Did a Presbyterian Pastor Really Condemn Joseph Smith's brother to Hell?
On memory and the myth of a mean minister.
When Alvin Smith’s abdominal pain became unbearable, a physician prescribed calomel—a nineteenth-century laxative made from mercury and chloride.
Alvin died shortly thereafter on November 19, 1823, likely from mercury poisoning.
His death devastated the Smith family, especially his younger brother Joseph Jr. Their mother, Lucy Mack Smith, said her family “could ‘not be comforted, because [Alvin] was not.’”1 That line has been read as her reflection on the claim that a Presbyterian minister, the Reverend Benjamin B. Stockton, publicly declared Alvin to be damned at his funeral.2
According to one account, “Rev. Stockton had preached [Alvin’s] funeral sermon and intimated very strongly that he had gone to hell, for Alvin was not a church member.”3
The story has circulated widely over time. It’s cited as an early influence on Joseph Smith’s later rejection of narrow salvation and the birth of a more expansive heaven—the kind that includes degrees of glory, baptism for the dead, and a glorified Alvin.
It’s a powerful origin story. But are the details true?
A Well-Known Story Worth Rethinking
I wanted to include this story in a project I’m working on because it’s widely known and assumed. But after digging into the sources, I’m not convinced it happened quite the way it’s been remembered.
Granted, it’s entirely plausible that a Presbyterian minister insinuated Alvin’s eternal destination of reprobation. During funerals, Presbyterian ministers in that day were instructed to “exhort [funeral attendees] to consider the frailty of life, and the importance of being prepared for death and eternity.”4 Maybe Stockton—intentionally or not—used Alvin’s lack of church membership as a cautionary tale, urging listeners to avoid a similar fate.
From a personal perspective, though, if he chose that moment to wax eloquent about the reprobation of the non-elect, then it was a moment of poor pastoral judgment. Sometimes, we just need to “weep with those who weep” (Romans 12:15).
But I’m unconvinced he did.
Here’s why.
To begin, there’s no contemporary evidence that a minister condemned Alvin to hell in 1823. His mother, Lucy, didn’t mention it in her History. That’s a bit odd to me since she was fairly forthcoming about both positive and negative religious experiences. She mentions her family’s grief—how they “wept over our irretrievable loss”5—but not that their sorrow was compounded by a calloused minister.
Interestingly, there’s evidence to suggest Lucy joined the Presbyterian church after Alvin’s funeral, which, if that’s the case, is also a bit odd since the minister spoke so harshly against her firstborn son.6 Yes, grief often draws people toward faith, but if a Presbyterian minister had publicly consigned her son to hell at his funeral, why would Lucy choose to join that church? Especially when other options were available in town, like the Methodists, Baptists, or Society of Friends?7
It’s possible, of course, but it seems unlikely. She never mentioned it.
Naturally, silence in a historical record doesn’t prove something didn’t happen. Grief is complicated. Families don’t always document painful moments, especially amid trauma.
Still, if such a harsh public judgment had lingered in the family’s memory for decades, we might expect it to appear in Lucy’s extensive writings or even in Joseph’s or other family members’ recollections.
But they don’t.
Well… there’s one notable exception.
William Smith, the younger brother of Alvin and Joseph, recalled that their father rejected Presbyterianism because Stockton, who he claimed presided over Alvin’s funeral, suggested Alvin “had gone to hell” for not being a church member.8
But William’s quote comes from 1894, which was 60 years after the fact. William was 12 at the time of Alvin’s death and 82 when giving that account. While his memory isn’t automatically false, it deserves scrutiny. William’s religious loyalties shifted dramatically after Joseph’s death (1844)—from the Twelve, to James Strang, to his own leadership claims.
The issue isn’t just time. It’s the instability of William’s narrative over time. Did he get the details right? I’m not so sure.
Case in point: Benjamin Stockton wasn’t actually installed as pastor of the Presbyterian church in Palmyra until February 1824, which was a few months after Alvin’s funeral.
