Several months after Joseph and Emma Smith arrived in Ohio, Emma gave birth to twins. These infants, a boy and a girl, died just hours after their birth. The Smith family Bible lists their names as Thaddeus and Louisa.
The Smith family Bible lists Joseph and Emma Smith's biological twins, who died just hours after their birth. | Kenneth Mays
At about the same time Emma’s twins were born, LDS convert Julia Clapp Murdock, also gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. The Murdock family lived at Orange, Ohio, in the Greater Cleveland area, about 18 miles from Kirtland. Julia passed away just hours after her babies were born leaving her husband, John, with five very young children and no mother to nurse the newborn infants.
Emma and Joseph Smith, who had now lost their first three children, adopted the newborn twins. The son, Joseph, lived for just under a year. He passed away shortly after the night of March 24-25 when Joseph Smith was tarred and feathered in Hiram, Ohio.
This shows the burial site of Julia Murdock Smith Middleton, adopted daughter of Joseph and Emma Smith. | Kenneth Mays
The daughter, Julia, lived until 1880. She lost one husband to an accident on a steamship and was abandoned by another. Julia never had children. Following the departure of her second husband, Julia returned to Nauvoo to live with her mother, Emma Smith Bidamon until Emma passed away in 1879. Julia died the following year. She was buried in the Saints Peter and Paul Cemetery (Catholic), Nauvoo, Illinois.
Future U.S. President James A. Garfield was also born in Orange Township in 1831, several months after the birth of the Murdock twins.