Cornelius P. Lott

Cornelius Peter Lott (September 22, 1798 – July 6, 1850) was an early member of the Latter Day Saint movement, father of one of Joseph Smith's plural wives, a member of the Council of Fifty and a Danite leader.

Early life and marriage Lott was born in New York City, to Peter Lott and Mary Jane Smiley. His grandfather, also named Cornelius Lott, was sheriff of Somerset County, New Jersey, and served as captain of the Middlesex County Men in the American Revolution.

Lott married Permelia Darrow on April 27, 1823. Sometime before 1834, both joined the Church of Christ (renamed Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 1838). They moved to Kirtland, Ohio, in 1836. He later took on additional, plural wives as well.

Missouri

In 1838, the Lotts moved to Missouri and settled near Haun's Mill. During the 1838 Independence Day celebrations in Far West, Missouri, the military band passed in review of three men acting as Generals: Lott, Jared Carter, and Sampson Avard. Lott was involved with a rogue band of Mormons called "Danites", and during the 1838 Mormon War he led a Danite raid against a farm near Adam-ondi-Ahman. The farm had been harboring weapons and ammunition for a Missouri mob.

Nauvoo In the winter of 1838–39, the Lotts were driven from Missouri with the rest of the Latter Day Saints. They settled in Pike County, Illinois, forty miles south of the main body of Saints in Nauvoo, in 1839, before moving to Joseph Smith's farm just southeast of Nauvoo.

Once in Nauvoo, Lott took over management of Smith's farm and purchased some adjacent land, on which he built an eight-room farmhouse. While there, he served as a captain of Smith's bodyguard In addition, Joseph Smith proposed marriage to Lott's daughter, Melissa.

Years later, Joseph Smith III, who was a boy at the time, recalled that the "rather old" Lott (then in his mid-forties and possibly with prematurely gray hair ) "was still strong and muscular and was usually willing to demonstrate his strength."

Plural marriage Lott practiced plural marriage. On January 22, 1846, he married three women: Elizabeth Davis, Rebecca Fossett, and Charity Dickenson. Elizabeth left while the family was in Winter Quarters, Nebraska. Rebecca left before the birth of their child, whom he never met. Charity appears to have stayed with him.

In 1848 he married Eleanor Wayman and Phebe Crosby Peck Knight, Hosea Stout's mother-in-law and widow of Joseph Knight. She refused, and according to her son, later church president Joseph F. Smith, Lott humiliated her throughout the trek. Joseph F. Smith despised Lott for his actions.

Once in the Salt Lake Valley, Lott and his families lived in a two-room house at the southwest corner of Third South and State Street in Salt Lake City. He managed a church farm in the Forest Dale area. One of his daughters married William S. S. Willes. Another of his daughters married John R. Murdock.

Lott died in 1850, of either dysentery or fatigue.