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| + | #REDIRECT [[Question: Was "money digging" Joseph Smith, Jr's primary source of income during his early years?]] |
| − | {{Resource Title|Joseph Smith's early work as a farmhand}}
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| − | {{JosephSmithPortal}}
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| − | == ==
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| − | {{Criticism label}}
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| − | *Was "money digging" Joseph Smith, Jr's primary source of income during his early years?
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| − | *Did Joseph run a successful "magic business?"
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| − | {{Conclusion label}}
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| − | The primary evidence–especially tax records, which provide a relatively unbiased look at the Smiths' work ethic—cannot support the argument that Joseph and his family were not intensely engaged in the duties related to farming.
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| − | {{Response label}}
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| − | {{Seealso|Joseph Smith/Early Smith family history/Lazy Smiths|l1=Lazy Smiths?}}
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| − | LDS scholar Daniel C. Peterson notes,
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | [I]n order to pay for their farm, the Smiths were obliged to hire themselves out as day laborers. Throughout the surrounding area, they dug and rocked up wells and cisterns, mowed, harvested, made cider and barrels and chairs and brooms and baskets, taught school, dug for salt, worked as carpenters and domestics, built stone walls and fireplaces, flailed grain, cut and sold cordwood, carted, washed clothes, sold garden produce, painted chairs and oil-cloth coverings, butchered, dug coal, and hauled stone. And, along the way, they produced between one thousand and seven thousand pounds of maple sugar annually. "Laziness" and "indolence" are difficult to detect in the Smith family.<ref>{{Book:Welch Thorne:Pressing Forward|pages=286—87|author=Daniel C. Peterson and Donald L. Enders|article=Can the 1834 Affidavits Attacking the Smith Family Be Trusted?}}</ref>
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | The data shows that the Smith farm increased in value, and was worth more than 90% of the farms owned by the four families—the Staffords, Stoddards, Chases, and Caprons—who would later speak disparagingly of the Smiths' work ethic.<ref>{{Book:Black Tate:Joseph Smith The Prophet The Man|pages=220–221|author=Donald L. Enders|article=The Joseph Smith, Sr., Family: Farmers of the Genesee}}</ref> How did they manage this without doing farm work? These are physical improvements. They were too poor to pay someone else to do it. So, are we to believe that Joseph's family let Joseph just sit around doing his "magic business" while the rest of them worked their fingers to the bone?
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| − | <blockquote>The Smith farm had a perimeter of a one and 2/3 miles. To fence that distance with a standard stone and stinger fence required moving tons of stone from fields to farm perimeter, then cutting and placing about 4,000 ten-foot rails. This does not include the labor and materials involved in fencing the barnyard, garden, pastures, and orchard, which, at a conservative estimate, required an additional 2,000 to 3,000 cut wooden rails (McNall 59, 84, 87, 91, 110-11, and 144). Clearly, this work alone—all of it separate from the actual labor of farming—represents a prodigious amount of concerted planning and labor....
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| − | In comparison to others in the township and neighborhood, the Smiths' efforts and accomplishments were superior to most. In the township, only 40 percent of the farms were worth more per acre and just 25 percent were larger. In the "neighborhood," only 29 percent of the farms were worth more and only 26 percent were larger (Assessment Rolls 1-34).<ref>Enders, "Joseph Smith, Sr., Family," 219, 221.</ref>
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | What did Joseph's associates have to say about Joseph's work? Former neighbor Orlando Saunders recalled,
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| − | They were the best family in the neighborhood in case of sickness; one was at my house nearly all the time when my father died....[The Smiths] were very good people. Young Joe (as we called him then), has worked for me, and he was a good worker; they all were. . . . He was always a gentleman when about my place."<ref> William H. Kelly, "The Hill Cumorah, and the Book of Mormon," ''Saints' Herald'' 28 (1 June 1881): 165.</ref></blockquote>
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| − | John Stafford, eldest son of [[The_Hurlbut_affidavits#William_Stafford|William Stafford]] said that the Smiths were "poor managers," but allowed as how Joseph "would do a fair day's work if hired out to a man...."<ref>William H. Kelly, "The Hill Cumorah, and the Book of Mormon," ''Saints' Herald'' 28 (1 June 1881): 167; cited in {{EarlyMormonDocs1|vol=2|start=121}}</ref>
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| − | According to Truman G. Madsen,
