Joseph Smith, Jr.
| Joseph Smith | |
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| 1st President of the Church of Christ (later the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) | |
| April 6, 1830 – June 27, 1844 | |
| Successor | Disputed; Brigham Young, Sidney Rigdon, Joseph Smith III, and at least four others each claimed succession. |
| End reason | Death |
| 2nd Mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois | |
| In office | |
| May 19, 1842 – June 27, 1844 | |
| Predecessor | John C. Bennett |
| Successor | Chancy Robison |
| Political party | Independent |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Joseph Smith Jr. December 23, 1805 Sharon, Vermont, United States |
| Died | June 27, 1844 (aged 38) Carthage, Illinois, United States |
| Resting place | Smith Family Cemetery 40°32′26″N 91°23′33″W / 40.54052°N 91.39244°W |
| Spouse(s) | Emma Smith & multiple others (While the exact number of wives is uncertain, Joseph had multiple wives throughout his life) |
| Children | Julia Murdock Smith, Joseph Smith III, others. |
| Parents |
Joseph Smith, Sr. Lucy Mack Smith |
| Website | Official website |
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Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. When he was twenty-four, Smith published the Book of Mormon. By the time of his death fourteen years later, he had attracted tens of thousands of followers and founded a religious culture that continues to the present.
Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont, but by 1817, he had moved with his family to what became known as the burned-over district of western New York, an area of intense religious revivalism during the Second Great Awakening. According to Smith, he experienced a series of visions, including one in which he saw "two personages" (presumably God the Father and Jesus Christ) and others in which an angel directed him to a buried book of golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American civilization. In 1830, Smith published what he said was an English translation of these plates, the Book of Mormon. 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 "Mormons", and in 1838, Smith announced a revelation that renamed the church as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
In 1831, Smith and his followers moved west, planning to build a communalistic American Zion. They first gathered in Kirtland, Ohio, and established an outpost in Independence, Missouri, which was intended to be Zion's "center place". During the 1830s, Smith sent out missionaries, published revelations, and supervised construction of the expensive Kirtland Temple. The collapse of the church-sponsored Kirtland Safety Society and violent skirmishes with non-Mormon Missourians caused Smith and his followers to establish a new settlement at Nauvoo, Illinois, where he became a spiritual and political leader. In 1844, Smith and the Nauvoo city council angered non-Mormons by destroying a newspaper that had criticized Smith's power and practice of polygamy. After Smith was imprisoned in Carthage, Illinois, he was killed when a mob stormed the jailhouse.
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Wikipedia