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Thomas Baldwin Marsh (1799-1866) was a leader in
the Latter Day Saint movement and an original
member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles.  He
served as president of the Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints from 1835-1839. He was excommunicated
from the church in 1839, and remained disaffected
for much of his life.  Marsh rejoined the church
in July 1857, but never again served in church
leadership positions.  

==Early Life==
Marsh was born in the town of Acton, Massachusetts
in Middlesex County, Massachusetts on November 1,
1799. His father was James Marsh.  His mother was
Mary Law. He spent his early life farming in
Westmoreland, New Hampshire. 

As a young man, Marsh developed a pattern of
traveling and working for various employers. 
Marsh ran away at age fourteen to Chester, Vermont
and worked as a farmer for three months. Then he
left for Albany, New York, working as a waiter for
eighteen months. He spent two years working at the
New York City Hotel in New York City, New York,
then returned to Albany for a year, and then back
at the hotel for two more years. He spent eighteen
months working as a groom for Edward Griswold in
Long Island, New York.

At age twenty-one, he married Elizabeth Godkin on
November 1, 1820 while employed for Griswold.
After his marriage, he attempted unsuccessfully to
run a grocery business for eighteen months. After
that, he spent seven years working at a type
foundry in Boston, Massachusetts.

During his work at the type foundry, he joined the
Methodist Church. However, dissatisfied because
Methodism did not correspond to the Bible in his
mind, he left and joined a group of friends in
what others called a Quietist sect.

==Joining the Church==

Marsh left his home in Boston and journeyed west,
travelling with a Benjamin Hall. In his words, "I
believed the Spirit of God dictated me to make a
journey west." He stayed at Lima, New York in
Livingston County, New York for three months
before returning home. On the way home, he stopped
at Lyonstown, where a lady informed him of the
Golden Plates that Joseph Smith had obtained. She
directed him to Palmyra, New York, and told him to
seek out Martin Harris.

Marsh travelled to Palmyra and discovered Martin
Harris at the printing office, working on the
printing of the Book of Mormon. He was able to
obtain the first sixteen pages as a printer's
proof. He met Oliver Cowdery at this time as well.

Returning to his home, he showed the sixteen pages
to his wife. They both were pleased and
corresponded with Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith.
After The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints was formed on April 6, 1830, he moved with
his family up to Palmyra to join them that
September.

Shortly after his arrival, Marsh was baptized by
David Whitmer in Cayuga Lake, and a few months
later ordained an elder by Oliver Cowdery.  From
September 26 to September 28, 1830, Joseph Smith
received Doctrine and Covenants section 31
directed at Marsh. In this section, he was called
as the church physician.

Marsh moved with the church to Kirtland, Ohio in
the spring of 1831. He was ordained a high priest
and received a call to proselyte to Missouri with
Ezra Thayer (See Doctrine and Covenants 52:22).
Thayer delayed for a long time, and so Marsh went
to Joseph Smith, who appointed Selah J. Griffin in
Thayer's stead. (See Doctrine and Covenants 56:5).

==Apostleship==

Joseph Smith organized the first LDS Quorum of the
Twelve Apostles on the 14th and 15th of February
1835.  Smith arranged the members by age.  As
there was confusion over David W. Patten's birth
date, Thomas B. Marsh was identified as the eldest
of the Quorum and so designated  Quorum President.
 According to Marsh's autobiographical sketch,
published in 1864:      

:In January, 1835, in company with Bishop
Partridge and agreeable to revelation, I proceeded
to Kirtland, where we arrived early in the spring,
when I learned I had been chosen one of the Twelve
Apostles.   

:May 4th, 1835, in company with the Twelve I left
Kirtland and preached through the eastern states,
holding conferences, regulating and organizing the
churches, and returned September 25. 

:In the winter of 1835–36, I attended school,
studied the first English grammar under Sidney
Rigdon, and Hebrew under Professor Seixas (a
Hebrew by birth).... 

After these activities with the Twelve Apostles,
Marsh returned to Fishing River, Clay County,
Missouri, in April 1836.  Severe difficulties
between Mormons and the larger community continued
to plague the LDS people in Missouri.  Marsh was
chosen as a delegate from his community to try to
resolve these issues.  Despite the efforts of
church members, their Missouri neighbors decided
that the Saints must leave Clay County.  

