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JosephSmithSr.
So shall it be with my father: he shall be called a prince over his posterity, holding the keys of the patriarchal priesthood over the kingdom of God on earth, even the Church of the Latter Day Saints, and he shall sit in the general assembly of patriarchs, even in council with the Ancient of Days when he shall sit and all the patriarchs with him and shall enjoy his right and authority under the direction of the Ancient of Days. |
MACK, Lucy[1] 
1775 - 1856 (80 years) 
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Name MACK, Lucy Birth 8 Jul 1775 Gilsum, Cheshire, New Hampshire, United States 
Christening Palmyra, Wayne, New York, United States Gender Female WAC 11 Dec 1845 NAUVO _TAG Locked By FS _TAG Reviewed on FS Death 8 May 1856 Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois, United States Burial 15 May 1856 Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois, United States Headstones 
Submit Headstone Photo Person ID I35 Joseph Smith Sr and Lucy Mack Smith Last Modified 19 Aug 2021
Father MACK, Soloman Sr. , b. 15 Sep 1732, Lyme, New London, Connecticut, United States Lyme, New London, Connecticut, United Statesd. 23 Aug 1820, Gilsum, Cheshire, New Hampshire, United States (Age 87 years) Mother GATES, Lydia , b. 3 Sep 1732, Haddam, Middlesex, Connecticut, United States Haddam, Middlesex, Connecticut, United Statesd. 9 Mar 1817, Royalton, Windsor, Vermont, United States (Age 84 years) Marriage 4 Jan 1759 Haddam, Middlesex, Connecticut, United States [2, 3] Notes - MARRIAGE: Also shown as Married Lyme, New London, Connecticut, USA. ~SEALING_SPOUSE: Also shown as SealSp 27 Aug 1957
Family ID F39 Group Sheet | Family Chart
Family SMITH, Joseph Sr. , b. 12 Jul 1771, Topsfield, Essex, Massachusetts, United States Topsfield, Essex, Massachusetts, United Statesd. 14 Sep 1840, Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois, United States (Age 69 years) Marriage 24 Jan 1796 Tunbridge, Orange, Vermont, United States 
Children8 sons and 3 daughters Family ID F29 Group Sheet | Family Chart Last Modified 24 Jan 2022
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Lucy Mack Julie Rogers Painting.JPG
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The Ancestry of Lucy Mack Smith Researched and copiled by: Alice Clarkson Turley 40 North State Street #3D, Salt Lake City, Utah 84103 ---aliceturley@byu.net ---www.aliceturley.com (Author's Note: By publishing my family history in this format I do not make any claims to 100% accuracy in research or editing. I have done my best and hope you will accept this work as it is offered. This file is copyrighted and can only be reproduced for our individual use. Please send your updates, suggestions, and corrections to me so we can continue to correct and improve this, our shared family history.) The following is recorded here because these German "Macks were, at first considered to be the ancestral line of the Prophet Joseph Smith through his Mother, however, further research and with the evidence shown in this database, the proof was found that as earlier supposed, John Mack J. was from Inveress, Scotland. His father, John Mack, was a Coventor as shown in this database. General Notes: (Reviewed by Paul Hokanson, Genealogist of the Joseph Smith Jr. Family Foundation 15315 Country Ridge Drive, Chesterfield, Missouri 63017 - Church Educational System, CES Coordinator Phone 636-537-0164) (Bob Gunderson (retired) Medival Department) Debi Latimer - "Community Tree" 801-240-2705 6th floor JSMB From our History - Speaking to the Female Relief Society of Nauvoo, the Prophet Joseph emphasized holiness, explaining that as sisters became pure and holy, they would have a marked influence upon the world. He explained: "Meekness, love, purity--these are the things that should magnify you. . . . This Society . . . shall have power to command queens in their midst. . . . The kings and queens of the earth will come unto Zion, and pay their respects." Relief Society sisters living their covenants command the respect not only of noble people, but "if you live up to your privileges," Joseph promised the sisters, "the angels cannot be restrained from being your associates." As the sisters participated in the work of serving and saving others, they became personally sanctified. Lucy Mack Smith, the Prophet's mother, shared the good Relief Society could accomplish: "We must cherish one another, watch over one another, comfort one another and gain instruction, that we may all sit down in heaven together." What Can I Do? 1. How am I helping the sisters I watch over to cultivate and achieve "elevated aims"? 2. What am I doing to make my life "choice, virtuous, and holy"? ------------------------------ Church History has recorded and passed down for over 150 years that the ancestors of Lucy Mack came from Scotland. FROM THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF MORMONISM The maternal ancestors of the Prophet Joseph Smith were named Mack(e). John Macke was born in 1653 in Scotland, a descendant of a line of clergymen. His son Ebenezer inherited his father's large estate in Lyme and married Hannah Huntley (Her ancestors were from the British Isles and came as Pilgrims). For a while Ebenezer was able to keep his family in good style, but their prosperity was short-lived. Their son Solomon, born in 1732, was apprenticed to a neighboring farmer in Lyme (at the age of four). Solomon later reported that he was treated as a slave and never given instruction in religion or taught to read and write, which was a great hardship to him in later life. In 1759 Solomon Mack married Lydia Gates, a young schoolteacher and a member of the Congregational church. She was well educated and from a well-to-do religious family. Although Solomon and Lydia came from contrasting backgrounds, theirs was an enduring marriage. Lydia took charge of both the secular and religious education of their eight children. They pioneered the upper Connecticut River Valley and settled Marlow, New Hampshire. They later moved to Gilsum, New Hampshire, where the Prophet Joseph's mother, Lucy Mack, was born in 1775. Lucy Mack