Smith, Joseph (1805-1844)

US founder of the Mormon religious sect.

Born in Vermont, he received his first religious call in 1820, and in 1827 claimed to have been granted the revelation of the Book of Mormon (an ancient American prophet), inscribed on gold plates and concealed a thousand years before in a hill near Palmyra, New York. He founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Fayette, New York, 1830. The headquarters of the church was moved to Kirkland, Ohio, 1831; to Missouri 1838; and to Nauvoo, Illinois, 1840. Smith began the construction of a Mormon temple at Nauvoo, organized a private army to defend the sect from its enemies, and declared his candidacy for president. Hostility to Smith intensified when rumours that he had taken several wives began to circulate; Smith publicly opposed polygamy and acknowledged only one wife. He was jailed after some of his followers destroyed the printing press of a newspaper that had attacked him, and a mob stormed the jail and killed him. Historians still differ on whether Smith practiced polygamy; some have concluded that he secretly married more than 20 women. Some of his followers who accompanied Brigham Young to Salt Lake City openly espoused polygamy; those who organized a separate branch in Missouri, headed by Smith's son, strongly opposed it. Smith's chief works are Doctrines and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price.