SMITH, ETHAN, was born in 1762, at Belchertown, Massachusetts. His father had been an officer under Sir William Johnson; in 1780 the young man entered the American Revolutionary army, and he was at West Point at the time of the treason of Arnold. He was but a short time in the service, for in 1781, becoming seriously impressed on religion, he had settled at South Hadley. He aimed at establishing himself in business, but his mind being directed to the min-istry, the way was opened up for him to gain an education, and he entered Dartmouth College in 1786, and in 1790 he received his degree. As he had read theology with great diligence for ten years previously, he was at once accepted and licensed to preach. He settled as pastor of the church at Haverhill, New Hampshire, in October, 1790, where he labored for nine years; but being inadequately supported in that place, he removed to Hopkinton, New Hampshire, where he remained eighteen years, when a similar cause again obliged him to retire. He preached in the Presbyterian church of Hebron, New York, in Poultney, Vermont, and at Hanover, Massachusetts; after which he became a city missionary in Boston, in which department of labor he continued until his death, in 1849, in the eighty-seventh year of his age. He was a very prolific writer. Many oi his sermons were published, and among his larger works are "A Dissertation on the Prophecies," "A Key to the Figurative Language of the Prophecies," "A View of the Trinity, in answer to Noah Worcester's Bible News," "A View of the Hebrews;" the object being to show that the aborigines of America are descended from the ten tribes of Israel.

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SMITH, JOSEPH, founder of Mormonism, was born in Windsor county, Vermont, in 1805. He was the son of a farmer and worked on the farm, receiving but a scanty education. According to his own story, the angel of the Lord delivered into his hands a record engraved in Egyptian characters on plates of gold, the work of Mormon, a Jewish prophet, and containing, as interpreted by Smith, a history of ancient America from the first planting of the colony after the confusion of languages, down to the fifth century university and a regularly organized militia. By successive “revelations” Smith constituted the Church, with himself as prophet and legislator. But dissensions existed between the faithful and the unbelievers in the new city; rival newspapers carried on the war, till the mob took it out of their hands, and the governor of the State in turn out of theirs. In June, 1844, Smith was arrested and imprisoned on a charge of treason, and on the twenty-seventh of that month he was murdered by the mob, who burst into the prison. Brigham Young was chosen his successor, and the Mormons had soon after to seek a new settlement. This they found in Utah, which was recognized as one of the United States Territories in 1850.