Smith was given a Patriarchal Blessing on 9 Dec 1834 in Kirtland, Lake County, Ohio. Officiator: Joseph Smith, Sr. Sources: (1). "History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Period I." History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet by Himself, Vol. 1. Published by the Church, The Deseret Book Company, SLC 1946; (2). Ancestral File (TM), data as of 2 January 1996, Family History Library, 35 North West Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah 84150; (3). "History of Joseph Smith By His Mother," Edited by Scot Facer Proctor & Maurine Jensen Proctor, 1996 Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, Utah, ISBN I-57008-267-7; (4). "LDS Family History Suite," The LDS Vital Records Library. Radical Origins: Early Mormon Converts and Their Colonial Ancestors by Val D. Rust University of Illinois Press, Copyright © 2004 Val D. Rust is a professor of education at UCLA and the author of "Toward Education for the Twenty First Century" 1997 and other works." Page 23 Ancestors of Early LDS Converts - Five Generations of Ancestors in America (Table 3 provides a general profile of the birthplaces of all six generations, based on the total number of ancestors identified birthplaces of Six Generations of Early LDS Converts and Their Ancestors - Europe, Outside New England, New England.) Page 25 "Joseph Smith Jr. on his mother's side - Her pedigree chart has a complete set of ancestors through the first four generations, including names as well as nearly all birth and death. While Lucy Mack was born in New Hampshire, all her first-, second-, and third generation ancestors were born in Massachusetts or Connecticut and died in Lyme, Connecticut. In other words, as far as can be determined, all Lucy Mack's ancestors, through three generations, died in New England. "The fourth generation of her ancestors, though not shown here because of space limitations, becomes a bit more complicated. Among the sixteen fourth-generation ancestors, two birth dates and three death dates are not known. The dates for the remaining fourth-generation ancestors are known, but only one, Orlando Bagley, was born in England, while the rest were born in New England; all of them died there. "Her fifth-generation profile (Joseph Smith, Jr.'s sixth) is similar to her fourth. Of thirty-two possible fifth-generation ancestors, seven were known to have been born in England and seventeen in New England; however, all twenty-four of them died in New England. This represents the generation of the Mack family that completed the migration from England and Scotland to America; however, all twenty- four of them died in New England. This represents the generation of the Mack family that completed the migration from England and Scotland to America. "Among Lucy Mack's known fifth-generation ancestors, three special and sometimes overlapping clusters, are noteworthy. First, some of them were children and grandchildren of Pilgrims who came to America on the Mayflower, such as John Howland Jr., who was the son of passenger John Howland Sr. (1602-72/73) was a servant of John Carver, first governor of Plymouth; Elizabeth accompanied her parents, John Tillie and Joan Hurst, on the initial Pilgrim voyage. Her parents died that winter in Plymouth. Samuel Fuller, another ancestor, was the son of Mayflower passenger Edward Fuller. "The second cluster of Mack ancestors belonged to the congregation of John Lathrop (1584-1653, the Separatist minister who settled Barnstable, in Plymouth Colony, with his congregation in 1638-39. Lathrop and his congregation had languished for two years in prison in London before being released on condition that they leave England. The daughter of John Lathrop, Jane, married Samuel, the son of Mayflower passenger Edward Fuller. Other Mack forebears in Lathrop's congregation include John Crocker and Mary Lee. "The third cluster of ancestors Henry Champion, Lewis Jones and Balthazar de Wolf, were members of a congregation that traveled together to Connecticut to settle Wethersfield, one of the first communities in the colony. They were among a large number of LDS forerunners who belonged to that religiously radical congregation." Excerpts from pp 60-71Puritan Ancestors in Connecticut From Massachusetts to Connecticut " Puritans who fled the problems plaguing Massachusetts moved to Connecticut and New Haven Colonies, where they set up small tightly knit theocratic polities.(1) A "small, inconspicuous agricultural colony," Connecticut was isolated from the main currents of New England's religious and political activity. (2) It did not fit the general Massachusetts profile of sharp class distinctions, and each small congregation was left to its own devices to form its individual community and character. Connecticut Puritans took pride in their independence, and their norms and politics reflected a strong sense of individualism. "Historians of Connecticut claim the colony, with its strong heritage of Congregationalism, was the birthplace of constitutional government. (3) As early as 1637, a year after Thomas Hooker and his group settled Hartford Hooker began formulating a constitution for the inhabitants of Windsor, Hartford, and Wethersfield. On 14 January 1639, residents agreed to a written constitution specifying representative government. Although Hooker is credited with having anticipated America's democratic form of government, the more impotent issue for him was to ensure that all political decisions be made according to "the blessed will and law of God." The written constitution defined for magistrates and others the "bounds and limitations" that the law of God placed on them. (4) "Connecticut Puritans expressed a religious fervor exceeding that of many other Puritans, leading to a "staunch determination to worship in purity and simplicity." (5) They strove to behave like saints and to lead lives as godly as possible. The first towns of Connecticut exemplify the Congregational wing of the broader Puritan movement. Even though Congregationalism had found a certain resonance in England, especially after Oliver Cromwell aligned himself with its cause, it was in the New England colonies that the so-called Congregational Way took permanent form. "Even though the Connecticut congregations remained formally within the framework of nonseparation, by the middle of the century they had become Separatist in almost every other way.