Grampa Bill has found little information on
Cyrus Smalling. It is known that he participated in Zion's Camp in 1834.
He must have participated actively and with a degree of honor, for on February 14.1835,
he was ordained a Seventy and set apart as an original member of the First
Quorum of the Seventy thus entering the ranks of the General Authorities.
By June of 1836, he had presumably been ordained a High Priest for he sat on the Kirtland High Council as it tried Preserved Harris (brother of Martin Harris) and Leonard Rich on the charges of of not adequately contributing to the support of the poor. Harris was disfellowshipped. No action taken against Rich.
Despite having been called as a General Authority and sitting in High Councils, he succumbed to the temptings of evil men and spoke against the Prophet Joseph
Smith. As early as 1838, Stephen Burnett listed Smalling as one who
had turned against the Prophet though remaining faithful to the Book
of Mormon. Smalling was the author of the infamous "Smalling Letter," of March 10, 1841, in which he defames both the Prophet and members of the Church. Given the ignorance and mental deficiencies of which he accuses the saints, it seems amazing that he himself was ever affiliated with such a band of knaves, blackguards, and ignoramuses. Given the timing of his apostasy, it seems likely that Smalling had lost money in the Kirtland Anti-banking Safety Society debacle and erroneously
blamed Joseph (who had counseled against foolish speculation) for his own
unwise investments.
Later, in 1843, Joseph mentioned Smalling
peripherally as someone who had stolen documents either from Joseph or the Church.
It seems likely that he had been excommunicated by this time, although
Grampa Bill has not found substantive evidence of the fact.
We are unable to find any information on his later
life and death. A search of the Ancestral File, the International
Genealogical Index, and RootWeb fail to locate Smalling.
Bibliography
Smith, History of the Church, multiple citations; see index
