Prophet, mayor, lieutenant general
Joseph Smith Jr.
1805–1844
7 topics · 98 dated events · 20 sources
Their part in each topic
The Book of Mormon: Origins, Translation, and Witnesses
Translator and proprietor
Dictated the entire text between 1828 and June 1829, most of it in a roughly three-month burst in spring 1829. He was a paid village 'glass looker' before he was a prophet, and he used the same brown seer stone for both purposes. He filed the 1829 copyright as 'author' because federal law required that word, and he himself edited the text for the 1837 and 1840 editions.
The First Vision
Founding prophet
Every firsthand account is his. He wrote the 1832 history partly in his own hand, dictated the 1835 journal retellings to a scribe, directed the 1838 history that became scripture, and published the 1842 Wentworth letter. He never publicly reconciled the differences among them, and never published the 1832 version.
The Book of Abraham and the Joseph Smith Papyri
Founding prophet, translator
Smith examined Chandler's papyri in July 1835, announced that one roll contained the writings of Abraham and another the writings of Joseph of Egypt, and urged the purchase. His history records that he spent the rest of July 'translating an alphabet to the Book of Abraham, and arrangeing a grammar of the Egyptian language as practiced by the ancients.' He published the text and his own explanations of the three facsimiles in 1842 and supervised the engraver, Reuben Hedlock, as the plates were cut.
Joseph Smith's Plural Marriage
Founding prophet
He introduced, practised and concealed plural marriage, taught it privately to a small circle from at least 1841, and dictated the revelation now canonised as Doctrine and Covenants 132. He publicly denied being a polygamist as late as 26 May 1844, a month before his death, when he had been sealed to roughly thirty women. Historians differ sharply on his motives, and he left no personal explanation of them.
Violence and the Mormon Conflict
Prophet, mayor, lieutenant general
Smith was the head of the church during both the 1838 Missouri war and the 1844 Expositor crisis, and in Nauvoo he simultaneously held religious, municipal, judicial and military office. His own journal spoke approvingly of "a company of Danites," and he ordered the Expositor press destroyed as mayor. He was killed at Carthage on 27 June 1844 while held on a treason charge arising from that order.
The Succession Crisis of 1844
Founding prophet
He created the problem. Over fourteen years he ordained or designated David Whitmer, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, Hyrum Smith and (his clerk recorded) his brother Samuel as potential successors, blessed his son Joseph III, built a Council of Fifty, and in March 1844 told the Twelve he was rolling the burden of the kingdom onto their shoulders. He published no order of precedence. Every claimant after him was quoting him.
Church Finances, Tithing, and the Transparency Question
Founding prophet
He organized the Kirtland Safety Society in November 1836 and served as its cashier, then its treasurer, resigning in June 1837 as it collapsed. The 8 July 1838 revelation at Far West now canonized as Doctrine and Covenants 119 established tithing as 'one-tenth of all their interest annually,' the standing law the modern Church still cites. He was also the first trustee-in-trust, an office created in 1841 that put the Church's temporal property in one man's hands.
In the timeline
98 events across 7 topics, chronological. Only events this person was actually part of — present at, responsible for, or the subject of — not every event where the name comes up.
The Smith family moves to the Palmyra area
Joseph Smith's 1832 history says that at about age ten his father moved the family from Vermont to Palmyra, Ontario County, New York, and that being 'in indigent circumstances' they were 'obliged to labour hard for the support of a large Family.' The move places the family in the burned-over district during the years the vision is later said to have occurred.
The Smiths join the neighbourhood treasure hunt
Palmyra neighbours later swore that the Smith family spent much of its time digging for money, often at night. William Stafford's 1833 affidavit describes Joseph Jr. locating caves of gold by placing 'a stone of singular appearance in his hat.' Joseph Smith Sr. told an interviewer in 1830 that he was a firm believer in witchcraft and had spent time and money searching for buried treasure with divining rods.
The date the canonized account gives for the vision
The 1838–39 history places the event 'on the morning of a beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty,' with Joseph in his fifteenth year. No contemporaneous record of any kind survives from 1820. Every account of the event was written twelve or more years later.