(6) To begin with, the form of governance in Connecticut was very similar to that of Pilgrim Separatists. The Mayflower in Connecticut was very similar to that of Pilgrim Separatists. The Mayflower Pilgrims were a covenant people, which meant they had made a compact with the Lord to bind themselves to him and to each other. Further, because Plymouth was without a minister for almost ten years, the local congregation learned to manage its affairs without dependence on the hierarchical English Episcopal tradition. Finally, the Pilgrims cast off pomp and ceremony in favor of simplicity of worship. (7) All Puritan congregations incorporated some features of Pilgrim life, but they were particularly evident in Puritan Connecticut. "Because of the manner in which it was colonized Connecticut escaped the problems racking Massachusetts. Small groups located far from Boston for the specific purpose of establishing autonomous theocratic communities and avoiding the dictates of the hierarchically oriented Puritan leaders of Massachusetts These communities were theocratic, in that the church and its religious leaders instituted civil authority to secure "the purity and peace of the ordinances to themselves and their posterity" (8) "In their quest to establish some communal utopias, Congregational leaders rejected all divisive behaviors and feared schismatic doctrines. Consequently, they suppressed the development of dissenting sects or any form of religious liberty. In 1656, for example, when the first Quaker women arrived seeking proselytes, the Connecticut general court quickly forbade Quakers, Ranters, Adamites, or "such like notorious heritiques" from remaining in any town for more than fourteen day. (9) "In spite of attempts to suppress religious liberty certain internal developments in most congregations led to crises. (10) The major leverage for conformity a congregation exercised was dismissal or even excommunication, but that option only contributed to divisions, which the congregations wished to avoid. Another internal problem was caused by "withdrawers," who voluntarily removed themselves from the congregation in one town to join a congregation in another, to the dismay of those just abandoned inhabitants were generally identified as religious radicals. Excerpts from pp. 62-66 LDS Ancestors in Connecticut "A high concentration of fifth-generation ancestors of the early LDS converts was to be found in Puritan Connecticut. While the ratio of LDS ancestors to general inhabitants was not as high as in Plymouth Colony, it was substantial. In 1650, there were only some 4,100 inhabitants in Connecticut, about 18 percent of the New England population, but at least 27 percent of the LDS ancestors so far identified were from the colony. (12) From another perspective, almost one-third of the Connecticut population at that time were fifth- generation ancestors of early LDS converts, more than our overall finding that one-fifth of the New England population were ancestors. From yet another perspective, at least 309 (53 percent) LDS converts in this study could claim at least one fifth-generation ancestor from Connecticut. At least 28 of the 55 original heads of household who arrived in Hartford in 1635 were ancestors of LDS converts, including such early leaders of the LDS Church as members of the Quorum of Apostles, Orson and Parley Parker Pratt, the first bishop, Edward Partridge Sr. and the apostle and eventual LDS president, Wilford Woodruff On the other side were people such as magistrate John Talcott, ancestor of early LDS convert John Gould; .. The Mary and John, which set sail in March of 1630, was the first ships in the Winthrop fleet to land in Massachusetts. (27) . . . Among the converts who could claim ancestors from Windsor were some well-known leaders of the LDS Church, including Apostles W. W. Phelps, Luke John, and Orson Hyde; Lucy Mack, the mother of the prophet Joseph Smith Jr.; Polly Peck; Bishop Edward Partridge Sr., the apostle and eventual church president, Lorenzo Snow; and many others. pp. 95-99 Anabaptists, Quakers, Gortonists - Following the Reformation, the radical spiritualist awakening contributed to the establishment of many Christian church communities claiming an esoteric, mystical foundation. When New England was colonized, representatives of most of these groups migrated to the New World. According to George Washington Green, Cotton Mather expressed frustration with the developments in Rhode Island, which he declared was "a collunies of Antiomians, Familists, Anabaptists, Anti-Sabbatarians, Arminians, Socinians, Quakers, Ranters, everything in the world but Roman Catholics and true Christians."(1) Anabaptism, Quakerism, and Gortonism were the three religious movements thought to pose the greatest threat to Puritanism. Ancestors of LDS converts played active roles in all three groups. Anabaptists The first European Anabaptists, or rebaptizers, followers of Huldrych Zwingli (1484- 1531), believed the ancient church and the Holy Spirit already had been restored through contemporary divinely inspired apostles. Anabaptists belonged mainly to the disinherited classes, peasants, poor handicraftsmen, and the economically oppressed, who attempted to translate the idea of a primitive church into institutional reality. (2) One of their important tenets was adult baptism, withheld until the believer was old enough to be able to distinguish between good and evil. A number of Anabaptist branches sprang up in Europe, taking on a number of different names, each with its own peculiar orientation. While "Anabaptist" was a pejorative term, believers identified themselves by names such as Brethren." . . . One significant group was the Munster Anabaptists, initiated in 1534 by a group of Dutch religious radicals who claimed their church had been founded by twelve apostles representing the twelve tribes of Israel. They claimed Christ had charged them to go two by two, proclaiming an apocalyptic dispensation had begun that would usher in the "new world," the "millennial kingdom," the "restitution of all things," the reign of the saints," and the "Kingdom of God on earth."