a slaveholder in the Utah territory. However, as a Latter-day Saint missionary, he actively supported Joseph Smith's presidential platform, which called for the gradual elimination of slavery. On a mission to Tennessee, Smoot tried to have 3,000 copies of Smith's presidential platform printed, but the printer refused, since it was illegal to distribute abolitionist literature in the state. While proselyting with Wilford Woodruff in July 1836, Smoot read the April issue of the Messenger and Advocate to refute accusations of their being abolitionists. In Utah Territory, Abraham and Margaret Smoot owned at least two men and one girlTom, Jerry, and Lucy. Tom died in 1862, still a slave. Modern historians have called Smoot, along with Brigham Young, Charles C. Rich, and William H. Hooper, a "respectable minority" of Utah Territory citizens "in favor of slavery." Smoot was later involved in the 1879 discussions among church leaders about the origins of the priesthood and temple restrictions for black Latter-day Saints. He hosted a gathering at his home in Provo, Utah, with John Taylor, Brigham Young Jr., Zebedee Coltrin, and L. John Nuttall. Smoot remembered that when Patten, Parish, and Thomas B. Marsh were missionaries in the South in 1835 and 1836, they took the question of ordaining black men to Joseph Smith. Southern slave codes limited the ability of enslaved people to assemble or preach. Smoot recalled, "his decision as I understood, was that they were not entitled to the Priesthood, nor yet to be baptized without the consent of their Masters. In [later] years ... I became acquainted with Joseph myself in Far West about the year 1838. I received from Joseph substantially the same instructions. It was on my application to him what should be done with the Negro in the South as I was preaching to them. He said I could baptize them by the consent of their Masters, but not to confer the Priesthood upon them." Pertaining to this statement, professor Gordon C. Thomasson has remarked: "It is extremely difficult to imagine [Smoot] inventing his oft-cited testimony, nor is it likely that the statements can be attributed totally to prejudice acquired or reinforced while serving as [a missionary]." Leadership in Utah Salt Lake City Smoot led companies of pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley in 1847, 1852, and 1856. In Salt Lake valley, he served as bishop of the LDS Church's Fifteenth Ward. He was also Utah