According to extant records, Rev. Daniel C. Hopkins preached supply from 1822 to 1824 until Rev. Stockton was installed in February 1824.9 Stockton served in Skeneatoles, New York until April 1822 and remained a minister in the presbytery of Cayuga until his transfer to the Geneva Presbytery in early 1824.10 That February, Stockton was installed pastor of the church.11 So, if any Presbyterian minister officiated Alvin’s funeral, it would likely have been Hopkins—not Stockton.
Grief Remembered and Reimagined?
Alright.
Hang with me.
What if the condemnation of Alvin to hell didn’t come from Stockton at the funeral, but in the weeks or months that followed?
Imagine this scenario.
Rev. Hopkins (not Rev. Stockton) performed Alvin’s funeral and did so with such pastoral care that it persuaded Lucy to join (or re-join) the Presbyterian church. But later, when Rev. Stockton arrived several months later, he brought with him a knack for preaching Calvinistic doctrines of salvation. At some point—perhaps in a private conversation—Lucy questioned him about Alvin’s eternal destination. Stockton likely gave the standard Calvinist response: that salvation belongs only to the elect, and that those who die outside the visible covenant community give no clear sign of election.
This response would have deeply unsettled Lucy, and it certainly would have provoked Joseph Sr., who refused to join the church. The indirect nature of Stockton’s theological stance—especially if expressed impersonally or in general terms—may have only intensified the offense. Without naming Alvin, Stockton’s framework effectively consigned him to the reprobate. That implication, filtered through grief and theological disagreement, may have grown over time into a hardened family narrative of judgment.
If this scenario is true, then the famous story isn’t necessarily based on a false memory, but a condensation of theology and grief. It’s not built on top of a one-off offense; rather, it emerged from a slow-burning doctrinal dissonance within a grieving, spiritually searching family.
I think this scenario is very plausible—even more plausible than William’s account.
Whatever the case, the story of Alvin Smith’s funeral sermon has taken on symbolic power over the years. It’s a formative moment that helps explain Joseph Smith’s evolving views on salvation and the afterlife. And like many meaningful narratives passed down through generations, it has evolved.
Whether or not a minister condemned Alvin from a pulpit, the pain his family experienced was real, and it deeply shaped their spiritual journey. The story has endured because it expresses something true about Latter-day Saint beliefs: that family bonds and salvation extend beyond the grave. The vision recorded in D&C 137, where Joseph sees Alvin in the celestial kingdom, represents a profound theological response to Calvinist soteriology.12
Still, meaning and memory are not immune to scrutiny. The goal here isn’t to debunk for its own sake or nitpick the story’s symbolic power. It’s to ask what actually happened, and how stories evolve when theology and remembrance intertwine. If we want to understand history clearly, we must be willing to test even our most assumed narratives.
So What?
I can sense a question: “Even if it wasn’t Rev. Stockton at the funeral, the story still represents real theological tension in the Smith family. So what’s the point of challenging it?”
That’s a fair question. But the stakes are real, because stories shape theology. The image of a Presbyterian minister condemning Alvin to hell in a moment of family grief has become more than a detail—it’s a symbol. It represents a (the?) break between Joseph Smith and Calvinist soteriology, often cited as the emotional and doctrinal catalyst for his vision of a more expansive salvation.
Sometimes, it’s even framed as the origin story of Mormonism itself.
If that moment didn’t happen the way it’s been remembered—or didn’t happen at the funeral at all—then it shifts how we understand the roots of Joseph’s theological development. Instead of a dramatic rupture caused by a single offense, it may have been a slower, more complex reckoning with the emotional cost of Calvinism’s exclusivity.
In other words, this wasn’t about one hard sermon—it was about a growing discomfort with a theology that offered no hope for the unbaptized dead.
That’s a more textured story, one that dovetails nicely with a young boy who described how his study of the Bible led him to believe mankind had fallen away from the true and living faith, and no church or denomination was founded on the gospel.