(4) Munster in Westphalia, Germany, was designated the new Jerusalem, which would prepare the way for the second coming of Christ. The city of Munster was a hothouse for radical Protestants, and its residents quickly responded to the efforts of Anabaptist missionaries. A wave of apocalyptic dispensation had begun that would usher in the "new world," the "millennial kingdom," the "restitution of all things," the "reign of the saints," and the "Kingdom of God on earth." (4) . . . The Munster experiment died almost as quickly as it was born . . . one that would spill over into England and then New England and would anticipate, even prophesy, Mormonism in America three hundred years later. Within these decades after the first settlers arrived in New England, Ana-baptists or rebaptizers, were present in a number of towns. They believed God had taken the church of Jesus Christ from the earth but that God was now restoring the church, and Anabaptists were to be part of its restoration. In the mid-seventeenth century, most Anabaptist activity in New England took place in the Rhode Island and Plymouth Colonies, though there was also a presence in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Maine. Page 105 ""Many Rogerenes were ancestors of early LDS converts. One of the more important connections comes through the Mack family. Lucy Mack was Joseph Smith Sr.'s wife, and her grandfather, Ebenezer Mack, had belonged to the Open-Communion Baptist Church in Lyme, Connecticut. Ebenezer's father, John Mack Jr., had married the niece of Rogerenes -Samuel and Bathsheba Fox. Lucy's uncle, Elisha Mack, had also married into a family connected to the Rogerenes. (Footnote 48: Brooke, Refiner's Fire, p. 85.)" Pg 143 "Among [Joseph Smith's] earliest American ancestors, through his mother, Lucy Mack, one finds seven passengers of the Mayflower, including the Fullers, the Tillies, and John Howland (Footnote #4) These Mayflower ancestors developed close ties to John Lathrop's Separatist congregation in Barnstable. For instance, Samuel Fuller, also of the Mayflower, married Jane, daughter of John Lathrop. John Howland's daughter, Hannah, married a member of Lathrop's Barnstable congregation, Jonathan Crocker. "The Mack family arrived in America somewhat later than most of the LDS ancestors. Whereas most fifth-generation ancestors of LDS converts were born in America, John Mack Sr., (The Immigrant) , Lucy's third-generation ancestor, was born in Scotland and did not arrive in America until 1669 as a sixteen-year-old -teenager. John Mack came from a long line of Scottish clergymen. He settled in (Pennsylvania first) and then on to Lyme, New London, Connecticut, a town where, in the 1740s, at the time of the Great Awakening, the so-called New Lights of Evangelism would become affiliated with the Rogerenes, and later generations of his family belonged to the Open-Communion Baptist Church in Lyme. (see Footnote #5) "Lyme was a center of both the First and Second Great Awakenings. Lyme's mainstream Congregational minister during the 1 740s was Jonathan Parsons, one of the active initiators of revivals in the town and elsewhere. His revivals were so wrenching that there was said to be "plentiful Weeping, Sighs and Sobs" (see Footnote #6) The Macks, along with other Baptists, were undoubtedly involved. "On his father's side, Joseph Smith Jr. could claim descent from some of the earliest settlers of several towns in Essex County, Massachusetts. (see Footnote #7) His first American paternal ancestor, Robert Smith (fifth-generation ancestor), was an early resident of Topsfield, Essex County, Massachusetts. Robert was born in 1626, in Kirton, Lincolnshire, England, and came to Massachusetts with a brother in 1638 at the age of twelve. After working as a tailor in Boston for some time, he married the daughter of Thomas French, one of the early settlers, and first constable, of Ipswich. (see Footnote #8) The Smiths lived first in Boxford and then Topsfield, where Robert was active in civic and religious affairs. He chose not to join the Puritan Congregational Church in Topsfield, and some critical historians of Religion in America see this as an act of what Hall refers to as a "horseshed Christian," someone who hangs back from a total commitment to religion. (see Footnote #9) (Pedigree Chart included with all ending with the John Mack 1653-1721 in Lyme, Connecticut and for the Joseph Smith's line with the pedigree ending with the Gates, the Dutton, the Fuller, De Wolf and the Crocker Families.) From the Encyclopedia of Mormonism Smith, Lucy Mack Author: Anderson, Richard Lloyd Lucy Mack Smith (1775-1 856) was the mother of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his main biographer for the crucial formative years of the restored Church. A marked tenderness existed between the Smith parents and children, and Lucy lived near or in the Prophet's household through hardships in New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois. Mother and son maintained the strongest mutual respect throughout these years of change, sacrifice, and persecution. Faith in God was central to Lucy Smith's personality. When a young mother, she became critically ill and spent a night very near death, but a voice promised her life after she pleaded for the power to "bring up my children, and comfort the heart of my husband," with a vow to serve God completely. More than forty years later, she publicly reviewed the result of her parental leadership with her husband, Joseph Smith, Sr. Of eleven children, nine reached maturity, and with typical intensity, Lucy said, "We raised them in the fear of God.. I presume there never were a family that were so obedient as mine" (MS conference minutes, Oct. 8, 1845, HDC). Her father, Solomon Mack, was a dynamic venturer who showed courage and self-reliance in close combat in the French and Indian Wars and afterward as merchant, land developer, contractor, miller, seafarer, and farmer. Unsatisfied with the seeming