Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805June 27, 1844) was an American religious and political leader and the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. Publishing the Book of Mormon at the age of 24, Smith attracted tens of thousands of followers by the time of his death fourteen years later. The religious movement he founded is followed by millions of global adherents and several churches, the largest of which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).
Born in Sharon, Vermont, Smith moved with his family to Western New York amid hardships following a series of crop failures in 1816. Living in an area of intense religious revivalism during the Second Great Awakening, Smith reported experiencing a series of visions. The first of these was in 1820, when he saw "two personages" (whom he eventually described as God the Father and Jesus Christ). In 1823, he said he was visited by an angel who directed him to a buried book of golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American civilization. In 1830, Smith published the Book of Mormon, which he described as an English translation of those plates. The same year he organized the Church of Christ, calling it a restoration of the early Christian Church. Members of the church were later called Latter Day Saints or nicknamed the Mormons.
In 1831, Smith and his followers moved west, planning to build a communal Zion in the American heartland. They first gathered in Kirtland, Ohio, and established an outpost in Independence, Missouri, which was intended to be Zion's central location. During the 1830s, Smith sent out missionaries, published revelations, and supervised construction of the Kirtland Temple. Smith and his followers left Ohio and Missouri after the collapse of the church-sponsored Kirtland Safety Society and violent skirmishes with non-Mormon Missourians escalated into the Mormon extermination order. They established a new settlement at Nauvoo, Illinois, which quickly grew to be the second-largest city in Illinois during Smith's mayoralty.
Smith launched a presidential campaign in 1844. During his campaign, Smith and the Nauvoo City Council ordered the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor printing press after it criticized Smith's power and his practice of polygamy. This inflamed opposition to Smith and his followers. Smith surrendered to Illinois authorities but was shot and killed by a mob that stormed the jailhouse.
During his ministry, Smith published numerous documents and texts, many of which he attributed to divine inspiration and revelation from God. He dictated the majority of these in the first-person, saying they were the writings of ancient prophets or expressed the voice of God. His followers accepted his teachings as prophetic and revelatory, and several of these texts were canonized by denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement, which continue to treat them as scripture. Smith's teachings discuss God's nature, cosmology, family structures, political organization, and religious community and authority. Mormons generally regard Smith as a prophet comparable to Moses and Elijah. Several religious denominations identify as the continuation of the church that he organized, including the LDS Church and the Community of Christ.
Life
In New York, Smith co-founded a church and published The Book of Mormon. After minister Sidney Rigdon and his followers converted, Smith moved to Ohio to join them.
Smith urged followers to settle in Independence, Missouri, but hostile residents forced them out. He organized a militia to retake the town, but disbanded it when his small, cholera-stricken force faced superior opposition. Back in Ohio, Smith built a house of worship as his following grew, but polygamy and an illegal bank led to denunciations and legal troubles.
Smith fled to Far West, Missouri, until a Mormon militia, provoked by vigilantes, looted and burned three towns. After his followers fired on the state militia, the governor ordered them expelled. Smith was arrested for treason but later escaped.
In Illinois, Smith founded a new city and temple, but his secret polygamy led some close associates to denounce him. When dissenters published a paper exposing him, he ordered their press destroyed. Facing arrest, Smith declared martial law and mobilized his militia, prompting the state militia to mobilize in response.
Smith fled to Iowa but soon returned, accepting the Illinois governor's assurances of protection if he surrendered. Expecting to receive bail, Smith learned he also faced treason charges for declaring martial law. When locals, aware of Smith's history of jailbreak, heard he was guarded by only a few men, they stormed the jail. After initially assuming his own men had come to rescue him, Smith defended himself from the lynch mob, using a smuggled pistol to wound three, before he was shot and killed. His murderers, fearing the arrival of Smith's followers, fled the scene.
Early years (1805–1827)
Joseph Smith was born on December 23, 1805, in Vermont to Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith.; One of eleven children, Smith was a descendent of the influential colonial minister John Lothropp (1584–1653). Joseph's maternal grandfather, Solomon Mack (1732 – 1820), self-published a memoir about his own conversion experience.
Smith's childhood was marked by hardship. Joseph Sr.'s drunkenness was a source of embarrassment. When seven-year-old Joseph Jr. underwent painful surgery for a leg bone infection, the boy refused alcohol. He used crutches for three years and walked with a slight limp thereafter. After Joseph Sr. fell for a ginseng swindle followed by years of crop failures, the Smiths lost the family farm and were forced to travel west to frontier Western New York, where they took out a mortgage on a small farm.
