This claim is based solely upon the testimony of Lyman Wight. They quote him as follows:
In the private journal of Lyman Wight, . . . . this is found: "Sunday, December 8th, 1850, bore testimony that Joseph Smith appointed those of his own posterity to be his successor."
And in a letter he wrote in July, 1855, from Medina river, Texas, to the Northern Islander, a Strangite paper, Brother Wight said: Now Mr. Editor, if you had been present when Joseph called on me shortly after we came out of jail,[A] [Liberty jail, Missouri. —Ed.] to lay hands with him on the head of a youth, and heard him cry aloud, "you are my successor when I depart." and heard the blessings poured on his head,—I say had you heard all this, and seen the tears streaming from his eyes—you would not have been led [into following Strang] by blind fanaticism, or a zeal without knowledge.[B]
[Footnote A: The italics are mine, note them. R.]
[Footnote B: The Saint's Herald, Vol. XXXIX, No. 22, p. 338-9.]
Of this testimony it is to be said, first on the entry in Mr. Wight's journal, that it is too general in its character to be of much service in supporting the claims of "young Joseph." We are not certain that he refers to him at all. Then if Lyman Wight knew in 1850 that Joseph the prophet had blessed his son Joseph to be his successor, as prophet and president of the church, Mr. Wight knew it in 1844; and is it not strange that he did not speak of it and advocate it when the question of a successor was warmly discussed in Nauvoo, during the autumn of 1844? Why is it that we have nothing from him on the subject earlier than 1850? And this silence on the part of Mr. Wight is the more significant when it is remembered that he was a bold, fearless man. It cannot be said in truth, that Brigham Young's influence was so masterly as to awe him into silence. As a matter of fact he violently opposed Brigham Young in some of his measures, and at last rebelled against him; but nothing is said by him until 1850, about the appointment of any of the prophet's posterity to succeed to the presidency of the church.
The letter quoted from the Northern Islander, might be of some force if its statements were not contradicted as to time and place and circumstance by another statement, also made in a Josephite publication. Let it be observed that according to the testimony of Mr Wight, in the Northern Islander, the "blessing and prophecy" under consideration was given at a time that the prophet called on Mr. Wight, shortly after they came out of Liberty jail. With that in mind read the following in The Successor:—[A]
[Footnote A: A Josephite tract sustaining the claims of "young
Joseph," p. 3.]
Lyman Wight, one of the Twelve, always taught the saints whom he led into Texas, that none but "little Joseph" could lead the church, as successor to the martyr. He said he knew it, for in 1839, when Hyrum, Joseph, and himself were in prison, in Liberty jail, Missouri, "little Joseph" was brought by his mother and left with his father in the jail, while she was attending to business affairs in the town—and that then and there[A] Joseph, with Hyrum and himself, laid their hands upon the lad's head, and Joseph proceeded to bless him, and prophesied that he would yet lead the church of the living God; and he blessed him to that end. Such was the testimony of Lyman Wight up to 1858, the year in which he died.
[Footnote A: The italics are mine. R.]