meaninglessness of his way of life, he finally found God after severe sickness. He then published his concise biography-the saga of how God protected him in his wanderings and at the end showered his soul with love and insight. Lucy Mack Smith identified deeply with her mother, Lydia Gates, who came from the home of a prosperous Congregational deacon. Lydia used her school teaching skills in the home, creating what Solomon called an atmosphere of "piety, gentleness, and reflection" (Anderson, 1971, p. 27). All of the Mack children possessed mixtures of the daring enterprise of their father and the assertive piety of their mother. Lucy was true to this heritage of seeking light and then sharing it. Lucy was born in Gilsum, New Hampshire, where town records enter her birthday as July 8, 1775, the year the American Revolution began. Her education included attending school there and at Montague, Massachusetts, supplemented by private instruction by her mother. Lucy Smith's speeches and writing reveal an intelligent believer who used English capably. In her late teens Lucy was also greatly influenced by the courageous deaths of her older sisters; each died in her early thirties, after testifying to personal revelations of the hereafter and of Christ's love. Anderson, Richard Lloyd. "The Reliability of the Early History of Lucy and Joseph Smith." Dialogue 4 (Summer 1969):13-28. Anderson, Richard Lloyd. Joseph Smith's New England Heritage. Salt Lake City, 1971. Anderson, Richard Lloyd. "Joseph Smith's Home Environment." Ensign 1 (July 1971 ):57-59. Anderson, Richard Lloyd. "His Mother's Manuscript: An Intimate View of Joseph Smith." BYU Forum address, Jan. 27, 1976. Anderson, Richard Lloyd. "The Emotional Dimensions of Lucy Smith and Her History." In Dedication Colloquiums, Harold B. Lee Library, pp. 129-37. Provo, Utah, 1977. (Retrieved from http://eom.byu/index.php/Smith%2C_Lucy_Mack (last modified 21:40, 28 March 2008.) For the incredible spiritual life of Lucy Mack Smith see "Lucy's Book - A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith's Family Memoir" edited by Lavina Fielding Anderson 2001 by Signature Books Publishing, LLC The History of the Church Vol. l pg 14 - Footnote 11: History of the Prophet Joseph, Lucy Smith "As it will be necessary to make frequent reference to this book, it is proper to say that it was originally published under the title Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet and his Progenitors for Many Generations by Lucy Smith, mother of the Prophet, originally published under the title Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, published by Orson Pratt in 1853. Mrs. Martha Jane Knowlton Coray was "Mother Smith's" amanuensis - (a Latin word for certain persons performing a function by hand, writing down the words of another) from 1844-1845. She made two copies of the work; one of which she left with Lucy Smith and the other Mrs. Coray took to Utah and deposited it in the hands of President Brigham Young. The first edition of this story was published in England in 1853. History of Joseph Smith By His Mother Luck Mack Smith born in Gilsum, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, on the 8th of July, 1776. Her mother was (Lydia Mack #28932) The Revised and Enhanced History of Joseph Smith by His Mother Edited by Scot Facer Proctor and Maurine Jensen Proctor See Chapter 47 Editors' Reminder: The Revised and Enhanced History of Joseph Smith by His Mother is a copyrighted work and is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. None of this edited work is in public domain and cannot be published or republished in any form. 1999-2009 (Meridian Magazine. All Rights Reserved. Used by Alice Turley in this file by Written Permission dated March 5, 2010. About the Authors: Maurine Jensen Proctor is the Editor-in-Chief of Meridian Magazine and the author with her husband Scot of several books. Scot is the Publisher of Meridian Magazine. Related Resources: History of Joseph Smith Archive General Notes for Joseph Smith Sr.: Reference: History of the Church - Ancestry of Joseph Smith the Prophet 13-16) Joseph Smith, son of Asael Smith, and father of the Prophet, was born at Topsfield, Massachusetts, July 12, 1771. He accompanied his father, Asael Smith, first to northern New Hampshire, thence to Tunbridge, Vermont, where he assisted in clearing a farm of which, four years after it was first cleared, he took possession to cultivate on the "half share" system, common to those times in New England; while his father and four other sons went on clearing a farm of which, four years after it was first cleared, he took possession to cultivate on the "half share" system, common to those times in New England; while his father and four other sons went on clearing other lands. Here he married Lucy Mack, daughter of Solomon Mack of Gilsum, Cheshire County, New Hampshire. The young people met during the repeated visits of Lucy to her brother, Stephen Mack, who was engaged in the mercantile and tinning business with John Mudget at Tunbridge. The marriage took place on the 24th of January, 1796. The book has been republished several times, under various publishers, editors and titles. The following is a list of editions with significant changes to the text or title. Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, and His Progenitors for Many Generations, by Lucy Smith, Mother of the Prophet. Liverpool: S.W. Richards for Orson Pratt. 1853. Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet and His Progenitors for Many Generations. Plano, Illinois: Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. 