Joseph Smith III, son of the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, played a key role in the success of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He became its president in 1860 and helped shape its doctrine and traditions, leading it to grow to over 250,000 members in 50 countries. Despite facing challenges, he exercised patience and a democratic approach, and during his presidency, the church grew from 300 to over 10,000 members. He also sought to prevent a recurrence of the 1844 succession issue and prepared for his successor. He died in 1914.
As the son of the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, Joseph Smith III played an integral role in the success of the second largest denomination within the movement. As president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from 1860 to 1914, Smith helped shape a workable church tradition and doctrine that enabled a small group of Restoration believers to grow into an organization which today has over 250,000 people in fifty countries around the world. Here are some facts about the life and ministry of the man Reorganized Church members have come to know fondly as Young Joseph.
Born November 6, 1832, Joseph Smith III grew up during the formative years of the Latter-day Saint movement. By the age of eight, Smith had seen the church grow in number, establish a base of operations in a town created out of swampland, and found himself a favorite son among the Latter-day Saints who lived at the church’s headquarters in Nauvoo, Illinois . He had also seen his father be tarred and feathered, and arrested on various charges. On one notable occasion in the winter of 1838-39, Smith visited his father in a jail in Liberty, Missouri. Witnesses later recalled that Joseph Smith Jr. had declared that his son would one day lead the church as his successor.
Although frontier life was difficult, young Joseph experienced relatively stable periods during his years in Nauvoo. These idyllic times were shortened with the murder of Joseph Smith Jr. in 1844 and the fragmentation of the church. Emma Smith, wife of the slain leader and mother of young Joseph, chose not to go west with those Saints who aligned themselves with Brigham Young, and paid little attention to the other men who claimed the right to lead the church. Instead, she chose to stay in Nauvoo and opened her own home as a boarding house. In 1847, she Emma remarried, providing her children with a stepfather, Major Lewis Bidamon.
Representatives of the various factions of the old Latter-day Saints Church occasionally visited Nauvoo. Emma received them with a hot meal and a room to sleep in for the night. During those years, Smith heard much anecdotal information about his father and the church he founded. Although offers to receive the Smiths into full fellowship came from various Latter-day Saint groups, the family chose to remain independent for most of the 1850s. Joseph Smith III openly told them that he had received no guidance from God to join to them, and that until he did, he would not join any Latter-day Saint group.
In 1859, Joseph Smith III decided to pray to know what role he would play in the church started by his father. According to his later memoirs, he was told to join the group that was being called the New Organization. Smith contacted the group and made plans to join them at their next General Conference, which was to begin on April 6, 1860. Her mother decided to travel with her son to the conference.
At the Amboy conference, Joseph Smith III shared his spiritual experience with the assembled Saints and told them that if they wanted it, he was with them. The conference voted to accept Smith and his mother as full members, based on their pre-1844 church baptisms. At the same conference, Joseph Smith III was ordained and set apart to the office of Prophet, Seer, and Revelator at the New Church Organization.
Young Joseph faced many problems in his early years as president of what would become known as the Reorganized Church. The group was gathering members from a number of other Latter-day Saint bodies, often bringing some unique beliefs they had gleaned since 1844. Smith exercised patience as the young church struggled to define what constituted true Latter-day Saint beliefs. Days, as well as taking care of the judicial, legislative and administrative structure of the Church. Being democratically minded, Smith echoed the model used in the early years of the movement, making sure that every congregation was represented at General Church conferences.
During the first ten years of his presidency, the RLDS Church grew from a small group of three hundred to over ten thousand members. Many of these were former Saints who had followed one or another faction leader after his father’s death. Joseph Smith III’s pragmatic approach enabled the slow return to Independence, Missouri, considered the central place of Zion among Latter-day Saints. During the fifty-four years that he served as president of the RLDS Church, he sought to provide advice on how to prevent a recurrence of the 1844 succession issue.
One area where Joseph Smith III was only partially successful was in clearing his father’s name from the practice of polygamy. Not only did he prepare for his successor, but he also drafted a council that could be used should the First Presidency become vacant for any reason. The RLDS Church—renamed the Community of Christ in 2001—was able to use these guidelines when the sitting president elected to step down in 2005. Joseph Smith III died December 10, 1914
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