Mormon Prophet

Family Background.

Crafty charlatan, brilliant psychopath, inspired prophet—such were the varied conclusions drawn by contemporaries and later writers about the person of Joseph Smith. He was born in Western New York to Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith, the third of eight children. The recollections of his mother are the primary source for his early family life, but they were written after her son's death and so contain the inevitable distortion of hindsight. By all accounts the family was a closely knit circle whose bonds were strengthened by repeated disappointments. Lucy had come from wealthy New England stock, but her own parents had struggled on the edge of poverty. Although she and Joseph Smith Sr. began their marriage in comfortable circumstances, with a small farm and store in Vermont, Joseph was cheated in a speculative venture. Overwhelmed by debt, the couple...