Martha McBride Knight
Martha McBride Knight Smith Kimball (March 17, 1805 – November 20, 1901) was a founding member of the Relief Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which was organized on her birthday in 1842.
In January 1846, she was married polygamously to Heber C. Kimball, by whom she had one child, a son, who was born at Winter Quarters and died there as an infant.
She was a witness to, and in some instances a key participant in, some of the pivotal events in early Latter Day Saint history.
Forced to flee Missouri following Governor Bogg's Extermination Order, the Knight family found refuge with some friends in Pike County, Missouri, near the Mississippi River, where Martha gave birth to Martha Abigail Knight on February 9, 1839.
She was a founding member of the Relief Society, being present at the organization meeting on March 17, 1842, in Nauvoo, which also happened to be her 37th birthday.
Martha was purportedly told by Joseph Smith that she was the first woman to give her consent for her husband to enter into plural marriage.
One evening as Martha was sitting in the grape arbor behind the house, Vinson returned home carrying a basket.
One month later, on September 3, 1842, Martha lost her and Vinson's youngest child, Rodolphus Elderkin Knight, who was less than one year old.
Two months after her marriage to Heber C. Kimball on 26 March 1846, Martha left Nauvoo as part of the exodus of the majority of Latter Day Saints for the West.
In the spring of 1847 Martha's son-in-law Andrew Smith Gibbons left with the first company of Saints to enter the Salt Lake Valley.
Their first home was a dugout in the side of a hill on Canfield Creek in Sullivan Hollow at about 30th Street and Madison Avenue.
Martha's lifeless body, found lying face down in the dust, was carried by Gilbert back to their dugout home and the neighbors gathered around to help revive her.
Although Martha was one of Heber C. Kimball's polygamous wives, she does not appear to have lived with him very long, if at all, after her arrival in Utah, although he came to see her occasionally in Ogden until his death in 1868.
Martha was living in Fillmore on 8 July 1869 when she signed an affidavit before Edward Partridge stating that she had been married to Joseph Smith in the summer of 1842.
In April 1877 Martha attended the dedication of the St. George Temple, where she performed ordinance work for many of her deceased ancestors.
About 1880 Martha's daughter Almira who had apostatized from the LDS Church came to Ogden with her second husband George Hanscom for a brief visit.
An obituary account of Martha's life noted: The physical strength and endurance of Mrs. Knight was well-nigh marvelous.
She was a great reader, particularly of the daily papers, reading every word of telegraphic news, and during the Spanish–American War she was regarded as one of the best posted persons in Weber county on the military operations of the contending forces. ...
Two or three years ago at a birthday reunion of the family held in her honor, Mrs. Knight was called on for a speech, and prefaced one of considerable length with a recital of the tremendous changes which had taken place in her lifetime, mentioning the steam engine, the modern printing press and the telegraph.
To illustrate this latter she described with what slowness news traveled when she was a young woman of 40, and wound up her recital of how on that very day the entire country was able to watch every detail of a little affair at Carson City when Corbett was knocked out by Fitzsimmons.
She was a dainty little woman, with fine delicate features, gray-blue eyes, and dark (some say light brown) hair.
