The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-12-11
HEAD OF LATTER DAY SAINTS CHURCH DEAD|
Joseph Smith, Son of Found CT of Mormonism,
 Passes Away

Independence, Mo. December 10.-A l revelation announced eight years ago by Joseph Smith. president of the Re- organized Church of the Latter Day Saints designating as his successor-his l eldest son, relived the church from the necessity of choosing a new leader upon
 the death here today of the patriarch.
 who for 54 years had presided over the organization. The son, Frederick M Smith, automatically becomes head of the church.
 The new president is S7 years old His designation to succeed his father was ratified by the general conference
 shortly after the father announced the
 revelation.
 President smiths last admonition was: . T wish those of my friends who may would refrain. Let them give the money to charity"
 His wife, six sons and two daughters
 were at his bedside through his ill., ness
 The funeral will be held from old Stone church here Sunday history of Joseph Smith, who was son of Joseph Smith, prophet, and founder of Mormonism, is history-of the Reorganized Church of the Latter Day Saints. It was he who brought to- gether the little bands of Mormons in Illinois Iowa and Missouri, left behind when the main body emigrated to Utah. He became the first president of the re- organized church, and held that office more than half century, until his
 death. He was cousin of Joseph Field ing Smith, in recent years president of the Latter Day Saints in Utah. The greater part of President Joseph smiths life was struggle, as had been the life of his father, to place Mormon ism upon a sound footing. During the last years of his life he was blind. He was born November 6, 1892, at Kirtland, O., where his father had gone two years earlier with few follow CTS, from Manchester, N. Y. Soon after wards the colony moved to Missouri. There at Independence, the prophet as I he was known, established the New | Jerusalem of the church, obeying, he | said, revelation. Enmity of other set i tiers, however, resulted in the Nor.
 mons being driven out. Prophet Joseph Smith was arrested and placed in jail
 at Liberty, Mo.
 l In the jail, where the younger Joseph, | then years old, spent the first night
 with his father, the prophet bent over
 the child as he sobbed himself to sleep,
 and to him commended the hopes and aspirations of the church.
 My mother accompanied my father
 to Liberty" Joseph Smith told, In later years, but fearing for her life, my father induced her to so with members of the church to Illinois.
 T tramped across the almost unin-
 habited praries of Missouri to Nauvoo,
 H., where my father, when he was re-
 leased, joined us. Then. in 1s44, when
 I was 12 years old, one day his dead bsdy was brought to us. He had been
 shot by a mob in Carthage. IL" | After the death of the prophet most
 of the members of the church emigrated | to, Utah under the leadership of i Brigham Young. Young Joseph Smith, ] remaining behind, worked as farmer :. and as a clerk and studied law. This he 1 gave up to effect the reorganization oi
 the church, which was formally accom-
 plished at Amboy H., in 1860. Twenty l years later headquarters of the church I was established in Lamont, Ia., and in
 1906 removal was made to Independ- ence, Mo, where President Smith made
 his home and where he resided until his death.