President Jesse N. Smith of Snowflake, Apache Co., Arizona, was born in Stockholm, St. Lawrence Co., New York, December 2, 1834, and was baptized into the Church between his eighth and ninth year, August 13, 1843. His parents had previously embraced the gospel and had joined the Saints in their first gathering place — Kirtland — in May, 1836. He first saw the Prophet in Kirtland, though he was then but a child. Afterwards he met him at Nauvoo. Of his estimate of the Prophet’s character he says he was “Incomparably the most God-like man I ever saw.”
And this is his testimony of him: “I know that by nature he was incapable of lying and deceitfulness, possessing the greatest kindness and nobility of character. I felt when in his presence that he could read me through and through. I know he was all that he claimed to be.”
The little incident given below is one which he recollects of the Prophet Joseph:
“In 1843, for a short time, I attended a school kept by a Miss Mitchell in Hyrum Smith’s brick office. Passing the Prophet’s house one morning, he called me to him and asked what book I read in at my school. I replied, ‘The Book of Mormon.’ He seemed pleased, and taking me into the house he gave me a copy of the Book of Mormon to read in at school, a gift greatly prized by me.”
Jesse N. Smith, Juvenile Instructor, January 1892, pp. 23-24.