1880. Smith, George ; Smith, A. Elias, eds. (1902), History of the Prophet Joseph, by His Mother, Lucy Smith, as Revised by George A. Smith and Elias Smith, Salt Lake City, Utah: Improvement Era . Seek Ye Earnestly - Background of the Prophet Joseph Smith pg. 177 "Joseph Smith, Senior, was the first to accept the message of the Prophet. His life was from that time forth, interwoven in the history of the Church. He was the first Patriarch ordained in this dispensation, receiving that office by divine right as the firstborn descendants of Ephraim. All of these persons were highly respected and honored by their fellow citizens, until the knowledge went forth that the Lord had spoken to the youthful Prophet. From that day forth vicious and evil persons did everything in their power to destroy the character of Joseph Smith and his forebears, thus fulfilling the prophetic words of Moroni when he first came to the bedside of Joseph Smith with the definite call to his important mission." Dreams, Visions and Visitations: The Genesis of Mormonism by Richard K. Behrens, The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, XXVII, 2007, page 173-175. Excerpt from "Spiritual Background of the Community" In the midst of this religious malaise in December 1805 Joseph Jr. was born on the Solomon Mack farm, which straddled the boundary between Royalton and Sharon, Vermont. There must have been some concern before Joseph's birth since Joseph Sr. made a twenty-four-mile round-trip to fetch Dr. Joseph Adams Denison from Bethel, Vermont, who was the best known baby doctor in the region. [28] Denison had been trained by his cousin Joseph Adams Gallup who had been the first graduate of the new Dartmouth Medical School, founded in 1796 by Nathan Smith. [29] The Dreams Begin In 1811 there was also a revival in the area that strongly affected Lucy's father, Solomon Mack, and caused him to write his history and embark upon on a preaching tour from town to town. [34] Joseph Sr. also reacted to the revival by having his first seeker dream in which he was uncomfortable with the images of bickering that, without true religion or a plan of salvation, were represented by fierce wild animals. Yet at the same time he was comfortable with his position. [35] This revival focused on many of the Calvinist vs. Arminian doctrinal issues that were continuing to be fiercely contested at nearby Dartmouth College. Joseph's focus on the plan of salvation appears to reflect his growing interest in Christ's atonement. 28 Porter, "Origins of the Church," 7. 29 Oliver Hubbard, The Early History of the New Hampshire Medical Institution (Washington, D.C.: The Globe Printing and Publishing House, 1880), 14. 34 Anderson, Joseph Smith's New England Heritage, 39. 35 Smith, History of Joseph Smith, 85. The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology 1644-1844 by John L. Brooke Cambridge University Press, 1996. FOOTNOTES for the following excerpts can be found on pages 328-335 of his book. We recommend this book to those interested in the spiritual environment of the region in which the Mack and Smith families lived. pp. 78-87 "To complete this tour of the interpenetration of the visible and invisible worlds among the most important proto-Mormon families, we need to turn to the experience of Joseph Smith's mother's family, the Macks. Settling in the broader orbit of the Rogerenes, the Macks would carry their religious belief into the spiritual realms of visions, healings, and the quest for a new dispensation well before Joseph Smith Sr. married Lucy Mack in Tunbridge, Vermont, in 1796. "The founder of the family, John Mack, arrived in New England in 1669 at the age of sixteen, hailing from the Scottish town of Inverness. Again, like Robert Smith, we must assume that John Mack served an indenture of an apprenticeship. It is also interesting that he gravitated to a sectarian environment. In 1681 John Mack married Sarah Bagley in Salisbury, Massachusetts, just south of Hampton, New Hampshire, where Stephen Batchelor had established his Husbandmen, and where Quaker sentiments voiced in the 1660s anticipated the forming of a Monthly Meeting by 1705 (footnote 64). In 1692 his father-in-law, Orlando Bagley, was deputized as constable to arrest Susannah Martin on witchcraft charges, but John Mack had moved his family to Concord by 1684, and in 1696 moved on to Lyme, Connecticut. (Footnote 65) "When they arrived in Lyme the Mack family included six children, the eldest about thirteen, and six more would arrive by 1706. Lyme was a place where the older proprietary families held the advantage, and prospects were bleak for most newcomers. (Footnote 66) The town was still thinly settled, but the land was very stony and hilly, and the Macks arrived too late to gain a proprietorship. John Mack was granted an inhabitancy in July 1702, six week after the distribution of lots in the last division of Lyme's common lands. (Footnote 67) "Mack died at sixty-eight in 1721, and his sons did not fare well in the decades following. The eldest, John Jr., thirty-nine at his father's death, moved away from farming into the retail trade, selling dry goods brought in from Boston. Taken ill quite suddenly, he died in 1734. His younger brother Ebenezer had inherited the family farm and had - in the memory of his son Solomon - a "large property and lived in good style" until he suffered a sudden financial disaster in the late 1730s. Though he did not die until 1777, Ebenezer Mack's family was dispersed among neighboring households, including four-year-old Solomon Mack, the maternal grandfather of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet. Solomon's cousin Ebenezer Mack (son of John Jr.), who would become the (Ana-Baptist or Brethren minister in East Lyme), chose a rich landowner in north Lyme, Samuel Selden, as his own guardian, and it is possible that Solomon too worked in this household until he enlisted in the provincial forces in 1755 to take part in the fighting on Lake Champlain. Over the next several years Solomon Mack alternated between service with the army and farming in Lyme. In 1759 he married Lydia Gates of the Millington District of East Haddam, and in 1762 they joined the streams of migrants moving up the Connecticut River to settle first in Marlow and then in Gilsum, New Hampshire, where they would live among people from Lyme and people who would figure in the later story of the emergence of Mormonism. (Footnote 68) "These, then, are the outlines of the Mack family experience in Lyme. It is possible that John Mack, apparently of dissenting inclination, with no necessary commitment to the brand of Puritan orthodoxy in Massachusetts Bay, was attracted to Lyme because of the unorthodox reputation