Joseph obtains the seer stone from the Chase well
While digging a well for William Chase, Joseph found a smooth stone he thereafter used for seeing. It is the same stone later described in the translation accounts — a point on which Emma Smith, David Whitmer, Martin Harris and Brigham-era church leaders such as George Q. Cannon all agree.
Moroni's visits and the hill
Joseph Smith reported three night visits from a messenger who identified himself as Moroni and told him of a record on gold plates buried in a hill near the family farm. The next day he located the spot but was not permitted to take the plates. He returned each 22 September for four years.
The angel and the plates
Joseph Smith's accounts of a nighttime angelic visitation revealing the gold plates are earlier, more consistently told, and far more widely circulated in the 1830s than any account of the 1820 vision. The 1832 history dates this visitation to when he was seventeen and says the angel told him 'the Lord had forgiven me my sins.'
Josiah Stowell hires Joseph to look for a silver mine
Stowell, a Chenango County farmer, sought out Joseph because of his reputation for finding lost objects with a stone, and put him to work searching for a supposed Spanish silver mine near the Susquehanna. Joseph boarded with the Stowells, worked the farm, and went to school. The dig failed.
Examined at South Bainbridge as a 'disorderly person'hinge
Brought before Justice Albert Neely on a complaint sworn by Stowell's nephew, Joseph testified that he had a certain stone which he had occasionally looked at to determine where hidden treasures in the earth were, and that he had told Stowell where to dig. The surviving court record, and bills from Neely and Constable De Zeng, were located by Wesley P. Walters in 1971.
Joseph obtains the plates
Joseph, accompanied by Emma, went to the hill and returned saying he had the plates and the interpreters. Attempts by neighbours to seize them followed through the autumn, and by December he and Emma had moved to her parents' place in Harmony, Pennsylvania.
Martin Harris takes the transcript to Charles Anthonhinge
Harris travelled to New York City and met Charles Anthon of Columbia and, by some accounts, Samuel Latham Mitchill. Joseph Smith's history has Anthon certifying the translation as correct, then tearing up the certificate on hearing an angel was involved and saying 'I cannot read a sealed book.' Anthon's own 1834 letter to E. D. Howe called the whole story of his endorsement 'perfectly false' and described the paper as 'all kinds of crooked characters, disposed in columns.'
The 116 pages are losthinge
After repeated requests, Joseph let Martin Harris take home the manuscript he had scribed — later called 116 pages, the book of Lehi. It disappeared and has never been recovered. Lucy Mack Smith records Harris crying that he had lost his soul, and Joseph answering 'All is lost! all is lost!' Emma had just given birth to a son who died. Joseph reported that the interpreters were taken from him.
Revelations rebuking Joseph (later D&C 3 and 10)
Two revelations followed the loss: one calling Joseph to repentance for having 'feared man more than God,' the other warning that wicked men had altered the stolen pages and directing him not to retranslate them. Translation stopped for roughly nine months.
Oliver Cowdery arrives; rapid dictation beginshinge
Cowdery, a schoolteacher who had boarded with Joseph's parents, walked to Harmony with Samuel Smith and began writing on 7 April. Almost the entire present text was dictated between April and late June 1829. Cowdery later wrote that these were 'days never to be forgotten — to sit under the sound of a voice dictated by the inspiration of heaven.'
The work moves to the Whitmer farm at Fayette
Facing opposition in Harmony, Joseph and Cowdery accepted David Whitmer's offer of room and board at his father Peter Whitmer Sr.'s log home in Fayette, New York. The translation was finished there. Emma remained behind.
Copyright secured at Utica
Richard R. Lansing, clerk of the federal district court for the Northern District of New York, entered the copyright, recording that Joseph Smith Jun. 'hath deposited in this office the title of a Book, the right whereof he claims as author.' A printed mock-up of the title page was filed with it.
The Three Witnesseshinge
Following a revelation promising that 'it is by your faith that you shall obtain a view of them,' Joseph, Cowdery, Whitmer and Harris went into the woods near the Whitmer farm to pray. Harris withdrew and was joined by Joseph separately. All three afterward signed a statement that an angel showed them the plates and that they heard the voice of God declare the translation correct.
