William Smith wrote of his brother:
“That he [Joseph] was illitterate to some extent is admitted but that he was enterly unlettered is a mistake. In Sintax, authography, Mathamatics, grammar, geography with other studies in the Common Schools of his day he was no novis and for writing he wrote a plain intelegable hand.”
“That he [Joseph] was illitterate to some extent is admitted but that he was enterly unlettered is a mistake. In Sintax, authography, Mathamatics, grammar, geography with other studies in the Common Schools of his day he was no novis and for writing he wrote a plain intelegable hand.”
From Ellen E. Dickinson’s 1885 New Light on Mormonism, Part 2:
“It is said that Joseph at an early age could read, but not write; and when quite young committed these lines to memory from the story of Captain Kidd, the notorious pirate, which seemed to give him great pleasure:
My name was Robert Kidd
As I sailed, as I sailed;
And most wickedly I did
As I sailed, as I sailed.”