Lot Smith

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Lot Smith (May 15, 1830–June 21, 1892) was a Mormon pioneer and frontiersman. Born in 1830 in Williamstown, Oswego County, New York, he became a close friend of Orrin Porter Rockwell and was known as "The Horseman" for his exceptional skills on horseback as well as for his help in rounding up wild mustangs on Utah's Antelope Island.

At sixteen, Smith joined the Mormon Battalion and served on the journey through the southwest to San Diego, where the group was mustered out of service. He then came back across the mountains to the Great Salt Lake, where he became a military leader in the Nauvoo Legion in Utah.

Smith practiced the Latter-day Saint doctrine of plural marriage, and had eight wives and 52 children.

[edit] Service in the Utah War

The President and US Senate had chosen to remove then-governor Brigham Young from office based on reports from federal officials assigned to Utah who had abandoned their assignments and returned to the east. Young's replacement as governor of Utah territory Alfred Cumming was escorted by a contingent of 2500 Federal troops led by Gen. Albert Johnston. The army's orders were to support the installment of the new governor, using force as necessary as resistance was expected based on the official's reports.

Smith was sent on a special mission by Young, who hoped to delay the arrival of the troops and the new governor until he could receive additional information from Washington, D.C. Smith led a group of Legion rangers east across Wyoming along, a long stretch where the California, Oregon and Mormon Trails merge. Eventually he found the Union wagon train and destroyed several wagons. Lot Smith and his heroic rangers, though outnumbered by more than 1000 to 1, held off the Federal soldiers in fiercely cold weather. He did so without his troops harming a single soldier on the Federal side. For many Mormons, Lot Smith and his brave little band of men are heroes. There are good reasons to believe that factions of the US government had violent intentions. Brigham Young's show of power and grit, via the efforts of Lot Smith, sent a strong message to the rest of the nation that the Mormons were tired of being harassed.


Interestingly, the owners of the destroyed wagons Russell, Majors and Waddell were never reimbursed by the government and in 1860 they formed the Pony Express to stave off bankruptcy with a new government mail contract.

Smith's efforts delayed the US forces from reaching Utah in 1857, forcing them to winter at Fort Bridger, Wyoming.

[edit] Settlement in Southern Utah

Smith was asked to help the development of the Mormon settlement of Tuba City, Arizona. Chief Tuba was a Hopi leader who joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Local Navajo and Hopi Indians used the area for grazing and farming, and the Mormons initially understood that the Navajo had first choice to the water and land resources. Although relations with the Navajo were initially cooperative, the growing numbers of Mormons in the Tuba City area began to cause conflict.

However, when Smith arrived in the settlement, he fenced in his land in violation of the agreement between the Navajos and Mormons. One day a herd of sheep broke his fence and started to graze. Smith came by and saw the sheep, became angry and tried to chase them away but failed to do so. Frustrated, he went home and returned with a pistol. During this time, the Navajo family who owned the herd began to gather their animals. When Smith returned, he killed several sheep and wounded others. He also shot at a Navajo woman and her daughter to "scare" them. The Navajo husband, angered at finding his sheep dead and family threatened, shot and killed several of Smith's cows. Smith then fired at the Navajo. The brother of the Navajo man returned fire, mortally wounding Lot Smith. Smith managed to return home and, about six hours later, died on June 21, 1892. Smith is buried in a cemetery in Farmington, Utah.

[edit] References

  • Peterson, Charles S., Take Up Your Mission: Mormon Colonizing Along the Little Colorado, 1870-1900 (1973)
  • Peterson, Charles S., A Mighty Man Was Brother Lot: A Portrait of Lot Smith, Mormon Frontiersman, Western Historical Quarterly (Vol. 1, No. 4) October 1970) Published by: Western Historical Quarterly, Utah State University on behalf of the The Western History Association.
  • Schindler, Harold, Orrin Porter Rockwell: Man of God, Son of Thunder (1983)
  • Smith, Grant Gil, The Living Words of Alice Ann Richards Smith (1968)