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. 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 an...