Lot Smith
| Lot Smith | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
May 15, 1830 Williamstown, New York |
| Died | June 21, 1892 (aged 62) near Tuba City, Arizona |
| Resting place | Farmington, Utah |
Lot Smith (May 15, 1830 – June 21, 1892) was a Mormon pioneer, soldier, lawman and American frontiersman. He became 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. He is most famous for his exploits during the 1857 Utah War.
Smith practiced the Latter-day Saint doctrine of plural marriage, and had eight wives and 52 children.
Born in 1830 in Williamstown, Oswego County, New York, Lot, with his parents and other children in the family, left New York to be with the Latter-Day Saints or Mormons. The Smith family lived across the Mississippi River from Nauvoo, Illinois and were neighbors with Brigham Young's family. Lot was 14 years old when Joseph Smith, beloved as a prophet, was murdered. In 1846, while the family fled the continuing persecution of Mormons, Lot's mother was one of many Mormons who died and were buried in Iowa territory.
At sixteen, Smith joined the Mormon Battalion and served during the Mexican-American War making a journey, touted as the longest infantry march in history, from Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas through the southwest to San Diego, where the group was mustered out of service.
After mustering out in California, other members of the Mormon Battalion worked at Sutter's Mill and discovered gold. Smith amassed a quantity of gold then came back across the mountains to the Great Salt Lake and Farmington, Utah, where he married, became a military leader in the Nauvoo Legion in Utah and was distinguished in campaigns to stop Indian depredations.
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