Joseph Smith's miraculous straightening of a carriage axletree
Published October 4, 2026 at 9:03 AM
Contributed by
Millennial Star Research
While traveling across a prairie toward Far West, an iron axletree on Brother Barnard's carriage was bent. Brother Barnard, a blacksmith, stated it was impossible to fix without breaking it. Joseph Smith insisted on trying, used a pry, and successfully straightened the iron back to its place.
In Their Own Words
“Brother Joseph looked at it and said, 'I can spring that iron axletree back, so that we can go on our journey.' Brother Barnard replied, 'I am a blacksmith, and used to work in all kinds of iron, and that axletree is bent so far round that to undertake to straighten it would only break it.' Brother Joseph answered, 'I’ll try it.' He took a pry and we sprung it back to its place, and it did not trouble us any more till we arrived at Far West, March 14, 1837. Brother Barnard, seeing this done, concluded that he would never say again that a thing could not be done when a Prophet said it could. — Millennial Star 25:33”
Sources & References
The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star (Manchester, later Liverpool, England, May 1840–1970), 15 August 1863 (Vol. 25, No. 33). https://archive.org/details/per_utah-and-the-mormons_the-latter-day-saints-millennial-star_1863-08-15_25_33 (account extracted verbatim from the issue's Internet Archive OCR text; research confidence: high)
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