"Boys, It is Time to Go to Work"

Recently I learned more about Absalom Wamsley Smith.  His photographs are distinctive and he looks like a person I would love to know more about.   "Father Smith" was husband to five wives and father of thirty-two children and served as a Patriarch in the Draper area for many years.

Absalom Wamsley Smith

Some of his ancestors apparently came from Ireland.*  The Smith family came to America before the Revolutionary War. Aaron Smith, Absalom's grandfather was likely the first white settler of West Virginia settling in Clarksburg.  

Absalom was born in June 22, 1819 in West Virginia.  While a young man, Absalom persuaded his father to allow him to go west with his sister and her husband to Quincy, Illinois, 700 miles away.  While living in Quincy, Mormons began to come from Missouri to escape persecution.  In 1839 there was a debate and Absolom Smith saw the Prophet Joseph Smith for the first time.

When he was 21 he married Amy Emily Downes on November 5, 1840.  She and her family were baptized into the LDS church, but Absolom did not join until about three years later in July of 1843 in Nauvoo, Illinois.

Amy's parents lived in Nauvoo and their new home was burned down as they held by the mob and made to watch.  Absalom was ordained a Seventy by Brother Wells in Nauvoo.   Amy was anxious to go west with the Saints, but Absalom wanted to go to Texas.  Eventually, Amy convinced her husband and they came to Utah in 1852 in the Isaac M.  Stewart Company.  They left from Council Bluffs, Iowa with about 245 individuals and 53 wagons on June 19 and arrived in Salt Lake Valley in August or September of 1852. 

Absalom and Catherine Messam Smith.

Absalom W. Smith in 1874.

They settled in Draper "Crossroads" area in what is now Highway 89 (State Street) where the road goes East to Draper and west to Riverton.   He served as a counselor to Bishop Isaac Stewart.  He eventually married four other wives (one wife only lived a short time) and raised a large family.

He built a long two story adobe house of 17 rooms, four rooms for each wife and one room for his office.  For a while he moved to Hanksville until after the Manifesto.

Absalom was a small but powerful man.  He stood five feet eight inches, but spoke with authority.
"Boys, it is time to go to work" he would say, and they went to work cheerfully.

Smith home at Draper Crossroads.

Their home and barn were on the State Road and it became a stopping place for travelers. One of the travelers ended up boarding in their home for many years as a teacher. His name was John R. Parks and students came from all around Draper to study under him.  Later he would become the President of the University of Utah.

Absalom encouraged education and many of his sons became leaders in the community.

Absalom lived true to his church and served two different six month missions.  Apparently he made trips East to haul freight back to Utah.

Absalom W. Smith about 1890

Eventually Absolom was called to serve as a patriarch in the LDS church.  He lived to be 84 and for years he used a cane to walk around his farm.   The last three months of his life he was bedridden and his children took turns sitting with him.

One daughter wrote a poem about the simple gnarled and crooked cane that reminded her of her father, "Everyone knew dear father for just what he seemed to be.  No outside show, always the same in his just simplicity."

Deseret News article of June 24, 1902.

Our family comes through the wife Mary Ann Osborne who was 22 years his junior at the time of their marriage in the Endowment House on 24 December 1864.   Absalom and Mary Ann's daughter, Delila Smith (b. Dec. 20, 1865) would later married Christian L. Jensen and become the parents of Dora Amanda Jensen (Ballegooie). 

Absalom is buried in the Draper Cemetery. Inscription reads:
"His life was gentle and the elements so mixed in him,
that nature might say to all the world 'This was an honest man.'"

Absalom died 12 May 1904 and is buried in the Draper Cemetery along with many others from the Smith family.  I look forward to meeting this gentle, honest man.

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*Most of the information above came from Mabel Smith Shipley Murray, a granddaughter, who presented a paper in January 18, 1979 to the Seagull Camp of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers.  See paper in LDS Family Search.