Ontario County, New York, was regarded as "out West" by seaboard
and New England people in 1830, its population was then almost as
large as it is to-day (having 40,288 inhabitants according to the
census of 1830 and 48,453 according to the census of 1890). The
father and several of the boys could not read, and a good deal of
the time of the younger sons was spent in hunting, fishing, and
lounging around the village.

The son Joseph did not rise above the social standing of his
brothers. The best that a Mormon biographer, Orson Pratt, could
say of him as a youth was that "He could read without much
difficulty, and write a very imperfect hand, and had a very
limited understanding of the elementary rules of arithmetic.
These were his highest and only attainments, while the rest of
those branches so universally taught in the common schools
throughout the United States were entirely unknown to him."* He
was "Joe Smith" to every one. Among the younger people he served
as a butt for jokes, and we are told that the boys who bought the
cakes that he peddled used to pay him in pewter twoshilling
pieces, and that when he called at the Palmyra Register office
for his father's weekly paper, the youngsters in the press room
thought it fun to blacken his face with the ink balls.

* "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," p. 16.


Here are two pictures of the young man drawn by persons who saw
him constantly in the days of his vagabondage. The first is from
Mr. Tucker's book:--