of its religious culture. If late immigrants were less likely to have had Puritan motivations, Lyme and its mother town of Saybrook would have been especially attractive. Saybrook was founded in 1635 by John Winthrop Jr. without the Puritan requirement of a settled minister or an established church, which was not organized until 1646. Lyme was even more aberrant. Settled in 1666 and set off from Saybrook in 1670, Lyme had regular preaching by Moses Noyes but no incorporated church until 1693, a circumstance that, as one historian has put it, "may have been unique" in seventeenth-century Connecticut. (Footnote 69) "As we have seen, Saybrook and Lyme constituted the western flank of a region stretching from the lower Connecticut River to Cape Cod where sectarian dissent challenged and often supplanted Puritan orthodoxy. In southeast Connecticut itself, sectarianism began in the 1670s, with the rise of the Seventh-Day Baptists in New London, the secession of Rogerenes, and the itinerancies of the Singing Quakers. By the 1720s Sixth Principle Baptist churches had been formed in Groton and New London with a spreading from their center at New London into Groton, East Lyme, Saybrook, Colchester, and Lebanon. (Footnote 70) The Great Awakening would bring even greater religious complexity to southeast Connecticut, with Separate churches hiving off from the establishment and Ana-Baptist meetings emerging from these, all in an environment intensified by James Davenport's violent revivalism in New London. (Footnote 71) And scattered through the region there were reminders of a radical religious tradition stretching back into the Reformation and the English Revolution. The New London Rogers family was descended from the martyr John Rogers, burned at the stake in 1560; the martyr's Bible was said to have been carried like a talisman to America, and passed down through Roger's kin among the Westerly, Rhode Island, Sabbatarians. Valentine Wightman, who ministered to the Groton Sixth Principle Baptist while remaining on good terms with the Rogerenes, was descended from Edward Wightman, who went to his execution in 1612 in full expectation of the coming of the prophet Elias and a new dispensation. In New London, the Sixth Principle Baptists were led by Stephen Gorton, descended from Samuel Gorton of Warwick and a son-in- law of James Rogers of New London. (Footnote 72) "It was this regional culture, pervasively colored by sectarian controversy, highlighted by Rogerene spiritism and Davenport's enthusiasm, in which the Mack family lived for six decades before joining the migration up the Connecticut River to New Hampshire. John Mack Sr., (The Immigrant) . expressed his own hostility to the Congregational "standing order" in twice refusing to serve as a collector of the established minister's rate. (Footnote 75) The Macks were not immune to economic aspiration, as suggested by John Mack, Jr.'s venture in trade and manifested in Solomon Mack's lifelong neglect of religion as he tried "to lay up treasures in this world." (Footnote 76) But when Solomon was converted in 1811, it was in a family tradition of visionary experience, a tradition nurtured in the sectarian environment of southeast Connecticut. "On February 13, 1721, John Mack Sr., (The Immigrant) scrawled his signature on his last will and testament, distributing his worldly goods and, in the manner of English dissenters, announcing that he died "in hope of a joyful resurrection at the last day (illegible) justified in Christ Jesus." ((Footnote 77- Will of John Mack, Feb 13, 1721, Colchester Probate District Records, docket no. 3349. On pious clauses, see Margaret Spafford, Contrasting Communities: English Villagers in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (New York, 1974), 320-344.)) Three weeks before, John Mack Jr. had signed another document, the petition of eighteen inhabitants that a separate parish be set off in north Lyme. One of the men witnessing his father's will, Jasper Griffing, also signed the parish .. men witnessing his father's will, Jasper Griffing, also signed the parish petition. In 1724 the north Lyme petition was granted, and then the Macks and the Griffings and their neighbors had to content with efforts to make another division, to encompass sections of Lyme and East Haddam along the Connecticut River, finally granted in 1742. (Footnote 78) North Lyme was the Third Parish in Lyme and followed the establishment of a Second Parish in east Lyme by only a few years; Had Lyme Parish made a fourth division, and a fifth was created in 1764 from parts of east and north Lyme and New London. (Footnote 79) Never a place deeply committed to the Puritan church tradition, religious unity in Lyme was breaking down in the 1720s, as people living on the edges of the town attempted to balance their interest in local worship with the costs of taxation, a contest that had men walking the roads with surveying chains. "As were the Macks, the Griffings were from Non-English origins, and these two families would maintain their alliance in the religious contests that wracked Lyme over the next decades. Jasper Griffing's father had arrived in New England from Wales in 1670 had made his way (like John Mack Sr., (The Immigrant) .) through Essex County, to Long Island, and eventually to Lyme, where he too was admitted to the privileges of inhabitancy just after Lyme's final land division. (Footnote 80) In 1743, the year that James Davenport gathered the New London Separates and his New Light school, the "Shepherd's Tent," on a wharf in the Thames River to burn the texts and symbols of Puritan orthodoxy, Griffings and one of the Macks signed a petition for a Separate Society in North Lyme. (footnote 81) Macks and Griffings were also among the signers of Solomon Paine's 1748 petition to the General Assembly, signed by 332 "Separates or Independents." (footnote 82) Separate meetings formed in each of Lyme's three older parishes. The north Lyme Separates, led by Daniel Miner, formed the Grassy Hill Church, the Separates in the First Parish followed John Fuller, and the east Lyme Separates followed Ebenezer Mack, son of John Jr. and Solomon's first cousin. By