Marsh traveled to LDS congregations in other
states, including Tennessee and Kentucky,
gathering loans at an interest of 10 percent to
help the Clay County Saints obtain new property. 
The diary of Apostle Wilford Woodruff contains an
account of part of that journey:  

:Aug. 20th.--Elder David Patten preached at the
house of Randolph Alexander, and after meeting
baptized him and his wife. Brother T. Thomas B.
Marsh arrived in Tennessee on his mission to
collect means, and attend a Conference with the
brethren laboring in Tennessee and Kentucky, which
was held on Damon's Creek, Callaway County,
Kentucky, Sept. 2nd 1836. T. Thomas B. Marsh
presided. Seven Branches were represented
containing 133 members.... 

:Sept. 19th.--Elders T. Thomas B. Marsh, D. David
W. Patten, E. H. Groves and Sister Patten left the
Saints in Kentucky and Tennessee and started for
Far West, Missouri, where they arrived in peace
and safety." (Woodruff, Wilfred - Diary, August
20th,and Sept. 19, 1836) 

In September of 1836, he returned to Missouri and
joined the Saints in their new location, a city
called Far West, Missouri|Far West in Caldwell
County, Missouri.  The town had been founded by
the presidency of the Missouri Stake, consisting
of David Whitmer, William W. Phelps and John
Whitmer.  These men were authorized to purchase
land on behalf of the church for the benefit of
Latter Day Saint settlement.  Meanwhile, in
Kirtland, the financial situation of many of the
Mormons unravelled with the failure of the
Kirtland Safety Society bank.  A dispute arose
between the presidency in Missouri and the church
presidency in Kirtland over the land funds, with
both sides accusing the other of financial
improprieties.  

Marsh sided with the church presidency and
convened a series of church courts in the spring
of 1838.  He charged the Whitmers and Phelps along
with  Oliver Cowdery of financial impropriety and
other failings.  The court released these men from
their positions and disfellowshipped them.  Marsh
was named as President of the church in Missouri,
with David W. Patten, and Brigham Young, as
Assistant Presidents, on April 6, 1838.

==Falling Away==
In April of 1838, church presidents Joseph Smith
and Sidney Rigdon moved to Far West, which became
the new church headquarters.  Although
disfellowshipped, David and John Whitmer, Oliver
Cowdery, W.W. Phelps and other former leaders (who
were known as the "dissenters") continued to live
in the County.  By early June, some of the more
zealous Mormons, led by Sampson Avard, formed a
society which came to be known as the
"Danite|Danites."  According to Marsh, these men
swore oaths "support the heads of the church in
all things that they say or do, whether right or
wrong" (Document, p. 57).  According to Reed Peck,
two of these Danites, Jared Carter and Dimick B.
Huntington, proposed at a meeting that the society
should kill the dissenters.  Marsh and fellow
moderate, John Corrill, spoke vigorously against
the motion (Peck, pp. 22-23).  On the following
Sunday, however, Sidney Rigdon issued his "Salt
Sermon" in which he likened the dissenters to salt
that had lost its savor and was "good for nothing,
but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot
of men" (Van Wagoner, p. 218).  Within a week the
dissenters had fled the county. 

Although he may have been concerned about these
events, Marsh remained in the church until late
October.  According to his sworn testimony, Marsh
claimed that a Mormon invasion of Daviess County,
Missouri|Daviess County and the subsequent looting
and burning of non-Mormon settlements, including
Gallatin, Missouri|Gallatin the county seat, were
the acts that caused him to leave.  Marsh stated:
:"A company of about eighty of the Mormons,
commanded by a man fictitiously named Captain
Fearnot David W. Patten, marched to Gallatin. They
returned and said they had run off from Gallatin
twenty or thirty men and had taken Gallatin, had
taken one prisoner and another had joined the
company. I afterwards learned from the Mormons
that they had burned Gallatin, and that it was
done by the aforesaid company that marched there.
The Mormons informed me that they had hauled away
all the goods from the store in Gallatin, and
deposited them at the Bishop's storehouses at
Adam-ondi-Ahman|Adam-on-diahmon" (Document, p.
57).  
On October 19, 1838, the day after Gallatin was
burned, Thomas B. Marsh and fellow apostle Orson
Hyde left the association of the Church.  Marsh
drafted and signed a legal affidavit against
Joseph Smith on October 24, 1838, which Hyde also
signed.  In addition to reporting on the
organization of the Danites and on the events in
Daviess County, Marsh reported rumors that the
Danites had set up a "destroying company" and that
"if the people of Clay & Ray made any movement
against them, this destroying company was to burn
Liberty & Richmond."  He further stated his belief
that Joseph Smith planned "to take the State, & he
professes to his people to intend taking the U.S.
& ultimately the whole world" (Document, p. 57). 
Marsh's testimony added to the panic in
northwestern Missouri and contributed to
subsequent events in the Mormon War.

