I Couldn't Do It

The principle of plural marriage remains a mystery to me, and particularly in the case of my Great, Great Grandmother Charlotte Rawlins Downs Smith. Twenty-one-year-old Charlotte was first married in 1814 to Ezekiel Downs. Six children were born to the union. 

In 1829, the family settled in Adams County, Illinois, twelve miles below Quincy, where they prospered. They bought calves and hogs and raised them for market, purchased and fenced 160 acres, 100 of which they cleared, and planted with corn, wheat, oats, beans, potatoes, pumpkins and melons. 

Sympathetic to the plight of the exiled Mormon settlers from Missouri, they became converted to the gospel and eventually moved and settled in Nauvoo,  where they built a nice home. Nevertheless, they suffered great persecution and hardship at the hands of mobs because of their faith. 

The suffering and martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith eventually weakened Ezekiel's faith, and he left the fellowship of the saints, but Charlotte remained strong and emigrated with all but one of the children to Utah. Her testimony and commitment to the restored gospel became stronger and brighter on the trek west.

As if her story is not inspiring enough to this point, in Utah she became the 2nd wife of John Glover Smith. Brother Smith was a true saint, a member of the Quorum of the Seventies from Big Cottonwood. His first marriage was at age 44 in 1852, to Susannah Downs. Three years later, he was sealed to two more wives, one of which was Charlotte, Susannah's mother! I can scarcely imagine living in plural marriage, but to share a husband with your daughter is incomprehensible. John later married a fourth wife, but that marriage was later dissolved.

Five years passed before John was called as the first Bishop of "Summit" in Cache County, Utah, eight miles north of Logan. The settlement was later renamed "Smithfield" in his (and we must include his faithful wives') honor.


John was called to settle the "Cotton Mission" in St. George in 1862, but Charlotte's health was not robust enough to go. She stayed behind in Draper, where she passed away the following year at age 70. One can only guess at the reason that her tombstone listed her marriage to Ezekiel, her first husband, who left the faith and abandoned the family.