The Eight Witnesses
A day or two later, near the Smith cabin in Manchester, eight men — four Whitmers, Hiram Page, and Joseph's father and two brothers — signed a statement that Joseph showed them the plates and that they hefted and handled them. The statement gives no date, no location and no narrative.
Grandin contracts to print; Harris mortgages the farm
Grandin had refused the job, as had Thurlow Weed of Rochester; he agreed once he learned another Rochester printer would take it and once Martin Harris put up security. The contract was for 5,000 copies at $3,000, and on 25 August Harris mortgaged about 151 acres, payable within eighteen months. John H. Gilbert then set nearly all the type on a hand press on the third storey of Exchange Row, sixteen pages to a form, thirty-seven forms between August 1829 and March 1830, supplying the punctuation the manuscript lacked.
Book of Mormon published, condemning plural wives with an exception
Jacob 2 declares that no man among the Nephites shall have more than one wife and no concubines, then adds that if God will raise up seed unto himself, he will command his people. The passage is the church's founding scriptural position on the question. Both defenders and critics later read the exception clause as the hinge.
The Articles and Covenants say only that a remission of sins was 'manifested'
The foundational revelation printed as chapter 24 of the 1833 Book of Commandments and as section 2 of the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants reads: 'After it was truly manifested unto this first elder that he had received a remission of his sins he was entangled again in the vanities of the world: but after repenting and humbling himself, sincerely, through faith in God ministered unto him by an holy angel.' There is no vision of Deity in it.
The law of consecration and stewardship is revealed
Revelations given in 1831 established what became known as the law of consecration and stewardship, instructing members to devote their property to the work and to the relief of poverty, and establishing the office of bishop to administer it. The system required members to deed property and receive back a stewardship. The formal system was abandoned in 1834 after persecution, repeated moves, too few workable stewardships and unresolved questions about its legality.
A revelation near the Missouri line on marrying Lamaniteshinge
W. W. Phelps, writing to Brigham Young thirty years later in 1861, reported that on this date Joseph Smith dictated a revelation before seven elders west of Jackson County, including the words that in time ye should take unto you wives of the Lamanites and Nephites, that their posterity may become white, delightsome and just. Phelps added that about three years afterward he asked how married men could do this, and Joseph answered, in the same manner that Abraham took Hagar and Keturah. The apostate Ezra Booth, writing in the Ohio Star on 8 December 1831, independently reported a revelation about a matrimonial alliance with the natives.
Joseph Smith writes the earliest accounthinge
In a record book, in alternating hands with Frederick G. Williams, Smith wrote a six-page history that opens with a prospectus of four foundational events and then narrates his religious anxiety from age twelve to fifteen. It is the only narrative of these events that includes his own handwriting. It was never published, never quoted, and never mentioned in any Church publication for 133 years.
Zion's Camp marches from Kirtland to Missouri
Joseph Smith led an armed expedition of about two hundred men west to restore the Jackson County exiles to their lands. It disbanded without fighting after cholera struck the camp. The militia Smith organized on that march was also called the Armies of Israel, a name later confused with the 1838 Danites.
Joseph Smith ordains David Whitmer as a conditional successor
At a conference in Clay County, Missouri, Joseph Smith ordained David Whitmer 'to be a leader or a prophet to this church.' The ordination was conditional — on Joseph's not living to God himself. In 1847 Martin Harris, Leonard Rich and Calvin Beebe signed a joint statement recalling that Joseph said the time had come to appoint his successor and that 'David Whitmer is the man.' Five months later, on 5 December 1834, Joseph ordained Oliver Cowdery Assistant President of the High Priesthood, an office Cowdery understood to rank him first among the assistants, ahead of Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams.
Oliver Cowdery's published history dates the awakening to 1823
In letters printed in the Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate — written with Joseph Smith's approval and constituting the first published history of the church's origins — Oliver Cowdery placed the religious excitement in 1823, when Smith was seventeen, and connected it with the Reverend George Lane. Cowdery's letters describe the angel and the plates but no earlier theophany.