Because a Mormon attack was believed imminent, a
unit of the state militia from Ray County,
Missouri|Ray County was dispatched to patrol the
border between Ray and Mormon Caldwell County,
Missouri|Caldwell County to the north.  On October
25, 1838, reports reached Mormons in Far West,
Missouri|Far West that this state militia unit was
a "mob" and had kidnapped several Mormons.  The
Mormons formed an armed rescue party and attacked
the militia in what became known as the Battle of
Crooked River.  Although only one Missourian was
killed, initial reports held that half the unit
had been wiped out.  This attack on the state
militia, coupled with the earlier expulsion of
non-Mormons from Daviess County led Missouri's
governor to respond with force.  On the 27th of
October he called out 2,500 state militia to put
down what he perceived as a Mormon rebellion and
signed what became known as the "Extermination
Order" (Baugh, pp. 108–09).  

Marsh was excommunicated from the church in
absentia on March 17, 1839 in Quincy, Illinois.  

After Marsh moved to Utah and rejoined the Latter
Day Saints, he looked back at his decision to
leave the church with regret.  Concerning his
actions in Missouri, he wrote:
:"About this time I got a beam in my eye and
thought I could discover a mote in Joseph's eye,
though it was nothing but a beam in my eye; I was
so completely darkened that I did not think on the
Savior's injunction: 'Thou hypocrite, why
beholdest thou the mote which is in thy brother's
eye, when a beam is in thine own eye; first cast
out the beam out of thine own eye, then thou shalt
see clearly to get the mote out of thy brother's
eye.'"

Years later, in 1864, George A. Smith claimed in a
sermon that Marsh had left the church because of a
dispute between his wife and other Mormon women
over a milk cow (Journal of Discourses, 11:9). 
Although this tale (see Ludlow, Doctrine and
Covenants, p. 363) has made its way into Mormon
folklore, Smith's statements are not supported by
any contemporary evidence.

==Rejoining==

In 1857, Thomas Marsh was rebaptized into the Utah
based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
 Marsh wrote an autobiography in 1864, recounting
his church service and rebellion.  It was
published in the Millenial Star of that year. 
However, his religious affiliation still may not
have been fixed.  According to Elder Thomas Job, a
missionary of the Reorganized Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints (now known as the
Community of Christ) serving in Utah, shortly
before his death Marsh attended an RLDS conference
in Salt Lake City, and there claimed that Young
Joseph (Joseph Smith III) was a prophet and bore a
strong testimony to the truth and necessity of the
Reorganization.  He said that he would move east
to join them if Young Joseph would send for him. 

Thomas B. Marsh passed away in Ogden, Utah in
January of 1866. He is buried at the Ogden
Cemetery. The grave is adorned with a plank of
wood, on which can barely be read "T. B. M.".

==Modern Opinion==

In the modern era, Marsh is rarely mentioned in
instructional classes, discourses on religion or
sermons in the LDS church. Marsh's conversion
story is occasionally cited as an example of how
powerful the Book of Mormon can be in convincing
people of the truthfulness of the church.  When
his apostacy is mentioned, he is often referred to
either as an example of pride or as an example of
one who failed to fulfill his calling to serve the
church.  Had Marsh been faithful and swallowed his
pride, he could have eventually become the next
president of the church instead of (the third
apostle) Brigham Young.

