First scribe, eyewitness
Emma Hale Smith
1804–1879
2 topics · 5 dated events
Their part in each topic
The Book of Mormon: Origins, Translation, and Witnesses
First scribe, eyewitness
Wrote for Joseph before Martin Harris and Oliver Cowdery, and in her 1879 'Last Testimony' described sitting at the table while he dictated with his face in the hat. She also distinguished the instruments: the interpreters for the lost portion, and afterward 'a small stone, not exactly black, but was rather a dark color.' Her account is used by every camp because she was in the room and had no institutional reason to flatter the Utah church.
The Succession Crisis of 1844
The prophet's widow
Pregnant and with four living children, Emma wanted the Nauvoo stake president William Marks appointed trustee-in-trust and, in effect, Joseph's successor — Marks being an opponent of plural marriage. She lost that argument, quarrelled bitterly with Brigham Young over the tangled estate, stayed in Illinois when the Saints went west, and in April 1860 travelled with her eldest son to Amboy to see him ordained.
In the timeline
5 events across 2 topics, chronological. Only events this person was actually part of — present at, responsible for, or the subject of — not every event where the name comes up.
Joseph obtains the plates
Joseph, accompanied by Emma, went to the hill and returned saying he had the plates and the interpreters. Attempts by neighbours to seize them followed through the autumn, and by December he and Emma had moved to her parents' place in Harmony, Pennsylvania.
The 116 pages are losthinge
After repeated requests, Joseph let Martin Harris take home the manuscript he had scribed — later called 116 pages, the book of Lehi. It disappeared and has never been recovered. Lucy Mack Smith records Harris crying that he had lost his soul, and Joseph answering 'All is lost! all is lost!' Emma had just given birth to a son who died. Joseph reported that the interpreters were taken from him.
The exodus begins
The first wagons crossed the Mississippi into Iowa Territory and camped at Sugar Creek. Lyman Wight had already taken his pine company toward Texas. Emma Smith stayed. So did most of those who would eventually form the Reorganization.
Joseph Smith III is ordained at Amboyhinge
At twenty-seven, after fifteen years of refusing, Joseph Smith III travelled with his mother Emma to the April conference of the 'New Organization' at Amboy, Illinois, and was ordained President of the High Priesthood. The body soon dropped 'New Organization' and took the 1838 name, later adding 'Reorganized.' It rejected plural marriage and, over the following two decades, most of the other Nauvoo innovations.
Emma Smith's last testimony is published
Months before her death Emma told her son Joseph Smith III that she frequently wrote day after day, sitting at the table close by Joseph, 'he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.' She had written to Emma Pilgrim in 1870 that the interpreters were used for the lost portion and a small dark stone thereafter.
Appears alongside
People who share the most dated events with Emma Hale Smith.
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