A revelation makes the Twelve 'equal in authority' to the First Presidency
The revelation now printed as Doctrine and Covenants 107 declared the Quorum of the Twelve equal in authority and power to the First Presidency. The same revelation said as much of the First Quorum of the Seventy and of the combined stake high councils, which is why the text supported more than one reading in 1844.
Chandler exhibits four mummies at Kirtlandhinge
Chandler came to Kirtland to exhibit four human figures and two or more rolls of papyrus covered with hieroglyphic figures and devices. Smith and other church leaders paid a fee to view them. Smith was allowed to take the papyri to his home to study.
Chandler certifies Joseph Smith's readings
Chandler signed a certificate stating that Smith's deciphering of the characters corresponded 'in the most minute matters' with what he had learned from the most learned men in many cities. Latter-day Saint scholars now acknowledge that neither Chandler nor any American of the time could have made such an attestation authoritatively.
Church members buy the collection for $2,400
Some of the Saints at Kirtland purchased the four mummies and the papyri. The 1856 bill of sale states the price as twenty-four hundred dollars. Joseph Coe later described arranging the purchase in thirds with Simeon Andrews and Smith. The sum was large at a moment when money was desperately needed for the Kirtland temple.
'Translating an alphabet … arrangeing a grammar'hinge
Smith's history records that for the remainder of July he was 'continually engaged in translating an alphabet to the Book of Abraham, and arrangeing a grammar of the Egyptian language as practiced by the ancients.' The passage was composed later by Willard Richards, who was not present.
'The system of astronomy was unfolded'
Smith's journal records that he 'labored on the Egyptian alphabet, in company with brsr O. Cowdery and W. W. Phelps: The system of astronomy was unfolded.' Gee dates the three Egyptian Alphabet documents to this session on the strength of the entry and the three handwritings.
The Robert Matthews entry: two personages, and many angelshinge
A visitor calling himself 'Joshua the Jewish minister' came to Smith's house in Kirtland. Warren Parrish recorded Smith's account: a fruitless first attempt to pray, a tongue that would not move, footsteps behind him, then a pillar of fire, one personage, and 'another personage soon appeard like unto the first.' The second says 'thy sins are forgiven thee' and testifies that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. An interlineation adds 'and I saw many angels in this vision.'
The Erastus Holmes entry: 'the first visitation of Angels'
Five days later, and to the same scribe, Smith summarized the same span of his life for a Methodist convert named Erastus Holmes: an account of his experience 'say from 6, years old up to the time I received the first visitation of Angels which was when I was about 14, years old.' Holmes stayed several days, dined with Smith, viewed the Egyptian mummies, and asked for a revelation about his baptism.
Three manuscripts of Abraham 1–2 are written outhinge
Williams and Parrish inscribed Manuscripts A and B, apparently simultaneously and at least partly from dictation; Phelps and Parrish produced the fuller Manuscript–C in a bound volume with prefatory material. Each carries Egyptian characters copied into a ruled left margin beside paragraph-length passages of English.
The Doctrine and Covenants and Lectures on Faith omit the vision
The 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, whose preface declared it contained 'the leading items of religion which we have professed to believe,' included the Lectures on Faith. As Allen observed, the Lectures teach that the Godhead consists of two personages without any reference to Joseph Smith having seen them, and the vision appears nowhere in the volume.
Fanny Alger and the Kirtland householdhinge
Fanny Alger, a household helper in the Smith home, was joined to Joseph Smith in what Utah-era Latter-day Saints called his first plural marriage. Emma Smith discovered the relationship and expelled her; Fanny stayed briefly with Chauncey Webb's family, left Kirtland with her family in September 1836, and married Solomon Custer, a non-Mormon her own age, in Indiana on 16 November 1836. She never spoke publicly about Joseph Smith.
The Kirtland Safety Society is organized
Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon and others ratified a constitution for the Kirtland Safety Society as a community bank, with Rigdon as president and Smith as cashier. Stock had been offered for subscription from October. Orson Hyde travelled to Columbus that winter to seek a bank charter from the Ohio legislature.
