Death of Joseph Smith

The assassination of Joseph Smith on June 27, 1844, marked a turning point for the Latter Day Saint movement, of which Smith was the founder and leader. When he was killed by a mob, Smith was the mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois, and running for President of the United States. He was killed while jailed in Carthage, Illinois, on charges relating to his ordering the destruction of facilities producing the Nauvoo Expositor. The newspaper had reported that Smith was practicing polygamy and claimed that he intended to set himself up as a theocratic king.

Smith voluntarily surrendered to the authorities at the county seat at Carthage to face the charges against him. While he was in jail awaiting trial, an armed mob of men with painted faces stormed the jail; they shot and killed him and his brother Hyrum. Since then, Latter Day Saints generally view the two men as religious martyrs. Five men were indicted for their murders but were acquitted at a jury trial.

The Mormons began to move into Hancock County in 1839; at the time, most were Democratic. After their people were expelled from Missouri, Joseph Smith went to Washington, DC and met with President Martin Van Buren, seeking intervention and compensation for lost property. Van Buren said he could do nothing to help. After returning to Illinois, Smith vowed to join the Whig Party. Most of his supporters switched with him, adding political tensions to the social suspicions in which this group were held.

Several of Smith's disaffected associates at Nauvoo and Hancock County, Illinois, joined together to publish a newspaper called the Nauvoo Expositor. Its first and only issue was published June 7, 1844. Based on allegations by some of these associates, the newspaper reported that Smith practiced polygamy. It said that he tried to marry wives of some of his associates. About eight of Smith's wives had already been married to other men (four were Mormon men in good standing, who in a few cases acted as a witness in Smith's marriage to his wife) at the time they married Smith. Typically, these women continued to live with their first husband, not Smith. Some accounts say Smith may have had sexual relations with one wife, who later in her life stated that he fathered children by one or two of his wives. The reliability of these sources is disputed by some Latter Day Saints. DNA investigations performed to date have consistently shown that Smith was not the father of children thought to be his based on written and oral traditions.

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