William Smith

A secondary doctor misdiagnosed the problem as bilious colic and gave him mercury chloride to try to clean out his intestines, but that ended up terminally poisoning him.

At the funeral service in the Presbyterian Church, according to William Smith, a younger brother, the minister expressed concern that Alvin was now in hell because he wasn't involved in any church.

And this pivotal moment cemented Joseph Sr.'s disdain for sectarian churches, and it also disenfranchised Lucy.

Alvin's death happened a few months after Joseph Smith Jr. supposedly saw the golden plates at the Hill Cumorah for the first time.

I'll provide a link to the newspaper article from William Smith where he mentions Alvin's funeral.

Now, however, just as Asiel said something that became one of Joseph Smith Jr.'s prophecies, Lucy Mack prayed that her husband would one day see the true gospel of Jesus.

Well, that prayer became another prophecy for the gospel as their son taught in the restored Church of Christ that would later be named the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Ministers from different denominations vied zealously for the loyalty and for the faithful in villages and towns, including Palmyra, the home of the family of Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith.

The Smith family followed this religious excitement, and members of the family were proselyted to various faiths.

Mother Smith and three of the children, Hiram, Samuel, and Sophrina, joined one church, while Father Smith and his eldest son Alvin affiliated with another.

When 14-year-old Joseph Jr. considered which church to join, he investigated each denomination carefully, listening to the respective ministers and trying to sort out the truth.

So that's another part of this story.

Okay, so to...

There also seems to be some confusion as to which of the members of the Smith family joined the Presbyterian Church.

Which sister particularly? Is it Catherine? Is it Safrina? Right.

And these included people we looked at were Joseph Smith, Wilford Woodruff, John Taylor, Benjamin Winchester, who was a missionary, later left the church.

There were William Smith.

There were other people.

And we tried to include people who had actually published on Central American or pre-Columbian discoveries.

And I think the biggest strength is uncle john who was acyl smith's son and the brother of joseph smith senior he was practicing plural marriage in naboo and none of the relatives of joseph smith are attributing that to brigham young you have the widows of of hiram smith and samuel harrison smith and don carlor smith who are practicing plural marriage after as soon as their husbands pass away and they don't attribute that to to brigham young so I don't think we focus enough on the Smith family.

And William Smith is a different beast of his own.

But when you got the brothers and sisters in law and first cousins and paternal uncles that are practicing plural marriage, almost in the open, I don't see where Brigham Young is found in the equation of that.

But maybe Ryan could talk about that differently.