Lyman R. Sherman

Lyman Royal Sherman (1804-05-22 – 1839) was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement, an inaugural member of the Seven Presidents of the Seventy, and was called to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles but died before being informed and ordained.

Sherman was born in Monkton, Vermont to Elkanah Sherman and Asenath Hulbert. In 1832, he joined the Latter Day Saint Church of Christ and in 1834 was part of Zion's Camp.^[1]

On January 16, 1839, Joseph Smith, along with Sidney Rigdon and Hyrum Smith, wrote Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball to call Sherman and George A. Smith to replace Thomas B. Marsh and Orson Hyde, respectively, in the Quorum of the Twelve.^[2] The next month, on February 23, Kimball noted that George A. Smith was indeed added to the quorum, but Sherman died shortly after Joseph Smith wrote the letter. Kimball concluded that it was not the will of God for a man to take Hyde's place in the quorum.^[3]

Sherman died in January or February, 1839, in Far West, Missouri. His widow, Delcena Didamia Johnson, married Joseph Smith by July 1842.^[4]

[edit] Footnotes

^ Compton, Todd (1997). In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 293.
^ Cook, Lyndon W. (Fall 1978). "Lyman Sherman—Man of God, Would-Be Apostle". BYU Studies 19 (1).
^ Woodruff, Wilford (1981-1984). in Scott G. Kenney: Wilford Woodruff's Journal, 9 vols. Midvale, Utah: Signature Books, 5:298.
^ Compton, Todd (1997). In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith. Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 295.