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Joseph Smith, Jr. (December 23, 1805 - June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader who founded the Latter Day Saint movement, a restorationist ideology that gave rise to Mormonism The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Smith's followers revere him as the first latter-day prophet, the "Prophet of the Restoration", called by God to restore the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ, including new scriptures, priesthood authority, build temples, build the Kingdom of God on earth (Zion). Smith was (and remains) a very controversial figure; he was known to inspire deep devotion in his followers, yet deep hostility and even hatred from his detractors. Smith was also a political and military leader of the American West. In many cases, Smith taught the Christian restorationist doctrines that were circulating in his time, such as the idea that Christianity had been in a state of Great Apostasy, which could be restored by modern prophecy and revelation from God. In other cases, the doctrines were unique to Mormonism. Adherents to denominations originating from Joseph Smith's teachings number approximately thirteen million. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the largest denomination with over 12.2 million members; the second largest is the Community of Christ with about 250,000 members. Most other, smaller denominations, of which there are tens to hundreds, have their origins as offshoots of one of these two. Early life, family, and religious experiences Main article: Early life of Joseph Smith, Jr. Joseph Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont (what is today South Royalton), the fourth surviving child of Joseph Smith, Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith. After attempting to establish roots in various towns in Vermont, but being forced out by three successive years of crop failures (Smith 1853, p. 66), the Smith family settled in western New York, and began working a farm just outside the border of the town of Palmyra (Berge 1985). In town, the family opened a "cake and beer shop", where the adolescent Joseph sometimes worked selling concessions at local Palymra events (Tucker 1867, pp. 14-15). Palmyra, during the Second Great Awakening, was located in an area that had so frequently "caught fire" with revivalism that one revivalist named it the "Burned-over District". Smith's parents, like many locals at the time, attended the local revivals with their family, and as part of their religious worldview, they claimed to experience visions and prophecy (Smith 1853, pp. 55-74). Smith's involvement in organized religion included a brief interest in Methodism, and he was described as a "very passable exhorter" at the local Methodist camp meetings (Turner 1851, p. 214). In conjunction with the Smith family's sectarian religious experiences, contemporary reports portray the family, like most Christian families at the time, as practitioners of folk religion (Quinn 1998). Smith later recalled that, at around the same time, he experienced a theophany, which his followers later called the First Vision. In the late 1830's, while writing a formal history of Mormonism he wrote his final and most familiar account. Confused over which church was right, he went to a grove and prayed for guidance. After wrestling with a dark Satanic power that fell over him, he saw a very bright pillar of light, in which he saw two beings, one of the beings pointed to the other and said, "This is my beloved son, hear him." This event in Smith's life took on ever-greater importance to him and to his followers, and the story was widely given as proof that Smith had been singled out by God for a divine purpose. The extent of that purpose, Smith apparently did not fully understand until years later. In 1823, when Smith was seventeen, his family reported that he described being visited by a heavenly messenger named Moroni. According to Smith, Moroni reported that "there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates, giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source from whence they sprang. He [Moroni] also said that the fulness of the everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient inhabitants; "Also, that there were two stones in silver bows-and these stones, fastened to a breastplate, constituted what is called the Urim and Thummim-deposited with the plates..." in a nearby hill.[2] The angel, Smith said, had buried the artifacts in about 400 AD, and had been charged with their protection. By carefully following the messenger's instructions, Smith claimed he would eventually be able to retrieve the gold plates. Emma Hale Smith, Joseph's first wife, whom he married in 1827.Smith reported that he was not allowed to receive the plates until 1827. In the meantime, with his father and brothers, he was said to participate in a number of mining and treasure-seeking endeavors. On March 20, 1826 court records from Bainbridge, in Chenango County, New York, show that Joseph Smith, Jr. was tried and convicted of disorderly conduct and of being an imposter in relation to an event where he pretended to be able to find buried gold and treasure through the use of a magic stone or by looking into a hat. Court records show that in that same year Joseph Smith Jr. was tried in Norwich, New York for the misdemeanor crime of "glass looking" (treasure-hunting). It's