==References==
*Allen, James B. and Leonard, Glen M.  The Story
of the Latter-day Saints.  Deseret Book Co., Salt
Lake City, UT, 1976.  ISBN 0-87747-594-6.
*Baugh, Alexander L. , A Call to Arms: The 1838
Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri, BYU Studies,
2000.
*Document Containing the Correspondence, Orders
&c. in Relation to the Disturbances with the
Mormons; And the Evidence Given Before the Hon.
Austin A. King, Judge of the Fifth Judicial
Circuit of the State of Missouri, at the
Court-House in Richmond, in a Criminal Court of
Inquiry, Begun November 12, 1838, on the Trial of
Joseph Smith, Jr., and Others, for High Treason
and Other Crimes Against the State.  Fayette,
Missouri, 1841,
http://www.farwesthistory.com/docc01.htm complete
text.
*Journal of Discourses, Liverpool, England,
1854-1886.
*Ludlow, Daniel H.,  A Companion to Your Study of
the Doctrine and Covenants, Deseret Book Co., Salt
Lake City, UT, 1978.  ISBN 1-57345-224-6.
*Ludlow, Daniel H., Editor.  Church History,
Selections From the Encyclopedia of Mormonism.  
Deseret Book Co., Salt Lake City, UT, 1992.  ISBN
0-87579-924-8.
*Peck, Reed, The Reed Peck Manuscript,
http://www.fiber.net/users/drshades/reedpeck.htm
complete text.
*Van Wagoner, Richard S., Sidney Rigdon: A
Portrait of Religious Excess, Salt Lake City,
1994.

== External link ==
*"History of Thomas B. Marsh", Millennial Star 26
(1864):359-60, 375-76, 390-92, 406.
http://www.saintswithouthalos.com/b/marsh_tbh.phtm
l
*http://personal.atl.bellsouth.net/w/o/wol3/marsht
b1.htm Granpa Bill's G.A. Pages on Thomas B. Marsh
*Information on the events before his death:
http://www.centerplace.org/history/misc/soc/soc57.
htm

start box
succession box |
  before= — |
  title= President of the Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles |
  years= April 26, 1835–March 17, 1839 |
  after= Brigham Young

series box |
 title= Quorum of the Twelve Apostles |
 years= April 26, 1835–March 17, 1839 |
 before=— |
 after= David W. Patten |

end box

	Web Quotableonline.com Frasescelebres.org Greatbookscollection.org

Thomas Baldwin Marsh (1799-1866) was a leader in
the Latter Day Saint movement and an original
member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles.  He
served as president of the Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter
Day Saints from 1835-1839. He was excommunicated
from the church in 1839, and remained disaffected
for much of his life.  Marsh rejoined the church
in July 1857, but never again served in church
leadership positions.  

==Early Life==
Marsh was born in the town of Acton, Massachusetts
in Middlesex County, Massachusetts on November 1,
1799. His father was James Marsh.  His mother was
Mary Law. He spent his early life farming in
Westmoreland, New Hampshire. 

As a young man, Marsh developed a pattern of
traveling and working for various employers. 
Marsh ran away at age fourteen to Chester, Vermont
and worked as a farmer for three months. Then he
left for Albany, New York, working as a waiter for
eighteen months. He spent two years working at the
New York City Hotel in New York City, New York,
then returned to Albany for a year, and then back
at the hotel for two more years. He spent eighteen
months working as a groom for Edward Griswold in
Long Island, New York.

At age twenty-one, he married Elizabeth Godkin on
November 1, 1820 while employed for Griswold.
After his marriage, he attempted unsuccessfully to
run a grocery business for eighteen months. After
that, he spent seven years working at a type
foundry in Boston, Massachusetts.

During his work at the type foundry, he joined the
Methodist Church. However, dissatisfied because
Methodism did not correspond to the Bible in his
mind, he left and joined a group of friends in
what others called a Quietist sect.

==Joining the Church==

Marsh left his home in Boston and journeyed west,
travelling with a Benjamin Hall. In his words, "I
believed the Spirit of God dictated me to make a
journey west." He stayed at Lima, New York in
Livingston County, New York for three months
before returning home. On the way home, he stopped
at Lyonstown, where a lady informed him of the
Golden Plates that Joseph Smith had obtained. She
directed him to Palmyra, New York, and told him to
seek out Martin Harris.

Marsh travelled to Palmyra and discovered Martin
Harris at the printing office, working on the
printing of the Book of Mormon. He was able to
obtain the first sixteen pages as a printer's
proof. He met Oliver Cowdery at this time as well.

