Nauvoo moment: Fond of sport
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From descriptions given by those who knew him, the Prophet Joseph Smith was a multidimensional man. His spiritual stature was such that he conversed with angels and, as William W. Phelps put it, "communed with Jehovah." (See Hymns, No. 27.)
Yet Joseph, described as handsome, large and well proportioned in physical appearance, was a robust young man who enjoyed sport. Thus, he wrestled, played baseball, pitched quoits and engaged in strenuous games of the day, such as stick pulling, jumping at the mark and pulling up stakes.
In one journal entry, he reported: "In the evening, when pulling sticks, I pulled up Justus A. Morse, the strongest man in Ramus, [Ill.] with one hand." (History of the Church 5:302; see also p. 466.)
Calvin W. Moore witnessed in Nauvoo one incident of the Prophet's athletic prowess. Years later, while a bishop in Lawrence, Emery County, Utah, he provided this reminiscence that was published in the Juvenile Instructor:
"He came to a large crowd of young men who were wrestling, that being the popular sport in those days. Among the boys there was a bully from LaHarpe, I believe. He had thrown down every one on the ground who took hold of him. When Joseph came to the crowd . . . he was invited to wrestle with this bully. The man was eager to have a tussel with the Prophet, so Joseph stepped forward and took hold of the man. The first pass he made, Joseph whirled him around and took him by the collar and seat of his trousers and walked out to a ditch and threw him in it. Then, taking him by the arm, he helped him up and patted him on the back and said, 'You must not mind this. When I am with the boys I make all the fun I can for them.' "
— R. Scott Lloyd
Sources: Truman G. Madsen, Joseph Smith the Prophet, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, pp. 20-21; Juvenile Instructor, vol. 27:8 (April 15, 1892), p. 255.
