The shiftless laziness of Joseph Smith and his family

The shiftless laziness of Joseph Smith and his family May 2, 2015

 

Smith farm in B&W
A ca. 1907 photograph of the old Smith family farm in Manchester, New York, by George Edward Anderson

 

Earlier today, I posted a quotation from William Smith about his brother Joseph’s alleged laziness.  Various critics, in the nineteenth century and still today, have claimed that he founded his church as a way of making money without work — which would seem to suggest that he wasn’t merely lazy but unspeakably stupid.

 

The claim that the Smiths were lazy is, as it turns out, demonstrably false.  I pointed this out in a Deseret News article some years ago:

 

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705373365/Defending-the-Faith-Were-Smiths-workers-or-slackers.html?pg=all

 

Posted from Victor, New York

 

 


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