Kirtland Safety Society - Opposition and Failure

Opposition and Failure

In February 1837, at the behest of Newell, Samuel D. Rounds swore a writ against Smith and Rigdon for illegal banking and issuing unauthorized bank paper. At a hearing in March, this trial was postponed until autumn. Eventually Rounds voluntarily dropped all of the cases in his suit except those against Smith and Rigdon. Although Smith's only official capacity for KSSABC was cashier, other officers and parties with equal or greater responsibility were absolved from the suit. KSSABC continued issuing notes through June, but eventually failed due to insolvency, as most of the KSSABC reserves were tied up in land rather than silver as some erroneously believed.

Smith transferred all of his holdings to Oliver Granger and J. Carter in June and resigned from the KSSABC in July. Parrish and Frederick G. Williams assumed management of the KSSABC until the institution closed its doors in November with about $100,000 in unresolved debt. Smith appointed Granger as his agent to clear up his Kirtland affairs, as Smith was named in seventeen lawsuits with claims totalling $30,206.44 over debts incurred in the failure of the KSSABC. According to LDS scholars, "Four of these suits were settled; three were voluntarily discontinued by the plaintiffs; and ten resulted in judgments against Joseph Smith and others. Of these ten judgments, three were satisfied in full, three were satisfied in part, and only four were wholly unsatisfied." The LDS church also raised and put up $38,000 in bail money for Smith at the Geauga County Court which was to be held to satisfy any judgment that might be rendered against Smith.

On July 28, Smith, Rigdon and Thomas B. Marsh headed to Upper Canada on church business and returned in late August. On September 27, Smith and Rigdon departed Kirtland for Missouri. They arrived about one month later, spent about two weeks in Missouri on Church business and returned to Kirtland on December 10. In their absence, in October, they were fined $1,000 for operating an illegal bank. According to Dale W. Adams, professor of agricultural economics at Ohio State University, other, larger quasi-banks had been operating in Ohio longer than KSSABC and were not being prosecuted.

Among KSSABC's misfortunes, Smith also accused Parrish of embezzling $25,000 from KSSABC. In June Smith sought, but was denied, a search warrant to confirm his suspicions against Parrish.