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- From FindaGrave:
First Presiding Patriarch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and father of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
He was the first person who received his son Joseph's testimony after he had seen the angel, and exhorted him to be faithful and diligent to the message he had received. He later saw the Golden Plates and became one of the eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon. He was baptized April 6, 1830. In August, 1830, in company with his son Don Carlos, he took a mission to St. Lawrence county, New York, touching on his route at several of the Canadian ports, where he distributed a few copies of the Book of Mormon, visited his father, brothers and sisters residing in St. Lawrence county, bore testimony to the truth, which resulted eventually in all the family coming into the Church, excepting his brother Jesse and sister Susan.
He removed with his family to Kirtland in 1831, where he was ordained to the High Priesthood and was chosen a member of the first High Council.
After his sons, Hyrum and Joseph, were thrown into the Missouri jails by the mob, he fled from under the exterminating order of Governor Lilburn W. Boggs, and made his escape in midwinter to Quincy, Ill., from whence he removed to Commerce in the spring of 1839, and thus became one of the founders of Nauvoo. The exposures he suffered brought on consumption, of which he soon passed away.
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1771 - 1840 (69 years)
