he worked until June 1892, when he was called on a mission to the Southern States. After five months in the field, he was transferred to the office at Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he became secretary of the mission.

Prior to his departure on his mission on 25 May 1892, George Albert married Lucy Emily Woodruff, a granddaughter of Wilford Woodruff, fourth president of the church. His wife joined him on his mission and they returned home in July 1894. Also prior to his mission, George Albert was ordained a member of the Quorum of the Seventy by his father John Henry Smith, and was also chosen as a president of the Third Quorum of Seventy. After returning from his mission, he took his old position at ZCMI, where he remained until 10 February 1898, when he became receiver of the United States Land Office under an appointment made by President William McKinley. He was reappointed to the same position by President Theodore Roosevelt on 27 March 1902, a position he still held when he was chosen an apostle in October 1903. At that time he also held the position of president of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association in the Salt Lake Stake. At the church's general conference on 6 October 1903, George Albert was sustained as a member of the Council of the Twelve and two days later he was ordained an apostle by President Joseph F. Smith.

George Albert's active life resulted in a serious physical breakdown in 1909 which took him out of activity for more than two years. It was late in 1912 before he was sufficiently improved to be able to resume his activities.

In June 1919, George Albert left Salt Lake City to preside over the European Mission in Liverpool, England. In 1921, soon after his return to Salt Lake, he was chosen general superintendent of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association. On May 8 of the following year, he attended the national convention of the Sons of the American Revolution, and was elected vice-president general for the Pacific and Rocky Mountain states. He held this position by reelection until he became president of the church and found it necessary to resign.

George Albert visited Alaska in 1931, and in 1932 received the honor of being elected to the National Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America, which position he held until he became president of the church. In 1934 scouting paid him the highest honor by awarding him the Silver Buffalo.

George Albert Smith was a leader in the area of preserving and marking historic trails and landmarks of the West. He served, from its foundation, as president of the Utah Pioneer Trails and Landmarks Association, and was as chairman of the "This Is the Place" Monument Commission. He presided as master of ceremonies at the centennial of the pioneers' arrival in the Salt Lake Valley.

On 5 November 1937, his wife Lucy Emily died at their home in Salt Lake City. Just a few months after her death, George Albert accepted an assignment from the First Presidency to make a tour of the Pacific Missions of the church. He was set apart as president of the Council of the Twelve Apostles on July 8, 1943. Two years later, on 21 May 1945, George Albert became president of the church at the age of seventy-five. He succeeded President Heber J. Grant, whose death occurred a week earlier.

His appointment as president of the church carried with it the presidency of several large business interests and made him a power in the business affairs of the intermountain country. He was president of Beneficial Life Insurance Company, Heber J. Grant and Company, Utah Hotel Company, Utah Home Fire Insurance Company, Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, Utah State National Bank, Zion's Savings Bank and Trust Company, and Zion Securities Corporation. He was also vice-president and director of Utah Savings Bank and Trust Company, and director of Western Air Lines, Inc., and Salt Lake Union Depot Company. He died in his Salt Lake City home on 4 April 1951, after being ill for several months.

Lucy Emily Woodruff Smith (1869-1937)

Lucy Emily Woodruff Smith, daughter of Wilford, Jr., and Emily Jane Smith Woodruff, was born 10 January 1869 in St. Thomas, Arizona (now part of Nevada). Her parents had been called there on a pioneering mission in 1867. Upon being released from their mission the family moved to Randolph, in Northern Utah, and later to Salt Lake City where her mother died on 8 May 1878. After graduating from the public schools and attending the University of Utah for a year and a half, Lucy W. received clerical training in the office of the city and county surveyor and in the office of the county recorder. She became an expert in record keeping and map making. This training proved valuable for the performance of her assigned duties in the office of the Southern States Mission in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where she had been called as a missionary with her husband, George Albert Smith, whom she had married on 25 May 1892. Upon her return from the Southern States Mission, Lucy W. served in the positions of ward president in the Seventeenth Ward Young Ladies Mutual Improvement Association (YLMIA) and counselor to the Salt Lake Stake president successively. In 1894, when the Salt Lake Stake YLMIA was organized, Lucy W. was selected as treasurer. In 1900, the Granite and Jordan stakes were formed out of the southern portion of the Salt Lake Stake and Lucy W. Smith was selected as first counselor to the president of the Salt Lake Stake YLMIA. The Stake was again divided in 1904 and the new Salt Lake State YLMIA was organized with Lucy W. as president. In October 1908, Lucy W. was called as an aide to the General Board of the YLMIA. She attended many conventions and conferences of stakes and local organizations. Besides her work in the YLMIA, for several years Lucy W. was a member of the Seventeenth Ward choir; as a member, teacher, and secretary of Sunday School; and as a charter member of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers and Daughters of the American Revolution. In 1903, Lucy W. was one of a group who visited Great Britain, Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and France. In June 1919, she accompanied her husband and two children to England, her husband having been appointed to preside over the European Mission of the church. While residing in England, she visited on the continent and represented the YLMIA to the International Council of Women Congress held in Oslo (Christiana) Norway in the fall of 1920. On 5 November 1937 Lucy W. died at her home in Salt Lake City.

Emily Smith Stewart (1895-1973)

Emily Smith Stewart, the first child of George Albert and Lucy E. Woodruff Smith, was born on 19 November 1895 in Salt Lake City. In her youth she attended public schools in Salt Lake City and St. George, Utah, as well as in Santa Monica, California. She attended the University of Utah and the Nurses Training School at LDS Hospital, graduating as a registered nurse in 1918. On 1 February 1918, Emily Smith married Robert Murray Stewart, the son of James G. and Lillian M. Murray Stewart. Robert Stewart was born on 17 February 1891, in Bauld Hill, Pennsylvania, and died on 3 November 1960. Robert Murray and Emily Smith Stewart had three children, Robert Murray, Jr., Shauna, and Martha ReJeune. Emily Smith Stewart devoted a great amount of time to civic and social services. During World War I and II she was a volunteer Red Cross nurse. She was chairman of the Intermountain Women's Army Corps Civilian Committee of the Ninth Service Command, served on the Utah State Committee for Russian War Relief, and worked with the USO Spar Committee and Wave Committee during World War II.

In the early 1940s, she volunteered her services to the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. She worked in this position until 1963, serving in official positions both in the Salt Lake County Chapter and in the National Women's Advisory Committee for the March of Dimes. In 1957, she received a citation from President Dwight D. Eisenhower for her efforts on behalf of the physically handicapped. She was selected Woman of the Year in 1966 by La Sertoma International, an auxiliary of Sertoma International. Emily Smith Stewart was affiliated with Beta Sigma Phi, Alpha Iota, Soroptomis International, the Salt Lake Council of Women, the Salt Lake County Welfare Committee, and Phi Delta Beta Mothers Club. She belonged to the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Society of Mayflower Descendants, and the Daughter of Utah Pioneers. She was also treasurer of the George Washington Bi-Centennial Celebration Committee, served twelve years on the Primary General Board of the LDS Church, and was an advisor to the General Assembly of the United States delegation to the United Nations. She traveled widely in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe. While visiting her daughter in Socorro, New Mexico, Emily Smith Stewart died on 28 February 1973.