Joseph Smith, III

Joseph Smith, III (born Nov. 6, 1832, Kirtland, Ohio, U.S.—died Dec. 10, 1914, Independence, Mo.) was an American religious leader, first president of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He was the son of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism.

Smith was a boy of 11 when his father was murdered by a mob, and he did not go to Utah with Brigham Young’s group but remained in Nauvoo, Ill., with his mother and a group of followers who rejected Young’s leadership. Instead they claimed that Joseph Smith III had been designated to succeed his father as leader of the Mormon church. This faction founded its own church, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, in 1852. This church eventually grew to contain about 250,000 members, but it remained much smaller than the main Mormon body, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

A farmer and editor, Smith accepted the presidency of the Reorganized Church in 1860. From 1881 he lived in Lamoni, Iowa, where he helped establish Graceland College. In 1906 he moved to Independence, Mo., where the church’s headquarters were established. Throughout his life he attempted to prove that his father had never practiced or encouraged polygamy, and he worked to suppress polygamy in the main Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Utah.