170 years ago today - Aug 23, 1844

[Apostle Wilford Woodruff Journal] I visited Emma Smith the widow of the prophet. She let me have a peace of oak for a Staff * out of the Coffin of the Prophet Joseph who was inhumanly martered in Carthage Ill in company with his brother Hiram. Emma also let me have a Pair of gloves composed of white cotton and Mrs Woodruff a cotton hankerchief both of which the Prophet wore while living.

We called upon Sister Mary Smith widow of Hiram Smith the Patriarch. She gave us some hair from the head of Joseph Smith, Hiram Smith, Samuel Smith, & Don Carloss Smith, all brothers of the same Parents. I also obtained some hair of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints. My object was in putting a portion of each in the top of my staff as a relick of those noble men, master spirits of the nineteenth centaury, to hand down to my posterity, to deposit in the most Holy and Sacred place in the Holy temple of GOD, on the consecrated Hill of Zion.

I next visited Mother Lucy Smith, the mother of those noble men even the Lords anointed, whose names were Joseph, Hiram, Samuel and Don Carloss, and the wife of Joseph Smith sen. the first Patriarch of the last dispensation. All those men fell directly or indirectly as matters for the cause of truth and of God, Joseph and Hiram being shot in Cold Blood.

The Old Mother and Prophetess felt most heart broaken at the loss of her Children and the wicked and Cruel treatment she had recieved from the hands of the gentile world. She begged a blessing at my hands. I lade my hands upon her head and proclaimed [a blessing] by the Spirit of God.

[Source: Wilford Woodruff's Journal: 1833-1898 Typescript, Volumes 1-9, Edited by Scott G. Kenney, Signature Books 1993, http://amzn.to/newmormonstudies]

4 comments:

  1. Friday. The hair sample of JS should reveal his DNA.

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  2. Some DNA studies have been done using Joseph Smith's DNA. These were paternal tests to see if he had fathered children via polygamous wives (no kids have been found with the tests conducted so far).

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    1. If it is ever possible in the future, they should do DNA tests on the descendants of Josephine Rosetta Lyon, born February 8, 1844, daughter of Sylvia Porter Sessions Lyon who was married to Windsor Lyon. SPSL told her (JRL) on deathbed that Josephine was Smith's daughter.

      [Source: the last chart/table in Wikipedia's article titled "The List of Joseph Smith's Wives"].

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  3. "Just prior to my mothers death in 1882 she called me to her bedside … to tell me something which she had kept as an entire secret from me and from all others but which she now desired to communicate to me. She then told me that I was the daughter of the Prophet Joseph Smith." (Newell & Avery 1994, pp. 44; Compton 1997, pp. 183) Testing would require autosomal DNA.

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