George Q. Cannon's recognition of the Prophet Joseph Smith
Published October 6, 2026 at 6:13 AM
Contributed by
Millennial Star Research
While George Q. Cannon was a boy in a large crowd of people, he was able to select the Prophet Joseph Smith out of that large body of people, despite having no prior means of visual recognition to suggest who he was, feeling as though he had always known him.
In Their Own Words
“I was a boy when my people gathered with the people of God. I was very curious to know the Prophet Joseph Smith, having heard a great deal about him. I happened to be in a large crowd of people where the company was, and I selected him out of that large body of people. There were no means of recognition that I know of which would suggest him to me as the Prophet; but I recognized him as though I had always known him. I am satisfied that I had known him and been familiar with him. I had a testimony of his divine mission, and I felt that he was a man of God, and that he was the Prophet of the Lord.”
— George Q. Cannon, The Life of Joseph Smith, the Prophet
Sources & References
The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star (Manchester, later Liverpool, England, May 1840–1970), 22 July 1889 (Vol. 51, No. 29). https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_the-latter-day-saints-millennial-star_1889-07-22_51_29 (account extracted verbatim from the issue's Internet Archive OCR text; research confidence: high) Full first-person account: The Life of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, by George Q. Cannon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Sunday School Union, 1888), p. 319 https://archive.org/details/lifeofjosephsmit00cann/page/319/mode/2up
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