1828–1913

Job Taylor Smith was born on 2 December 1828 in Gloucester, England to Thomas and Ann (Taylor) Smith. Due to his parents’ poverty, an aunt and uncle, George and Mary Bundy, raised him. The family joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1840 and immigrated to the United States in 1843.

Job, his aunt and uncle, and sister Ann, suffered much during the next five years while living at Nauvoo, Illinois; Council Bluffs, Iowa; and Winter Quarters, Nebraska. In 1848 they immigrated to Salt Lake City, Utah in the Brigham Young Company. The following year, Job was called to serve a mission to England, where he served for five years as president of the Bedfordshire Conference.

Job married Adelaide Fowles in 1852. In 1854, at the completion of his mission, the family immigrated to the United States and arrived at Salt Lake City that September in the Job Taylor Smith Company. Adelaide’s sister, Jane, accompanied the family to Utah and married Job as a plural wife in 1855. Job also married Sarah Punter and Charlotte Slinger in 1874 and 1885, respectively.

Job worked as a basket maker and occasionally as a farmer. His wives also worked in the mercantile industry to support the family, which eventually included more than fifteen children. In 1877 Job served a mission to the Pacific States. He died on 3 January 1913 at Salt Lake City at the age of eighty-four.

Bibliography

Esshom, Frank. Pioneers and Prominent Men of Utah. Salt Lake City: Western Epics, 1966.