Hannah Maria Libby Smith House

A one-story orange brick home, the Hannah Smith house is built on a rubble rock foundation. The home includes gabled roofs, double hung windows, original glass and woodwork, and wood siding for the dining room, kitchen and bathroom areas. The most unusual decor is the Federal-style lintel with brackets topping all of the windows, which are unusually large six-on-six windows.

The home is still primarily original with many authentic features highlighted in a 2006 restoration. The original four rooms of brick were augmented by two more in wood which connected with the Granary building at the back of the house by 1890.[2] The raised granary has a back door extant which was used for deliveries, but is too far off the ground to have been used for over 75 years. Before the harvest, the area was used as a summer kitchen. Although the back porch is a replacement of its predecessor, the front porch is original with the house, The two fireplaces served rooms on both front and back with brick made in Utah and one has been restored to the original oak-veining. The parlor shared a fireplace with a bedroom; the central living area adjoined Hannah's bedroom.

The twelve-foot high cove ceilings are original, with one chandelier dating to the 1920s. The floors are also original, and were sanded, patched and refinished during the restoration. The panel above the built-in china cupboard in the living room was concealed until discovered and restored in 2006.

Hannah Maria Libby was born June 29, 1828 in Ossipee, Grafton, New Hampshire. She and her sister, Sarah Ann Libby (who was ten years older) both married George Albert Smith, an apostle serving in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Sarah on 20 November 1845, Hannah on 26 January 1846 in the city of Nauvoo, Illinois. At the time she was his sixth wife, her sister his fifth.

Leaving her home in Illinois with her husband in 1846 to migrate to Utah, she and many other families waited at Winter Quarters, Iowa, while her husband made the rest of the journey before returning for her in 1847 to transport them there. She traveled with her sister and fellow wife, Lucy Merserve Smith in the George A. Smith/Dan Jones Company that left Kanesville on June 22, 1849 and arrived in Salt Lake City on October 27, 1849. Her sister was sick with tuberculosis in Winter Quarters and traveled in the wagon while Hannah herded cattle and cooked and took care of children. Once in Salt Lake, they shared a room until a home could be built. Sarah died 12 June 1851 when her only child was two, and Hannah raised him as her own.

In 1852, George A. Smith was called to settle the southern area of Utah, and took Hannah and Lucy to Utah Valley and settled them in what was to become the city of Provo. Lucy's two children had died very young, but she and Hannah were a good team. The carpet that they wove for the Provo Tabernacle was so uniform that no one could tell where one's work left off and the other began.[3] When their husband became ill, Lucy moved back to Salt Lake City to take care of him. He died 1 September 1875.

Hannah's oldest child, Charles Warren Smith, was born 16 January 1849 in Carbunca/Kanesville, Pottawatamie, Iowa, four months after his half-brother, John Henry. Sarah Maria was born 1 January 1856 in Provo during a very hard winter. Her sister, Eunice Albertine was born four years later, 6 March 1860 in Provo, but died 4 October 1861 in the fall of the next year. George Albert Smith, the second of that name was born 7 April 1862 in Provo, but also died young on 28 October 1863. Hannah had Grace Libby Smith on 14 May 1865, four years after the Provo Tabernacle was completed.

"The Smith wives, though often geographically scattered, cooperated economically, those in outlying settlements sometimes sending handwoven fabric to wives in Salt Lake City who sent back dyed cloth or sewn clothing. Many plural wives were economically independent or interdependent because of their husbands’ intensive involvement in missionary and colonization efforts"[4]

Hannah and house with Grace and grandchildren