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By Root 310 0

the direction of state militiamen. Much of the enmity was ascribed to what many Americans viewed as the Mormons’ odd beliefs and troubling mode of community—the Saints were said to be practicing polygamous marriages (which turned out to be true), and believed in a system of plural deities and multiple heavens (which also turned out to be true). But what seemed to disturb—or stir—people most was the character of Joseph Smith himself. He was an alluring man, but also a proud and ambitious one. Speculation was rampant among politicians and newspapermen that Smith had a meticulous plan to conquer America’s middle states and build a Mormon Empire, based on a religious government, with Smith at its head. By the 1840s, Smith had been tarred and feathered, shot at, jailed and threatened with military execution, and had been called, by many men, “the most dangerous man on the American frontier.” One state governor—Lilburn Boggs, of Missouri—had even decreed that the Mormons had become an official enemy, and should be driven from the land, or exterminated. The Mormons left and built a new city-state called Nauvoo, across the river in the western part of Illinois. Under Smith’s direction, Nauvoo would become one of the largest and most wondrous cities in the Midwest—but ironically, that development only tended to make matters worse for Smith and his followers. The Mormons were already seen as a kingdom within a state—an accomplishment unparalleled in America’s growth—and by 1844 the people of Illinois had come to fear Smith and his Mormons as the Missourians had. When it was rumored that Smith’s personal bodyguard—a legendary Western gunfighter named Orrin Porter Rockwell—was responsible for shooting Missouri’s former governor, Lilburn Boggs, in the back of the head (miraculously, Boggs lived), the dream of Midwestern empire was effectively over.

After a few more troubling incidents, Illinois exploded in rage at Smith, and Governor Thomas Ford insisted that the prophet turn himself over to civic authorities to stand trial. Smith surrendered himself to the authorities, and was held in jail—along with his brother Hyrum and a few other church leaders—in a small town called Carthage. There was no criminal charge at first, but soon one was formed: treason against the state—a crime punishable by death.

Governor Ford had guaranteed the Smiths’ safety if they surrendered, but the militia assigned to protect them was the Carthage Greys—a troop that, on Joseph’s appearance in the town, had assured him that they would see him dead before they would see him free again. On the late afternoon of June 27, 1844, a small force was guarding the Carthage Jail when a mob of a hundred men approached. The mob and the guardians were friends and part of the same militia, and so there was no real resistance offered the attackers. Several men entered the jail and rushed up the stairs to the room where Joseph and Hyrum were held. The mob-members fired musket shots through the door into the room, and a bullet caught Hyrum in the face. Four more shots ripped through him before he fell to his brother’s feet, dead. Joseph had a pistol which a friend had slipped him earlier. He fired all six bullets back through the door. Three of the shots wounded some attackers, slowing the assault long enough for him to rush to the window to escape. He swung one leg out, and when he looked down, he saw nothing but bayonets and rifles. According to most accounts, it was there, as Joseph Smith was perched on the moment where he could see the full cost of his vision, that bullets riddled him from the doorway and from the crowd below. He cried, “Oh Lord, my God!” and toppled from the window to the ground. The mob outside gathered around him, some of them kicking and jeering at him, until they were satisfied he would never rise again, and then they fled.

That’s the story I have heard all my life about the martyrdom of Joseph Smith. There were other witnesses, though, who told a different story about Smith’s death, and for many years after the event, I learned recently, it was their