David Hyrum Smith

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David Hyrum Smith (1844-1904) was the youngest son of Joseph Smith, Jr. and Emma Hale Smith and, as an adult, was an influential missionary and leader in the Latter Day Saint movement. He was born approximately five months after the murder of his father.

Smith was highly effective missionary for the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, now Community of Christ. From 1865 to 1873, he conducted missionary trips throughout the Midwest, Utah, and California, debating preachers of different theologies, including representatives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Smith was called the Sweet Singer of Israel because many who knew him, who heard him preach, or who joined him in song, stated that he was the most inspiring man of God they had encountered. The Joseph Smith Historic Site, maintained by the Community of Christ, houses Smith's original paintings of Nauvoo, Illinois. He was known as a poet, painter, singer, philosopher, naturalist, and was described as both brilliant and charismatic.

In a 1998 biography of Smith, From Mission to Madness: Last Son of the Mormon Prophet, author Valeen Tippetts Avery describes Smith's mental deterioration, starting with a probable breakdown early in 1870 and ending with his 1904 death in the Northern Illinois Hospital and Asylum for the Insane in Elgin, Illinois.

In an 1869 letter to his mother, Emma Smith, at age 24, Smith wrote:

Mother I must tell you . . . I feel very sad and the tears run out of my eyes all the time and I don't know why. . . . strive as I will my heart sinks like lead. . . . I must tell someone my troubles . . .

Smith was confined in the institution for twenty-seven years. Avery's book draws on a large body of Smith's correspondence and poetry to examine both his personality and his emotional state.