Jesse Nathaniel Smith

Jesse Nathaniel Smith. , Born December 2, 1834 in Stockholm, New York, son of Silas and Mary Aikens Smith, and first cousin to the Prophet Joseph Smith, he crossed the great plains to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847 with the Mormon pioneers. Called to help colonize Parowan in 1851, he acted as a scout and surveyor for church colony sites in southern Utah. He served as a city clerk, city councilman, mayor, and city magistrate of Parowan, District Attorney of Iron County, captain in the militia, a member of the Utah Territorial Legislature, and a member of the Parowan Stake Presidency – All before he had reached the age of twenty-six. Called on a mission to Denmark in 1860, he twice presided over the Scandianavian Mission. As a colonizer of Arizona in 1878, he was an LDS agent in purchasing and securing the townsites, land, and water rights of Snowflake, Taylor, and Woodruff from the Aztec Land and Cattle Company. In Snowflake he was a farmer, stockman, cooperative mercantile and bank organizer, a probate judge, and served in the Arizona Territorial Legislature. Widely traveled and self-educated, he amassed a large library and became conversant in five languages. He served the Church in Arizona as the first president of the Eastern Arizona Stake from 1879 to 1887, and as the first president of the Snowflake Stake from 1887 until his death June 5, 1906. He was called by the church leaders to be a patriarch and to practice the principle of plural marriage. His five loving and devoted wives bore his forty-four worthy children. We, his descendents numbering more than 6,000, salute this great man for his leadership, his industry, his integrity, and his faith!, (Lower Marker Reads:) , ( This monument, erected in 1968 by the Jesse N. Smith Family Organization, marks the site of the old log cabin built by Jesse N. Smith in 1881, which served as his office as President of the Eastern Arizona and Snowflake Stakes.)