The Smiths engaged in folk magic, a relatively common practice in that time and place.; ; ; ; Joseph, his father, and his older brother Alvin hunted for treasure under the direction of a seer named Luman Walters.;;: "[Walters] was sent for three times to go to the hill Cumorah... Each time he said there was treasure there, but that he couldn't get it; though there was one that could. The last time he came he pointed out Joseph Smith, who was sitting quietly among a group of men in the tavern, and said There was the young man that could find it" Before Walters left professing he lacked sufficient power, he singled out young Joseph Smith as the young man who might be able to find the treasure.. After Walters left, the Smiths continued using folk magic and a seer stone to look for buried treasure.
Joseph, his family, and his acquaintances consistently listed September 21, 1823, the equinox, as a pivotal night in his life; the next day, he told his father that he had been visited in the night by a supernatural being who revealed the location of a nearby treasure.; ; The Smith family believed in prophetic dreams or visions; both parents and his maternal grandfather had previously reported such dreams.; ; ; ;
Just weeks later, Alvin complained of stomach pains and called for a doctor who treated him with mercury salts. The substance lodged in Alvin's digestive system, and multiple other doctors were helpless to dislodge it. Alvin, only 25, died from mercury poisoning due to medical error. Joseph Sr. and Jr.'s trust in authorities was further shaken when the Presbyterian minister presiding over the funeral suggested Alvin had gone to hell."intimated very strongly that [Alvin] had gone to hell, for Alvin was not a church member" The family became divided by faith: Joseph and his father refused to join the church, while Joseph's mother and siblings joined.in September 1824, Methodist preacher George Lane sparked a revival in Palmyra.Between 1817 and 1825, there were several camp meetings and revivals in the Palmyra area.;
One year after Joseph's dream, the Smiths reportedly attempted and failed to obtain the treasure. On September 29, 1824, Joseph Sr. published a notice in the paper announcing that he had briefly disinterred Alvin's body to confirm it had not been removed. Rumors spread that the Smiths had exhumed Alvin's body for use in magical treasure-seeking.Years later, Smith would be removed from his Methodist class amid accusations of being a "practicing necromancer"
In the wake of Alvin's death, the family faced further financial hardships and worked odd jobs.; Smith and his father achieved a reputation as treasure seers for hire.. In 1825, Joseph's friend Josiah Jr. told his father Josiah Stowell about the two Smiths, and Josiah Sr. hired them to locate for a lost mine he believed might be on his property in Pennsylvania.; ; ; ; ; While boarding in Pennsylvania, Smith met Emma Hale, his future wife. After about a month in Pennsylvania, the company disbanded and Smith returned to Chenango, New York where he worked for Stowell and his friend Joseph Knight Sr., along with making trips to court Emma Hale.
In New York, Smith directed further treasure digs for Knight and Stowell until March.. That month, Josiah Stowell's nephew Peter Bridgeman filed a complaint against Joseph Smith, alleging he was taking advantage of the elder Stowell by engaging in "glass-looking", or using fortune-telling to attempt to find treasure. Smith was arrested and taken to trial, where Josiah Stowell testified that he believed Smith had the ability to find treasures by use of a seer stone. While the precise result of the proceeding remains unclear, Smith was freed and returned home to Palmyra.; ;
Smith and Emma eloped and married on January 18, 1827, over the objections of her father Isaac Hale who regarded Smith as a charlatan. The couple began boarding with Smith's parents in Manchester,; ; but after Smith promised to abandon treasure seeking, Hale offered to let the couple live on his property in Harmony and help Smith get started in business.
Josiah Stowell and Joseph Knight, Smith's patrons, travelled to Palmyra for the anticipated recovery of the treasure on September 22, 1827. Smith, with Emma, left home that night, returning with a report that treasures had been recovered, but that he had hidden them inside a hollow log for safekeeping.; ; ; ; Days later, he returned home with a set of plates which could be hefted but not viewed. Smith explained he had been commanded not to show the plates to anyone else.;
Upon hearing Smith had obtained a treasure, Smith's former treasure-seeking partners believed he had double crossed them and kept all the treasure to himself.; ; After they ransacked places where they believed the plates might have been hidden, Smith decided to leave Palmyra.; ;
Writing a book and founding a church (1827–1830)
In October 1827, Smith and Emma permanently moved to Pennsylvania, funded by a relatively prosperous neighbor, Martin Harris in exchange for a share in Smith's upcoming book.; ; There, Smith began dictating a text to wife Emma until April 1828, when Martin Harris took over dictation.
The process broke down after Smith allowed Harris to take possession of the only copy of the first 116 pages of manuscript, which were subsequently lost.; ; ; Smith ended the dictation process, explaining that an angel had taken away the plates as punishment for having lost the manuscript pages.
On June 15, Emma and Joseph's first child, a son, was born but died the same day. Joseph joined his wife's church, the Methodists, becoming an "exhorter" for the group. He continued as a Methodist until one of his wife's cousins objected to inclusion of a "practicing necromancer" on the Methodist class roll, and Smith left the group.