TWENTY-ONE
(1826)
The Smiths worked to support their family. Joseph’s character was maligned by gossip and rumors.
The Smith brothers found female companions. The truth about Joseph continued to be hidden,
until the publication of this authorized and official biography.Making Ends Meet
From the time that the Smith family arrived in New York, the family was forced
to work away from their home to earn money to make their own land payments and to
purchase basic necessities. Mother Smith and Sophronia worked in domestics—cooking,
sewing, mending, cleaning, etc.—while Joseph Sr., Alvin, Hyrum, and Joseph Jr. hired
themselves out as laborers to whoever could pay them. Before his death, Alvin earned
enough money to oversee the construction of a home that he felt would care for his
family for the rest of his parents’ lives.
As the eldest son, Alvin felt it was his responsibility to ensure the care of his
parents into their old age. He became a very experienced man when it came to dealing
with others in business affairs. He learned much from watching his father fail. To
relieve any burden that might come upon his parents, he made contracts and took out
credit in his own name, ensuring that if anything happened to him, the Smith property
would be unencumbered by unpaid credit claims. The house would be near
completion at the time of his death. However, because he had borrowed some of the
materials for the home on credit, Alvin posthumously developed some enemies among
his creditors who later darkened the Smith family’s reputation as people who allegedly
were dishonest.^1
The Smith men made most of their acquaintances while hiring themselves out to
other men. Lucy, on the other hand, made hers at the local churches, which often held
bazaars and other women-only events, in which Lucy was determined to become an
involved and renowned participant. Many times, the Smith men would hire out together,
a father and all his sons, to fulfill any number of specific labor contracts.
The local men who hired the Smiths had every reason to believe that Joseph was
a lazy and “careless young man—not very well educated, and very saucy and insolent
to his father.”^2 Joseph would show up to work some days, but others he would not.
When only Joseph Sr., Alvin, and Hyrum showed up for work, their employers often
inquired after Joseph, usually because the labor contract (implied and agreed upon by
a handshake) promised the labor of four men, not three. The excuse was always given
that Joseph was ill; or, being the youngest of the men, that he was needed at home to
engage in activities helping the Smith women. An excuse had to be made to protect the
true reason why Joseph didn’t show up to work every day. It wasn’t hard for his father
and two older brothers to keep the counsel they had received—“not to mention out of
the family that which he was about to say to us.”^3 Lucy Smith, however, had a much
harder time keeping things to herself.