Returning to his home, he showed the sixteen pages
to his wife. They both were pleased and
corresponded with Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith.
After The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints was formed on April 6, 1830, he moved with
his family up to Palmyra to join them that
September.

Shortly after his arrival, Marsh was baptized by
David Whitmer in Cayuga Lake, and a few months
later ordained an elder by Oliver Cowdery.  From
September 26 to September 28, 1830, Joseph Smith
received Doctrine and Covenants section 31
directed at Marsh. In this section, he was called
as the church physician.

Marsh moved with the church to Kirtland, Ohio in
the spring of 1831. He was ordained a high priest
and received a call to proselyte to Missouri with
Ezra Thayer (See Doctrine and Covenants 52:22).
Thayer delayed for a long time, and so Marsh went
to Joseph Smith, who appointed Selah J. Griffin in
Thayer's stead. (See Doctrine and Covenants 56:5).

==Apostleship==

Joseph Smith organized the first LDS Quorum of the
Twelve Apostles on the 14th and 15th of February
1835.  Smith arranged the members by age.  As
there was confusion over David W. Patten's birth
date, Thomas B. Marsh was identified as the eldest
of the Quorum and so designated  Quorum President.
 According to Marsh's autobiographical sketch,
published in 1864:      

:In January, 1835, in company with Bishop
Partridge and agreeable to revelation, I proceeded
to Kirtland, where we arrived early in the spring,
when I learned I had been chosen one of the Twelve
Apostles.   

:May 4th, 1835, in company with the Twelve I left
Kirtland and preached through the eastern states,
holding conferences, regulating and organizing the
churches, and returned September 25. 

:In the winter of 1835–36, I attended school,
studied the first English grammar under Sidney
Rigdon, and Hebrew under Professor Seixas (a
Hebrew by birth).... 

After these activities with the Twelve Apostles,
Marsh returned to Fishing River, Clay County,
Missouri, in April 1836.  Severe difficulties
between Mormons and the larger community continued
to plague the LDS people in Missouri.  Marsh was
chosen as a delegate from his community to try to
resolve these issues.  Despite the efforts of
church members, their Missouri neighbors decided
that the Saints must leave Clay County.  

Marsh traveled to LDS congregations in other
states, including Tennessee and Kentucky,
gathering loans at an interest of 10 percent to
help the Clay County Saints obtain new property. 
The diary of Apostle Wilford Woodruff contains an
account of part of that journey:  

:Aug. 20th.--Elder David Patten preached at the
house of Randolph Alexander, and after meeting
baptized him and his wife. Brother T. Thomas B.
Marsh arrived in Tennessee on his mission to
collect means, and attend a Conference with the
brethren laboring in Tennessee and Kentucky, which
was held on Damon's Creek, Callaway County,
Kentucky, Sept. 2nd 1836. T. Thomas B. Marsh
presided. Seven Branches were represented
containing 133 members.... 

:Sept. 19th.--Elders T. Thomas B. Marsh, D. David
W. Patten, E. H. Groves and Sister Patten left the
Saints in Kentucky and Tennessee and started for
Far West, Missouri, where they arrived in peace
and safety." (Woodruff, Wilfred - Diary, August
20th,and Sept. 19, 1836) 

In September of 1836, he returned to Missouri and
joined the Saints in their new location, a city
called Far West, Missouri|Far West in Caldwell
County, Missouri.  The town had been founded by
the presidency of the Missouri Stake, consisting
of David Whitmer, William W. Phelps and John
Whitmer.  These men were authorized to purchase
land on behalf of the church for the benefit of
Latter Day Saint settlement.  Meanwhile, in
Kirtland, the financial situation of many of the
Mormons unravelled with the failure of the
Kirtland Safety Society bank.  A dispute arose
between the presidency in Missouri and the church
presidency in Kirtland over the land funds, with
both sides accusing the other of financial
improprieties.  

Marsh sided with the church presidency and
convened a series of church courts in the spring
of 1838.  He charged the Whitmers and Phelps along
with  Oliver Cowdery of financial impropriety and
other failings.  The court released these men from
their positions and disfellowshipped them.  Marsh
was named as President of the church in Missouri,
with David W. Patten, and Brigham Young, as
Assistant Presidents, on April 6, 1838.

