Joseph Smith’s Death At The Hands Of An Angry Mob — And Its Lasting Effect On The Church Of Latter-Day Saints

Joseph Smith’s Death At The Hands Of An Angry Mob — And Its Lasting Effect On The Church Of Latter-Day Saints

By the 1840s, Mormon Church founder Joseph Smith was a polarizing figure — both inside and outside of the faith. Non-Mormons looked upon him with distrust, and Smith and his followers had already been violently driven out of Ohio and Missouri before settling in Illinois. In 1844, Smith announced his intention to run for president, which only exacerbated tensions as non-Mormons worried about the Mormons' growing political power. 

When Joseph Smith was killed in Illinois on June 27, 1844, it marked a dramatic conclusion to his controversial life and profoundly impacted the future of the Mormon Church.

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Meanwhile, dissident Mormons had also started to loudly criticize Smith. In Nauvoo, Illinois, where Smith and his followers had settled, the dissidents even published a newspaper attacking Smith as a polygamist and a would-be king. In response, Smith had the press destroyed and declared martial law, which led to charges of treason from Illinois authorities. ⁠

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As word spread that Smith was being held at a prison in Carthage, a mob began to form outside, hoping to bring Smith down for good. They then marched to the prison with guns in hand and quickly breached Smith's cell — ultimately killing him and his brother. ⁠

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The death of Joseph Smith, the polarizing founder of Mormonism, by clicking the link in our profile.⁠

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By the time Joseph Smith died at the hands of an angry mob in 1844, he’d become a polarizing figure. The founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Smith courted controversy both inside and outside of Mormonism, controversy which had intensified in his final years.

By then, cracks had started to emerge from within the Mormon church. Smith had successfully started his religion — based on a 588-page volume called the Book of Mormon which he claimed to have produced at the request of an angel — but some of his followers took issue with his leadership style.

In 1844, a group of dissenting church members started publishing a newspaper in the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, where Smith and his followers had settled after being chased out of other towns. They accused Smith of practicing polygamy and harshly critiqued him as a would-be king.

Smith declared martial law and ordered the press destroyed. But his actions roused the ire of Illinois politicians, including Governor Thomas Ford, who charged Smith and his brother with treason. They were brought to jail in Carthage, where an angry mob started to gather like an incoming storm.

It wasn’t long before Joseph Smith died a violent death at their hands. But for many Mormons, Smith’s violent death in Carthage was not an ending — but instead a new beginning.

The Birth Of The Church Of Latter-Day Saints

Born on December 23, 1805, in Sharon, Vermont, Joseph Smith Jr. grew up in a religious atmosphere electrified by the Second Great Awakening, a period of Protestant religious revival across the nation. After moving to New York as a boy, Smith began to wonder which branch of Christianity was “correct.”

Three years later, Smith allegedly had a second divine visit, this time from an angel named Moroni. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Moroni reportedly told Smith about a lost holy text inscribed on gold plates and buried nearby, which he instructed Smith to find and translate.

Smith found the text and spent the next 90 days “translating” it. He published it in 1830 as a tome called theBook of Mormon, the same year that Smith founded the Church of Christ (later called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).

Soon, Smith’s church began to grow. But he and his followers faced persecution wherever they went. In Ohio, Smith was beaten unconscious, tarred, and feathered, and a mob once tried to get him castrated. In Missouri, tensions between Mormons and Missourians grew so bitter that the governor ordered that Mormons be “exterminated or driven from the state.”

By 1839, however, the Mormons seemed to finally find safe haven when they settled in the town of Commerce, Illinois, which Smith soon renamed Nauvoo (a Hebrew word for “beautiful place”). But there, tensions within the Mormon church itself would soon lead to Joseph Smith’s death.

Joseph Smith’s Death At The Hands Of An Angry Mob

By 1844, Nauvoo almost rivaled Chicago in size. This population boom made many non-Mormons nervous, especially when Joseph Smith announced his intentions to run for president that year. The Mormon leader made no secret of his overarching ambition. “I intend to lay a foundation that will revolutionize the whole world,” he declared, according to PBS.

But while Smith’s political aspirations rattled non-Mormons, many Mormons had also started to take issue with Smith’s leadership. Dissidents within the Church of Latter-Day Saints published a newspaper critiquing Smith’s polygamy as well as his leadership style.

Smith had the press destroyed, which outraged many of his critics. To quell the violence, Smith then declared martial law, but this only aroused the ire of local authorities, who charged him with treason and conspiracy. Upon his arrest, Smith prophetically remarked that he would not survive long.

“I am going like a lamb to the slaughter,” he declared according to the Church of Latter-day Saints, “but I am calm as a summer’s morning; I have a conscience void of offense towards God, and towards all men. I shall die innocent, and it shall yet be said of me — he was murdered in cold blood.”

On June 25, 1844, Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were taken to jail in Carthage along with several of their followers. Just two days later, a mob enraged by the growing political power of Mormons, and by Smith himself, stormed the prison. Armed, and with faces painted black, they quickly made it to the Mormons’ cell and released a hail of bullets, killing Hyrum.

Smith was also hit four times but managed to make it to the second-story window. He fell to the ground outside where Smith — perhaps still alive — was propped up against the wall and shot at again. Joseph Smith died at the mob’s hands, but the church that he’d founded didn’t die with him.

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