unclear whether Smith was convicted and set free, or merely acquitted of the latter charge. While engaged in these mostly gold- and silver-pursuing activities in New York and Pennsylvania, he met and became engaged to his future wife, Emma Hale. Emma's father, a participant in one mining venture, disapproved of Smith. However, the couple eloped in early 1827. After their marriage, the couple returned to Palmyra and moved in with Smith's parents. It had been four years since Smith's account of the first visit from the angel Moroni and his message concerning the gold plates. During these years, Smith described additional, periodic visits with the angel until finally, in September 1827, Smith indicated that Moroni allowed him to take the gold plates but strictly forbade him from initially showing them to any person without authorization. Three of Smith's associates, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris (referred to as the "Three Witnesses" in the preface of the Book of Mormon) certified in writing that they, with Joseph Smith, had met an angel (Moroni), and they had seen the plates in a vision. Later eight others (the "Eight Witnesses") certified in writing that they had seen the plates, though they did not meet the angel. Later all of the Three Witnesses became estranged with Joseph Smith and hostile to the church, though none of them recanted their witness. David Whitmer had his witness engraved on his tombstone. 1827 to 1831 Main article: Life of Joseph Smith, Jr. from 1827 to 1831 Soon after Smith indicated that he had obtained the Golden Plates, his focus turned to providing a claimed translation of them. With the financial and moral support of a wealthy Palmyra landowner named Martin Harris, Smith set off with Emma to Harmony, Pennsylvania in order to live near Emma's family. Once in Harmony, he began transcribing characters engraved on the plates, and attempted to translate some of them by looking into the Urim and Thummim (according to his wife's account). Harris came to Harmony in February 1828 in order to serve as Smith's scribe (Roberts 1902, p. 19). By the middle of June 1828, Smith had dictated about 116 manuscript pages of text (Roberts 1902, p. 20), (Smith et al. 1835, sec. 36, v. 41). A short time later, Harris obtained permission from Smith to allow him to take the manuscript pages home to Palmyra, in order to show them to his skeptical wife. At about the same time, Emma gave birth to the young couple's first child (Smith 1853, p. 118), but the boy was stillborn (Howe 1834, p. 269). By the time Smith was able to inquire about the manuscript pages, Harris informed Smith that they had been lost. Some assert that Harris's wife hid or destroyed the manuscript in order to test the veracity of Smith's claims[3], while others believe that the manuscript was obtained and altered by a group conspiring to disprove Smith. Still others believe it was all a hoax and that the pages never existed.[citation needed] The ultimate fate of the pages is not known. Although devastated, Smith returned to Harmony and received a supposed revelation, in which Smith was rebuked for allowing the manuscript pages to be lost, but was assured that all was not lost. As a penalty, the angel Moroni took away the plates and the Urim and Thummim, but returned them later that year on September 22, 1828. When he continued dictation to a new scribe, he continued where he left off, without retranslating the pages that were lost. (Smith's critics regard this as a ruse to hide the fact that Smith authored the Book of Mormon, rather than translated it from ancient records.) However, he no longer used the Urim and Thummim as frequently to assist in translation, but instead used a dark seer stone (Bidamon 1876, Smith 1879, Blair 1879, Whitmer 1887, Nelson "A Treasured Testament" in the Ensign of July 1993). On April 7, 1829, Smith was joined in Harmony by a new scribe, Oliver Cowdery (Cowdery 1834, p. 14), who acted as Smith's scribe for the majority of Smith's dictation. According to Cowdery and Smith, on May 15, 1829, John the Baptist appeared and ordained them to the Aaronic Priesthood. Upon receiving this priesthood, they baptized each other immediately thereafter, in accordance with their understanding of this priesthood authority. Cowdery and Smith also claim that Peter, James, and John came to them during either May or June 1829 and ordained them to the Melchizedek Priesthood. (Also see below: Joseph Smith, Jr.#Priesthood). After the dictation was thus completed, Smith published the work as the Book of Mormon, on March 26, 1830. The first edition consisted of 5,000 copies, and was printed by E.B. Grandin's printing shop. In 1982, the subtitle Another Testament of Jesus Christ was added by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On April 6, 1830, Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints church, and soon organized three branches in the surrounding area of New York. His mother, father, brothers and sisters were early converts to the new religion, and staunch believers in Smith as a modern day prophet. The early church experienced rapid growth, due to vigorous proselyting efforts by early missionaries. Life in Kirtland, Ohio To avoid conflict and persecution encountered in New York and Pennsylvania, Smith and Emma moved to Kirtland, Ohio early in 1831. However, due to the controversy which followed him, he was not to escape persecution for long. In early 