Joseph Smith revises the text
For the second edition Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery corrected the 1830 text against the manuscripts and made editorial changes. Four passages in 1 Nephi were altered: 'the mother of God' became 'the mother of the Son of God,' and 'the Eternal Father' and 'the Everlasting God' became 'the Son of' each. Further changes followed in 1840.
Reorganized as an 'anti-banking company'; the office opens
Denied a charter, the organizers reorganized the society as an unincorporated joint-stock company, the Kirtland Safety Society Anti-Banking Company, with Rigdon as secretary and Smith as treasurer. Notes printed from the original bank plates were altered by stamping. The banking office opened for business in early January and notes began circulating on 6 January.
The notes collapse and charges are filed
By 1 February 1837 Safety Society notes were circulating at about 12.5 cents on the dollar of face value. On 9 February, Samuel Rounds, acting for the society's local antagonist Grandison Newell, brought charges against Smith, Rigdon and four others for violating an Ohio statute barring unchartered institutions from issuing bank notes. The Ohio senate refused a charter the next day.
The Safety Society failshinge
Between 8 June and 7 July 1837, Smith and Rigdon resigned as officers; Warren Parrish and Frederick G. Williams replaced them. A nationwide financial panic that spring had made most banks unwilling to accept or redeem the society's notes. The institution had closed by September 1837. Smith and Rigdon were prosecuted for operating an illegal bank.
Oliver Cowdery calls it a dirty, nasty, filthy affair
Writing from Far West to his brother Warren, Cowdery said that a dirty, nasty, filthy affair of his and Fanny Alger's was talked over in which I strictly declared that I had never deserted from the truth in the matter, and as I supposed was admitted by himself. Three months later, on 12 April 1838, Cowdery was excommunicated on charges that included seeking to destroy the character of Pres. Joseph Smith Jr by falsly insinuating that he was guilty of adultery.
Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon arrive at Far West
Fleeing the collapse of the Kirtland Safety Society and its aftermath, the First Presidency relocated to Missouri. Thousands of converts followed through the spring and summer, and the Saints began expanding beyond Caldwell into Daviess and Carroll Counties.
The history that became scripture is begun at Far Westhinge
Smith began the multivolume manuscript history in 1838 amid mass excommunications in Kirtland and Missouri. It opens with the revival, the reading of James 1:5, the attack by an unseen power, the pillar of light, two personages, and the instruction to join none of the churches because 'all their Creeds were an abomination.' Volume A-1 and the surviving Draft 2 both preserve the text.
The tithing revelation at Far Westhinge
A revelation dictated at Far West, Missouri — now Doctrine and Covenants 119 — required members first to give their surplus property, and then to 'pay one-tenth of all their interest annually; and this shall be a standing law unto them forever.' A companion revelation, section 120, assigned disposition of those funds to a council of the First Presidency, the bishop and his council, and the high council.
The Elders' Journal endorses the oration
Joseph Smith's editorial in the August 1838 Elders' Journal commended Rigdon's speech and recommended that church members obtain a copy of the pamphlet. Bushman notes Smith underscored the passage saying the Saints would not be mobbed any more without taking vengeance.
The Saints are besieged out of DeWitt
An armed force held the Latter-day Saint settlement at DeWitt in Carroll County under siege for days. Joseph Smith reported burying members who died of privation during the evacuation. The refugees fell back on Far West, and state officials declined to intervene.
Far West surrenders; Doniphan refuses to execute the prisoners
Colonel George M. Hinkle brought Joseph Smith and other leaders into the militia camp, where they were taken prisoner. A militia court-martial sentenced them to be shot the next morning; General Doniphan refused to carry out the order, calling the proceeding illegal. Far West surrendered its arms and the inhabitants signed away property to cover the cost of the campaign.
The Richmond court of inquiry; Avard testifies
Judge Austin A. King heard evidence for more than two weeks against some sixty defendants. Sampson Avard, captured and threatened with prosecution, was the state's chief witness; he called Joseph Smith "the prime mover and organizer of this Danite band" and produced a Danite constitution. King found probable cause against thirty-four men. Smith, his brother Hyrum, Rigdon, Wight, McRae and Baldwin were held for treason.
