Recollections of the Prophet Joseph

From Hyrum L. Andrus and Helen Mae Andrus, Personal Glimpses of the Prophet Joseph Smith (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, 2009):

Marie J. Woodward, a teenage convert, later recalled her interactions with the Prophet:

It was in 1841 when I was about seventeen years old, that I first saw the Prophet Joseph Smith.  I had walked from Middle, Tennessee, my birthplace, to Nauvoo, which place I intended to make my home. . . .

I afterwards heard him speak many times, and lived in his home as a hired girl for three weeks.  He was always kind and often talked with me and asked about my people, for I was the only member of my family in the Church.  (130-131)

Elias Cox first met Joseph Smith in Illinois, in 1842.  “He had a very pleasant disposition,” Cox later recalled, and always seemed to be happy.”  (131)

In an August 1842 letter, the English convert William Clayton wrote that

I am acting as clerk for him, and at his office daily, and have been since February 10th. . . .  To conclude, I will add that, the more I’m with him, the more I love him; the more I know of him the more confidence I have in him; and I am sorry that people should give heed to evil reports concerning him.  (133)

In another 1842 letter, the well-educated Orson Spencer — born in Berkshire County, Massachusetts; baptized in 1841; eventual editor of the Millennial Star in England; first chancellor of the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah); honored by Orson Spencer Hall on the campus of the University of Utah from its dedication in 1955 to its razing in 2016 — described Joseph Smith as follows:

Naturally, he is kind and obliging; pitiful and courteous; as far from dissimulation as any man; frank and loquacious to all men, friends or foes.  (134)

Born near Ottawa, Canada, David Moore left behind his impression of Joseph Smith from a meeting held on Sunday, 25 September 1842, “in a fine young oak grove a little west of the Temple” in Nauvoo:

I . . . took a good look at him for the first time, and I thought him a fine plain looking man, large in stature, light in complexion, having an honest look, and to me, altogether a very interesting appearance.  (134)

“He was loved by every good man, woman and child who knew him,” said Matthias Cowley, a convert from the Isle of Man who was about fourteen years old at the death of Joseph Smith. (136).

George Spilsbury, who was born on 21 April 1823 in Worcestershire, England, was baptized late in 1840 and emigrated to Nauvoo, Illinois, in November 1843:

The first Sunday after our arrival we attended a meeting on the first floor of the Nauvoo Temple.  The walls of the first story were about half way up.  Loose boards were laid on the joist and home-made benches to sit on.  It was a day of small things.  We were early in our seats.  Soon the leading men of the Church began to arrive.  It was no trouble to tell which was the Prophet, not because of his fine clothes, but there was something grand and noble and innocent in his appearance.  His very eyes seemed to look right through you.  His very countenance beamed with intelligence.  He was as bold as a lion, but as humble as a child.  He knew no fear.  (143)

Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were assassinated by an anti-Mormon mob on 27 June 1844 — 174 years ago.

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