1832, opposition took a violent turn. On Saturday, March 24, Joseph was dragged from his bedroom in the dead of night. His attackers strangled him until he blacked out, tore off his shirt and drawers, beat and scratched him, and jammed a vial of poison against his teeth until it broke. After tarring and feathering his body, they left him for dead. Joseph limped back to the Johnsons' house and cried out for a blanket. Through the night, his friends scraped off the tar until his flesh was raw. - Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, p. 178. According to recorded accounts of the event, the mob broke down the door in the home took Smith's oldest surviving adopted child from his arms (McKiernan 1971), dragged Smith from the room, leaving his exposed child on a trundle bed and forcing Emma and the others from the house, the mob threatening her with rape and murder (Johnson 1864). The child was knocked off the bed onto the floor in the doorway of the home as Smith was forcibly removed from his home (Hill 1977). The child died from exposure (many accounts say pneumonia) five days after the event (Newell 1984) from the condition that doctors said he developed the night of the mob violence. (Smith 1853). In Kirtland the church's first temple was constructed. The work of building the Kirtland Temple was begun in 1833, and was completed and dedicated by 1836. Quinn alleges that it was during the building of the Kirtland temple that Joseph Smith first practiced polygamy (see polygamy discussion below.).[6] Many extraordinary events were reported by both Mormons and non-Mormons alike: appearances by Jesus, Moses, Elijah, Elias, and numerous angels; speaking and singing in tongues, often with translations; prophesying; and other spiritual experiences. Some Mormons believed erroneously that Jesus' Millennial reign had begun. By mid to late 1837, many Latter Day Saints (including some prominent leaders) became disaffected in the wake of the Kirtland Safety Society banking debacle, in which Smith and several of Smith's associates were accused of various illegal or unethical banking actions when the bank, with the charter held by Smith, collapsed just prior to a nation-wide banking crisis. Many critics leveled accusations that Smith was actively misleading KSS members from the beginning of the financial enterprise as it was operating without an official Ohio bank charter and required species reserves. Supporters of Smith, on the other hand, hold that the financial institution's collapse was more than partially due to state and federal financial regulations and that the charges against Smith and his associates are at best inflated. In the meantime, opposition and harassment grew against Smith and those of his associates who supported him. On January 12, 1838 Smith and Rigdon left Kirtland for Far West in Caldwell County, Missouri, in Smith's words, "to escape mob violence, which was about to burst upon us under the color of legal process to cover the hellish designs of our enemies." At the time there were at least $6100 in civil suits outstanding against him in Chardon, Ohio courts, and an arrest warrant had been issued for Smith on a charge of bank fraud. Most of the remaining church members who continued to support Smith left Kirtland for Missouri shortly thereafter. Life in Missouri Smith reported early revelations that identified western Missouri as Zion, the place for Mormons to gather in preparation for the second coming of Jesus Christ. Independence, Missouri, was identified as "the center place" and the spot for building a temple. Smith first visited Independence in the summer of 1831, and a site was dedicated for the construction of the temple. Soon afterward, Mormon converts-most of them from the New England area-began immigrating in large numbers to Independence and the surrounding area. The Missouri period was marked by many instances of violent conflict and legal difficulties for Smith and his followers. The Mormons and Non-Mormons in Missouri were, in general, fundamentally very different people: Latter Day Saints tended to vote in blocks, giving them a degree of political influence wherever they settled. Latter Day Saints purchased vast amounts of land in which to establish settlements which threatened the previous residents of the community. Latter Day Saints were also culturally very different from the previous residents of Missouri, having generally come from New England or Britian, and holding abolitionist viewpoints, etc. All of these things caused many local leaders and residents to see the Latter Day Saint community as a threat to their safety, and contributed to deep harassment, resentment, and eventually mob violence. The tension was further fueled by the Mormon belief that Jackson County, Missouri, and the surrounding lands were promised to the Church by God and that the Latter Day Saints would soon dominate the area. The Latter Day Saints had been migrating to Missouri ever since Smith had claimed the area to be Zion. They simultaneously occupied the Kirtland area, as well as the Independence area for around seven years. After Smith had been forced out of Kirtland in 1838, he, and the rest of the remaining Latter Day Saints from Kirtland, came to Missouri. Mormon War and expulsion from Missouri Later in 1838, many non-Mormon residents of Missouri, and the LDS settlers began and engaged in an ongoing conflict often referred to as the Mormon War. After several