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | Mrs. Palmer, a non-Mormon who lived near the Smith farm in Palmyra, said of Joseph that "her father loved young Joseph Smith and often hired him to work with his boys. She was about six years old, she said, when he first came to their home. . . .She remembered, she said, the excitement stirred up among some of the people over the boy's first vision, and of hearing her father contend that it was only the sweet dream of a pure-minded boy.”<ref>Cited from a typescript by {{BYUS|author=Truman G. Madsen|article=[https://byustudies.byu.edu/showtitle.aspx?title=4837 Guest Editor's Prologue]|vol=9|num=3|date= Spring 1969|pages=235}}</ref>
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | According to a contemporary, Martha Cox,
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | She stated that one of their church leaders came to her father to remonstrate against his allowing such close friendship between his family and the "Smith boy," as he called him. Her father, she said, defended his own position by saying that the boy was the best help he had ever found.<ref>Stories from the Notebook of Martha Cox, Grandmother of Fern Cox Anderson, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah)</ref>
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | Joseph's brother William noted that derogatory comments about Joseph's character came only after he reported his visions,
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| − | We never heard of such a thing until after Joseph told his vision, and not then, by our friends. Whenever the neighbors wanted a good day's work done they knew where they could get a good hand and they were not particular to take any of the other boys before Joseph either… Joseph did his share of the work with the rest of the boys. We never knew we were bad folks until Joseph told his vision.<ref>''Deseret News'', 20 January 1894</ref>
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| − | </blockquote>
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| − | Joseph Knight said that Joseph Smith, Jr. was “the best hand [my father] ever hired”<ref>Autobiography of Joseph Knight Jr., 1, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah</ref>
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| − | Furthermore, the Smiths produced maple sugar, a difficult and labor-intensive occupation:
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| − | <blockquote>
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| − | Sources document over two dozen kinds of labor the Smiths performed for hire, including digging and rocking up wells, mowing, coopering, constructing cisterns, hunting and trapping, teaching school, providing domestic service, and making split-wood chairs, brooms and baskets. The Smiths also harvested, did modest carpentry work, dug for salt, constructed stone walls and fireplaces, flailed grain, cut and sold cordwood, carted, made cider, and "witched" for water. They sold garden produce, made bee-gums, washed clothes, painted oil-cloth coverings, butchered, dug coal, painted chairs, hauled stone, and made maple syrup and sugar (Research File).
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| − | Joseph Jr.'s account suggests honest industry in the face of difficult conditions: "Being in indigent circumstances," he says, "[we] were obliged to labour hard for the support of [our] Large family and . . . it required the exertions of all [family members] that were able to render any assistances" (Jessee 4). The Smith men had a reputation as skilled and diligent workers. William Smith asserted that "whenever the neighbors wanted a good day's work done they knew where they could get a good hand" (Peterson 11). Eight wells in three townships are attributed to the Smiths (Research File). They likely dug and rocked others, including some of the 11 wells dug on the farm of Lemuel Durfee, who lived a little east of Martin Harris. The Smiths did considerable work for this kindly old Quaker; some of their labor served as rent for their farm after it passed into his ownership in December 1825 (Ralph Cator; Lemuel Durfee Farm books).
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| − | Father Joseph, Hyrum, and Joseph Jr. were coopers. Coopering was an exacting trade, particularly if the barrel was designed to hold liquid. Dye tubs, barrels, and water and sap buckets were products of the Smiths' cooper shop. They also repaired leaky barrels for neighbors at cidering time (Research File).
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| − | Sugaring was another labor-intensive work. William recalls, "To gather the sap and make sugar and molasses from [1,200-1,500 sugar] trees was no lazy job" (Peterson 11). Lucy said they produced an average of "one thousand pounds" (50) of sugar a year. One neighbor reportedly said that the Smiths made 7,000 pounds of sugar one season and won a premium for their effort at the county fair (Brodie 10-11). Many people could make maple syrup, but it required considerable skill to make sugar and particularly good skill, dexterity, and commitment to make high quality sugar.<ref>Enders, "Joseph Smith, Sr., Family," 222–223.</ref></blockquote>
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| − | [[es:José Smith/Antecedentes familiares de José Smith/Los primeros trabajos de José Smith como peón]]
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