the 1760s, in Ezra Stile's estimate, roughly a third of the town attended these dissenting meetings, with the greater adherence in the east and the north Lyme parishes. These churches would be inclusive in their membership, accepting both "sprinkled" Separates and those advocating adult immersion in "Catholic Communion." Ebenezer Mack's church adopted open communion in 1752; by the late 1760s Mack, ordained as a Separate in 1749, could no longer "build and commune" with those who would not accept the closed- communion form being advanced by Isaac Backus. Resigning from the church, he joined the flow of migration to the north, joining his younger cousin Solomon Mack in Marlow, New Hampshire. (footnote 83) "During the years of revival and church building, Solomon Mack was growing up on the farm of a master who, he wrote in 1811, never spoke "at all on the subject of religion." Solomon emerged from his service "totally ignorant of divine revelation or anything appertaining to Christian religion." (footnote 84) His experiences over the next half-decade were equally unsuited for religious training. From this godless house Solomon entered the army in September 1755, serving for eight and a half months. Buying a farm in Lyme and two teams of oxen, he carried supplies for the army until 1758, when he set up a sutler's shop at Crown Point. (footnote 85) Apparently the dramas of the Great Awakening and its immediate aftermath passed him by, though later in life his family would be settled among people whose religious sentiments were shaped in great part by Ebenezer Mack's (Ana) Baptist church. However, Solomon Mack's children, among them Joseph Smith's mother, Lucy, would be most influenced by their mother, Lydia Gates. "Solomon Mack married Lydia Gates of East Haddam in January 1759, presumably on a brief visit from Crown Point. Laying to the north of Lyme on the eastern shore of the Connecticut River, East Haddam had been settled in 1670 as an extension of the town of Haddam, and the Gates family had been a leading family since settlement. Arriving in Hartford in 1751 as a young man, Captain George Gates had been one of the earliest settlers east of the river in the 1670s and one of the founding members of the East Haddam church in 1704. His grandson Daniel Gates, Lydia's father played a similar leading role in Millington Parish, formed in 1733 in the southeast corner of the town. A tanner and "a man of wealth," Daniel Gates served as selectman and deacon of the Millington church. (footnote 86) Lydia's mother was Lydia Fuller, from a family settling in East Haddam from Barnstable on Cape Cod in the 1690s who were greatly intermarried with the Gates. (footnote 87) Compared with the religious contentions in Lyme, the Millington church was rather quiet. Apparently the church was New Light (Ana-Baptist) in tendency, for when its minister, Timothy Symmes, wandered off in 1740 as a radical New Light itinerant the Millington people waited three years before dismissing him. For several decades before the Revolution, however, the church was divided by a controversy involving a group known as the "Ole Fathers and Dissenters of New England," a group of Anglican lay readers led by the family of Jonathan Beebe, originally of New London, who in 1704 was the first to settle in the Millington District. (footnote 88) "Judging by church membership, the Fuller and Gates families were not swept by religious fervor. Other than Deacon Daniel Gates, no other Gates or related Fuller appears to have joined the church in the decades between or related Fuller appears to have joined the church in the decades between the Awakening and July 1872, when Lydia Gates Mack was received into communion before departing for Marlow. (footnote 89) But here the lack of church membership In these families may not have meant a lack of piety. In Richard Bushman's assessment, Lydia Gates Mack "imparted faith to her children, but she did not give them a church." Growing up on the New Hampshire frontier and then after 1777 for some years in Montague, Massachusetts, the children's religious sensibilities were shaped by the family prayers conducted by Lydia. Lucy Mack Smith's detailed autobiography does not mention a church in relation to the family until 1791. (footnote 90) ------------------- Joseph Smith: An American Prophet: Joseph Smith's Forebears, page 25, 16 Lucy was the youngest of Solomon's 8 children. Her youth was one of toil, frustration, sickness and perseverance. At age 17 she nursed two of her older sisters through five years of struggle with tuberculosis until they died. ---------------------------- Our Pioneer Sisters - Lucy Mack Smith - Mother of the Prophet Joseph Smith, mother of 10 children, known as "first among the chosen women of the latter-day dispensation."
- Biography:
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Sources - [S20] State of California - Department of Health, California, Los Angeles, ; Certified Abstract of Birth - 1977 - Larson, Tricia D, (Tricia D Larson certified abstract of birth, state file no. 19-0732955, local registration district no. O102898).
- [S560] Ancestry.com, Connecticut, Town Marriage Records, pre-1870 (Barbour Collection), (Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.Original data - White, Lorraine Cook, ed. The Barbour Collection of Connecticut Town Vital Records. Baltimore, MD, USA: Genealogical Publishing Co., 1994-2002.Original data: White, Lor).
Marriage date: 4 Jan 1759 Marriage place: Lyme Residence date: Residence place: Lyme
http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=sse&db=barbourctmar&h=611833&ti=0&indiv=try&gss=pt - [S142] U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900, (Yates Publishing. U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004.), Source number: 2786.000; Source type: Electronic Database; Number of Pages: 1; Submitter Code: GCH.
- [S20] State of California - Department of Health, California, Los Angeles, ; Certified Abstract of Birth - 1977 - Larson, Tricia D, (Tricia D Larson certified abstract of birth, state file no. 19-0732955, local registration district no. O102898).
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