skirmishes, the Battle of Crooked River (which involved Missouri state militia troops and a group of Latter Day Saints) occurred. Many exaggerated reports of this battle (some claimed that half of the militia's men had been lost, when in fact they had suffered only one casualty), as well as affadavits by ex-Mormons that Mormons were planning to burn both Liberty and Richmond, Missouri, made their way to Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs. Boggs issued an executive order in response on 27 October 1838, known as the "Extermination Order". It stated that the Mormon community had "made war upon the people of this State" and that "the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace" [9][10] The Extermination Order was not officially rescinded until 1976 by Governor Christopher S. Bond. Liberty Jail.Soon afterward, the 2,500 troops from the state militia converged on the Mormon headquarters at Far West. Smith and several other Church leaders surrendered to state authorities on charges of treason and murder. They were held at Liberty Jail, and spent several months in captivity. They were eventually able to escape custody and flee to Illinois, where they rejoined the main body of Latter Day Saints. The legality of Boggs' "Extermination Order" was debated in the legislature, but its objectives were achieved. Most of the Mormon community in Missouri had either left or been forced out by the spring of 1839. Life in Nauvoo, Illinois After leaving Missouri in 1839, Smith and his followers made headquarters in a town called Commerce, in Hancock County, Illinois on the banks of the Mississippi River, which they renamed Nauvoo. They were granted a charter by the state of Illinois, and Nauvoo was quickly built up by the faithful, including many new arrivals. In October 1839, Smith and others left for Washington, D.C. to meet with Martin Van Buren, then the President of the United States. Smith and his delegation sought redress for the persecution and loss of property suffered by the Latter Day Saints in Missouri. Van Buren told Smith, "Your cause is just, but I can do nothing for you." Work on a temple in Nauvoo began in the autumn of 1840. The cornerstones were laid during a conference on April 6, 1841. Construction took five years and the edifice was dedicated on May 1, 1846; about four months after Nauvoo was abandoned by the majority of its citizens under threats of mob action. In March 1842, Smith was initiated as a Freemason (as an Entered Apprentice Mason on March 15, and Master Mason the next day-the usual month wait between degrees was waived by the Illinois Lodge Grandmaster, Abraham Jonas) at the Nauvoo Lodge, one of less than a half-dozen Masonic meetings he attended. He was introduced to Masonry by John C. Bennett. (See below, at Temples section for the significance.) Nauvoo's population peaked in 1845 when it may have had as many as 12,000 inhabitants (and several nearly as large suburbs) - rivaling Chicago, Illinois, whose 1845 population was about 15,000, and its suburbs. Due to increasing tensions, critics suggested that Nauvoo's charter should be revoked, and the Illinois legislature considered the notion. In response, Smith petitioned the U.S. Congress to make Nauvoo a territory. His petition was declined. In February, 1844, Smith announced his candidacy for President of the United States, with Sidney Rigdon as his vice-presidential running mate. Smith's death Several of Smith's disaffected associates in Nauvoo joined together to publish a newspaper called the Nauvoo Expositor. Its first and only issue was published 7 June 1844. The paper was highly antagonistic towards Smith, expounding many beliefs critical of him, and outlining several grievances against him. The publication of this material disturbed many of Nauvoo's citizens, and the city council, headed by Joseph Smith as a mayor, responded by passing an ordinance declaring the newspaper a public nuisance designed to promote violence against Smith and his followers. Under the council's new ordinance, Smith, as Nauvoo's mayor, in conjunction with the city council, ordered the city marshal to destroy the paper and the press on June 10, 1844. Because this action was seen by many non-Mormons as illegal, many enemies of the religion accused Smith of violating freedom of the press. Violent threats were made against Smith and the Mormon community.[citation needed] Charges were brought against Smith and he submitted to incarceration in Carthage, the county seat. Smith's brother, Hyrum, and eight of his associates including John Taylor and Willard Richards, accompanied him to the jail.[14] The Governor of the state, Thomas Ford, had promised protection and a fair trial. All of Smith's associates left the jail, except Richards and Taylor. Shortly after 5:00 p.m. on 27 June 1844, a mob of about 200 men stormed the jail, and went to where Joseph and his associates were staying. Although they attempted to hold the doorway against the mob, the mobbers opened fire through the still-closed door. Hyrum Smith died immediately, shot in the face. Joseph had a small pepper-box pistol (which his associates brought into jail for him), with which he fired at the mob several times through the closed door. Taylor was shot several times, but survived. Richards was unharmed. Smith ran to the open window, where he was shot multiple times simultaneously, and fell from the window, dead. http://en.wikipedia.org
William B.
