Priesthood Licenses Signed by Joseph Smith or the First Presidency
Priesthood Licenses Signed by Joseph Smith or the
First Presidency
During his time as
, Joseph Smith issued
hundreds of
certifying an individual’s office in the
church and authorizing him “to perform the duty of
his calling.” (Articles and Covenants, ca. Apr.
1830 [D&C 20:64].) The following is a
list of known licenses signed by Joseph Smith. It
also includes licenses signed by any member of the
First Presidency after April 1838, when a general
church conference changed the procedures for
issuing licenses. (See License Record Book, 19.) Licenses that
post-date Smith’s June 1844 death are not
included.
The list is alphabetical by the
recipient’s last name. Under each person’s name
are the licenses he received from Smith, with the
priesthood office and date of the license (e.g.,
, 6 Apr. 1836). A hyperlink
on the date takes users to the earliest extant
version of the license—either the original license
or the license as copied into one of the two
license record books. Other extant versions of the
license are noted in a footnote.
If an original license is extant,
there will be no notation following the
hyperlinked date. If the original license is not
extant, the date will be followed by a notation
giving the license book and page number, with a
hyperlink leading to the specific page in the
license book where the license was copied. In the
second license record book, sometimes only a
portion of the license was copied; these versions
will be noted as “extract.” If there is no extant
license or portion of a license, the date will be
followed by “Not extant,” with a footnote
indicating the source of the license information,
usually a notation in the second license book.
Licenses listed under a
recipient’s name may actually have been issued to
two men with the same name. For example, there may
have been more than one church member named Samuel
Smith. It is also possible that scribal error
resulted in the misspelling of some names, so
that, for example, Salmon Andrews and Solomon
Andrews may be the same person.