Liberty Jail
Six prisoners were confined in a two-level limestone jail measuring about fourteen feet square, mostly in the cold lower room lit by two grated openings. They petitioned unsuccessfully for habeas corpus; only Rigdon was released. Meanwhile the body of the church left Missouri for Illinois through the winter.
The letter from Liberty Jail
Smith dictated a long letter to the church at Quincy, written on twenty-nine sheets, addressed to the Saints "taken and held by the power of mobocracy, under the exterminating reign of his excelancy the Governer Lilburn W. Boggs." Portions of it were canonized in 1876 as Doctrine and Covenants 121–123.
The Nauvoo charter and the Nauvoo Legion
The Illinois legislature incorporated Nauvoo with unusually broad powers, including a municipal court that could issue writs of habeas corpus and an independent militia. The Legion was organized in two cohorts, and Joseph Smith received a commission as lieutenant general — outranking, as he liked to note, any officer in the United States Army.
Hyrum Smith given Oliver Cowdery's place
A revelation directed that Hyrum Smith take 'the office of priesthood and patriarch, which was appointed unto him by his father, by blessing and also by right,' and appointed him 'a prophet, and a seer, and a revelator unto my church, as well as my servant Joseph,' crowned with the priesthood and gifts once put upon Oliver Cowdery.
Louisa Beaman sealed to Joseph Smith at Nauvoohinge
In the evening, in a grove near the Mississippi, Joseph Bates Noble sealed his wife's sister Louisa Beaman to Joseph Smith, with Joseph dictating the words for Noble to repeat. Louisa, then twenty-six, was reportedly dressed in a man's coat and hat. Noble swore an affidavit to the ceremony on 26 June 1869 and repeated the testimony at the 1892 Temple Lot hearings, where he said of the wedding night, I know it, for I saw him in bed with her.
Zina Huntington Jacobs, married and pregnant, is sealed to Joseph Smithhinge
Zina Diantha Huntington had married Henry Bailey Jacobs on 7 March 1841 in a ceremony performed by John C. Bennett, and was carrying Jacobs's child. Her brother Dimick B. Huntington sealed her to Joseph Smith, with Fanny Maria Huntington as witness, according to Zina's own 1869 affidavit. She continued to live with Jacobs, and after Joseph's death was sealed to Joseph for eternity with Brigham Young standing as proxy and married to Young for time. Six weeks later, on 11 December 1841, the same brother sealed Zina's sister Presendia Huntington Buell to Joseph; Presendia had been Norman Buell's wife since 1827 and continued to live with him until 1846.
Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner sealed while married to Adam Lightner
Mary Elizabeth Rollins, married to the non-Mormon Adam Lightner and pregnant, was sealed to Joseph Smith by Brigham Young in a room over the red brick store. She said Joseph told her he had been commanded to take her as early as 1834, when she was a thousand miles away, and that an angel came to him three times, the last with a drawn sword. She lived with Adam Lightner until his death and bore him eight children.
Sylvia Sessions Lyon sealed while married to Windsor Lyon
Two nearly identical unsigned affidavits in the Joseph F. Smith collection give the sealing date as 8 February 1842 and 8 February 1843. Sylvia's husband Windsor Lyon, a Nauvoo merchant, was excommunicated in November 1842 for suing the stake president over a loan, and remained on friendly terms with Joseph Smith.
Reuben Hedlock instructed on the engraving
Smith gave Hedlock instructions concerning 'the cut for the altar and gods in the Records of Abraham' for the Times and Seasons. On 1 March he was correcting the first plate, and on 4 March he exhibited the papyri to Hedlock so the blocks could be sized, giving instructions on the arrangement of the writing on the large astronomical cut.
The Wentworth letter appears in Times and Seasonshinge
Written at the request of Chicago Democrat editor John Wentworth for a friend writing a history of New Hampshire, Smith's sketch says he began to reflect on salvation 'when about fourteen years of age,' describes 'two glorious personages who exactly resembled each other in features, and likeness,' and reports being commanded to 'go not after them,' with a promise that the fulness of the gospel would later be made known.
