Silas S. Smith

Who was Silas S. Smith?

Silas Sanford Smith, Jr. was a Mormon pioneer, a politician in the Utah Territory, and the leader of the San Juan Expedition that settled San Juan County, Utah.

Smith was born in Stockholm, New York. His father, Silas Sr., was a younger brother of Joseph Smith, Sr., which made Silas Jr. and Joseph Smith, Jr. first cousins. Silas Sr. was baptized into Smith's Church of the Latter Day Saints in 1835 and the family became followers of Smith. After Silas Sr.'s baptism, the family moved to Kirtland, Ohio. A few years later they joined the Mormon settlers in Missouri and in 1839 they were driven out and settled in Nauvoo, Illinois. In 1847, after Joseph Smith was killed, the family left Nauvoo and crossed the American plains as Mormon pioneers, settling in the Salt Lake Valley.

In Utah Territory, Silas Jr. lived first in Salt Lake City and then in Farmington. In 1851, he married Clarinda Ricks, with whom he would have four children. Shortly after their marriage, Brigham Young asked the couple to settle in Parowan. Smith practiced plural marriage and in 1853 married Sarah Ann Ricks, his first wife's sister. Smith and Sarah Ricks would have five children. In 1854 to 1856, Smith was a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Hawaii, where he learned to speak the Hawaiian language.