==Falling Away==
In April of 1838, church presidents Joseph Smith
and Sidney Rigdon moved to Far West, which became
the new church headquarters.  Although
disfellowshipped, David and John Whitmer, Oliver
Cowdery, W.W. Phelps and other former leaders (who
were known as the "dissenters") continued to live
in the County.  By early June, some of the more
zealous Mormons, led by Sampson Avard, formed a
society which came to be known as the
"Danite|Danites."  According to Marsh, these men
swore oaths "support the heads of the church in
all things that they say or do, whether right or
wrong" (Document, p. 57).  According to Reed Peck,
two of these Danites, Jared Carter and Dimick B.
Huntington, proposed at a meeting that the society
should kill the dissenters.  Marsh and fellow
moderate, John Corrill, spoke vigorously against
the motion (Peck, pp. 22-23).  On the following
Sunday, however, Sidney Rigdon issued his "Salt
Sermon" in which he likened the dissenters to salt
that had lost its savor and was "good for nothing,
but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot
of men" (Van Wagoner, p. 218).  Within a week the
dissenters had fled the county. 

Although he may have been concerned about these
events, Marsh remained in the church until late
October.  According to his sworn testimony, Marsh
claimed that a Mormon invasion of Daviess County,
Missouri|Daviess County and the subsequent looting
and burning of non-Mormon settlements, including
Gallatin, Missouri|Gallatin the county seat, were
the acts that caused him to leave.  Marsh stated:
:"A company of about eighty of the Mormons,
commanded by a man fictitiously named Captain
Fearnot David W. Patten, marched to Gallatin. They
returned and said they had run off from Gallatin
twenty or thirty men and had taken Gallatin, had
taken one prisoner and another had joined the
company. I afterwards learned from the Mormons
that they had burned Gallatin, and that it was
done by the aforesaid company that marched there.
The Mormons informed me that they had hauled away
all the goods from the store in Gallatin, and
deposited them at the Bishop's storehouses at
Adam-ondi-Ahman|Adam-on-diahmon" (Document, p.
57).  
On October 19, 1838, the day after Gallatin was
burned, Thomas B. Marsh and fellow apostle Orson
Hyde left the association of the Church.  Marsh
drafted and signed a legal affidavit against
Joseph Smith on October 24, 1838, which Hyde also
signed.  In addition to reporting on the
organization of the Danites and on the events in
Daviess County, Marsh reported rumors that the
Danites had set up a "destroying company" and that
"if the people of Clay & Ray made any movement
against them, this destroying company was to burn
Liberty & Richmond."  He further stated his belief
that Joseph Smith planned "to take the State, & he
professes to his people to intend taking the U.S.
& ultimately the whole world" (Document, p. 57). 
Marsh's testimony added to the panic in
northwestern Missouri and contributed to
subsequent events in the Mormon War.

Because a Mormon attack was believed imminent, a
unit of the state militia from Ray County,
Missouri|Ray County was dispatched to patrol the
border between Ray and Mormon Caldwell County,
Missouri|Caldwell County to the north.  On October
25, 1838, reports reached Mormons in Far West,
Missouri|Far West that this state militia unit was
a "mob" and had kidnapped several Mormons.  The
Mormons formed an armed rescue party and attacked
the militia in what became known as the Battle of
Crooked River.  Although only one Missourian was
killed, initial reports held that half the unit
had been wiped out.  This attack on the state
militia, coupled with the earlier expulsion of
non-Mormons from Daviess County led Missouri's
governor to respond with force.  On the 27th of
October he called out 2,500 state militia to put
down what he perceived as a Mormon rebellion and
signed what became known as the "Extermination
Order" (Baugh, pp. 108–09).  

Marsh was excommunicated from the church in
absentia on March 17, 1839 in Quincy, Illinois.  

After Marsh moved to Utah and rejoined the Latter
Day Saints, he looked back at his decision to
leave the church with regret.  Concerning his
actions in Missouri, he wrote:
:"About this time I got a beam in my eye and
thought I could discover a mote in Joseph's eye,
though it was nothing but a beam in my eye; I was
so completely darkened that I did not think on the
Savior's injunction: 'Thou hypocrite, why
beholdest thou the mote which is in thy brother's
eye, when a beam is in thine own eye; first cast
out the beam out of thine own eye, then thou shalt
see clearly to get the mote out of thy brother's
eye.'"

