Joe Smith Pardoned
source date: 1891
availability: public-domain

Issue of The Enterprise Joe Smith Pardoned A Salt Lake City dispatch of the 22nd says: Joseph F. Smith returned to Salt Lake City today, after nine years exile. His story is one of the most romantic in the history of Mormon - ism. Always one of the fiercest defenders of Polygamy, he was in February, 1885, indicted for unlawful cohabitation, his three plural wives being made co-respondents. He had already been three years under ground, but had just been elected to the Territorial Legislature and had been chosen president of the upper house. From that until today he was never publicly seen in Utah. A nephew of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and son Hiram Smith, he is the nearest relative of the prophet who holds by the tentes of Mormonism, and he is the last of the promi- nent officials of that church to sign the Ed- munds-Tucker act, which act resulted in presi- dential pardon just two weeks ago.