Reconsidering the details doesn’t erase the pain or the theological tension. If anything, it helps us appreciate how that tension unfolded over time—how grief, doctrine, and family memory intertwined.
That’s why it matters if the “mean minister” was more myth than man.
What About Lucy’s Statement?
One final thought.
Lucy famously wrote that after Alvin’s death, her family “wept over our irretrievable loss” and “could ‘not be comforted, because he was not.’”13 This line is sometimes cited as evidence that a Presbyterian minister—presumably Stockton—condemned Alvin at his funeral, prompting an spiritual crisis in the Smith home.
But there’s an important detail we shouldn’t overlook: Lucy’s line is put in quotation marks.14
That suggests she’s not offering an original reflection but quoting someone else.
So where did it come from?
I’m not sure, but the wording somewhat resembles biblical language. In Genesis 37:35, when Jacob believes his son Joseph has died, the text reads: “And all his sons and all his daughters rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted; and he said, For I will go down into the grave unto my son mourning.”
Of course, Lucy still believed in her son’s goodness, and Joseph’s later vision in D&C 137—where he sees Alvin in the celestial kingdom—gives voice to a theological conviction that death outside church membership does not preclude salvation.
But Lucy’s statement need not be seen as a direct rebuttal to Presbyterian doctrine. Instead, it may simply reflect a mother’s heartbroken lament, steeped in the language of grief her Bible-drenched culture and faith provided.
So, did a Presbyterian pastor condemn Alvin Smith to hell? Maybe—maybe not. But the story’s persistence reminds us why it’s worth revisiting assumed narratives.
However it began, the memory played an important role in Joseph’s reshaping of heaven itself.
This essay is based on a future project. Stay tuned.
Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1845, Joseph Smith Papers.
Dan Vogel, Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet, 55; Richard Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling (RSR), 110.
Testimony of William Smith, “Another Testimony,” January 20, 1894, Deseret News.
The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (Philadelphia, 1821), 486.
Smith, History, Joseph Smith Papers.
When, exactly, Lucy joined is difficult to ascertain. Bushman says Lucy joined the Presbyterian church “sometime in the half dozen years after 1818,” which quite the spread, i.e., between 1818 and 1824. RSR, 37. Joseph recalled his mother and some siblings being “proselyted to the Presbyterian faith [and] joined that Church” sometime “in my fifteenth year,” i.e., between December 1819 and December 1820. JSPP. Other evidence, however, points to between Fall 1824 and Winter 1825. Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents (EMD) 5:396. Regardless, by September 1828, however, Lucy stopped attending services. EMD 3:498–99. She would eventually be disfellowshipped for her belief in the Book of Mormon. RSR, 81.
RSR, 36. There was a second Presbyterian church on the eastern edge of Palmyra’s township, and it’s possible its pastor officiated Alvin’s funeral. However, the Western Presbyterian Church was the largest congregation in town, “probably the best established church in the village,” while the eastern church lay several miles outside the village. William’s later naming of Rev. Stockton—pastor of the Western church—suggests the family’s primary association was with that congregation.
“Another Testimony,” January 20, 1894, Deseret News.
https://www.wpreschurch.org/history/1898History.pdf; James Hotchkin, A History of the Purchase and Settlement of Western New York (New York, 1848), 377.
Wesley P. Walters and Richard L. Bushman, “The Question of the Palmyra Revival,” Dialogue 4, no. 1 (1969), 63 fn. 15.
Buffalo Patriot, March 2, 1824.
In January 1836, Joseph recorded a vision—now canonized as Doctrine and Covenants 137—in which he saw Alvin in the celestial kingdom. The revelation came before the doctrine of baptism for the dead and shows that Joseph’s expansive view of salvation was already emerging.
Smith, History, Joseph Smith Papers.
There are two versions of this account. The first is a rough draft dictated by Lucy, which does not close the phrase in quotes. But the second version, which does close the phrase in quotes, is a fair copy of her History written under Lucy’s supervision.