Years later, in 1864, George A. Smith claimed in a
sermon that Marsh had left the church because of a
dispute between his wife and other Mormon women
over a milk cow (Journal of Discourses, 11:9). 
Although this tale (see Ludlow, Doctrine and
Covenants, p. 363) has made its way into Mormon
folklore, Smith's statements are not supported by
any contemporary evidence.

==Rejoining==

In 1857, Thomas Marsh was rebaptized into the Utah
based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
 Marsh wrote an autobiography in 1864, recounting
his church service and rebellion.  It was
published in the Millenial Star of that year. 
However, his religious affiliation still may not
have been fixed.  According to Elder Thomas Job, a
missionary of the Reorganized Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints (now known as the
Community of Christ) serving in Utah, shortly
before his death Marsh attended an RLDS conference
in Salt Lake City, and there claimed that Young
Joseph (Joseph Smith III) was a prophet and bore a
strong testimony to the truth and necessity of the
Reorganization.  He said that he would move east
to join them if Young Joseph would send for him. 

Thomas B. Marsh passed away in Ogden, Utah in
January of 1866. He is buried at the Ogden
Cemetery. The grave is adorned with a plank of
wood, on which can barely be read "T. B. M.".

==Modern Opinion==

In the modern era, Marsh is rarely mentioned in
instructional classes, discourses on religion or
sermons in the LDS church. Marsh's conversion
story is occasionally cited as an example of how
powerful the Book of Mormon can be in convincing
people of the truthfulness of the church.  When
his apostacy is mentioned, he is often referred to
either as an example of pride or as an example of
one who failed to fulfill his calling to serve the
church.  Had Marsh been faithful and swallowed his
pride, he could have eventually become the next
president of the church instead of (the third
apostle) Brigham Young.

==References==
*Allen, James B. and Leonard, Glen M.  The Story
of the Latter-day Saints.  Deseret Book Co., Salt
Lake City, UT, 1976.  ISBN 0-87747-594-6.
*Baugh, Alexander L. , A Call to Arms: The 1838
Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri, BYU Studies,
2000.
*Document Containing the Correspondence, Orders
&c. in Relation to the Disturbances with the
Mormons; And the Evidence Given Before the Hon.
Austin A. King, Judge of the Fifth Judicial
Circuit of the State of Missouri, at the
Court-House in Richmond, in a Criminal Court of
Inquiry, Begun November 12, 1838, on the Trial of
Joseph Smith, Jr., and Others, for High Treason
and Other Crimes Against the State.  Fayette,
Missouri, 1841,
http://www.farwesthistory.com/docc01.htm complete
text.
*Journal of Discourses, Liverpool, England,
1854-1886.
*Ludlow, Daniel H.,  A Companion to Your Study of
the Doctrine and Covenants, Deseret Book Co., Salt
Lake City, UT, 1978.  ISBN 1-57345-224-6.
*Ludlow, Daniel H., Editor.  Church History,
Selections From the Encyclopedia of Mormonism.  
Deseret Book Co., Salt Lake City, UT, 1992.  ISBN
0-87579-924-8.
*Peck, Reed, The Reed Peck Manuscript,
http://www.fiber.net/users/drshades/reedpeck.htm
complete text.
*Van Wagoner, Richard S., Sidney Rigdon: A
Portrait of Religious Excess, Salt Lake City,
1994.

== External link ==
*"History of Thomas B. Marsh", Millennial Star 26
(1864):359-60, 375-76, 390-92, 406.
http://www.saintswithouthalos.com/b/marsh_tbh.phtm
l
*http://personal.atl.bellsouth.net/w/o/wol3/marsht
b1.htm Granpa Bill's G.A. Pages on Thomas B. Marsh
*Information on the events before his death:
http://www.centerplace.org/history/misc/soc/soc57.
htm

start box
succession box |
  before= — |
  title= President of the Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles |
  years= April 26, 1835–March 17, 1839 |
  after= Brigham Young

series box |
 title= Quorum of the Twelve Apostles |
 years= April 26, 1835–March 17, 1839 |
 before=— |
 after= David W. Patten |

end box