Facsimile 1 and Abraham 1:1–2:18 publishedhinge
The Times and Seasons carried 'A FAC-SIMILE FROM THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM. NO. 1' with Smith's numbered explanation — the angel of the Lord, Abraham fastened upon an altar, the idolatrous priest of Elkenah — followed by the heading 'A TRANSLATION Of some ancient Records that have fallen into our hands, from the Catecombs of Egypt, purporting to be the writings of Abraham … written by his own hand, upon papyrus.'
Patty Bartlett Sessions sealed by Willard Richards
The Nauvoo midwife Patty Bartlett Sessions, then forty-seven and married to David Sessions, was sealed to Joseph Smith in Newel K. Whitney's chamber. Her own journal entry of June 1860 records: I was sealed to Joseph Smith by Willard Richards Mar 9, 1842, in Newel K. Whitney's chamber, Nauvoo, for time and all eternity. Her daughter Sylvia, herself sealed to Joseph, was present as a witness.
Facsimile 2 and the rest of the text
The next issue printed the hypocephalus as Facsimile 2 in a fold-out plate with explanations naming Kolob, Oliblish, Enish-go-on-dosh, Jah-oh-eh and Raukeeyang, together with Abraham 2:19 through the creation chapters ending at 5:21.
The Female Relief Society of Nauvoo is organised
Joseph Smith organised the Relief Society with eighteen women, Emma Smith as president and Elizabeth Ann Whitney, Sarah M. Cleveland and Eliza R. Snow as her counselors and secretary. Membership reached over a thousand by September. Within months every member of that presidency except Elizabeth Ann Whitney had been or would be sealed to Joseph Smith, and Whitney's seventeen-year-old daughter was.
The 1838 history is serialized and the canonical text goes public
The Times and Seasons carried the manuscript history in installments; the 1 April 1842 issue printed the pillar of light, the two personages, 'This is my beloved Son, hear him,' and the answer that he must join none of them. Twenty-two years after the date it assigns to the event, and nearly twelve years after the church was organized, the full story was finally in print in the church's own paper.
Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde sealed while Orson Hyde is in Jerusalem
Marinda Johnson, married to the apostle Orson Hyde since 1834, was sealed to Joseph Smith while her husband was on his mission to Palestine. Orson returned to Nauvoo in December 1842 and Marinda resumed living with him; they divorced in 1870. A second sealing date of May 1843 appears on an affidavit she personally signed.
Nancy Rigdon refuses, and the Happiness Letter is written
According to Bennett's account, Joseph Smith took Sidney Rigdon's unmarried daughter Nancy into a room, locked the door, and told her he had had an affection for her for several years and wished that she should be his. She refused. A letter followed containing the lines, That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another, and, Whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is. Bennett printed the letter in the Sangamo Journal on 19 August 1842; church leaders answered with an affidavit from Stephen Markham impugning Nancy Rigdon's character, Nauvoo citizens published counter-affidavits calling Markham a liar, and on 3 September The Wasp carried a notice, said to be authorised by Joseph Smith, effectively withdrawing it.
Facsimile 3 published
The third facsimile appeared with explanations identifying figure 1 as Abraham on Pharaoh's throne, figure 2 as 'King Pharaoh, whose name is given in the characters above his head,' figure 4 as the prince of Pharaoh, figure 5 as Shulem, and figure 6 as 'Olimlah, a slave belonging to the prince.'
John C. Bennett falls
Bennett resigned as mayor of Nauvoo amid allegations of illicit intercourse with women and signed an affidavit stating that he never knew Joseph Smith to teach that illicit intercourse with females was justifiable. He was excommunicated and by summer was publishing letters in the Springfield Sangamo Journal naming women he said Joseph had approached, using the term spiritual wifery.
Eliza R. Snow sealed to Joseph Smith
Brigham Young sealed Eliza R. Snow, the thirty-eight-year-old Relief Society secretary, to Joseph Smith at the home of Sarah Cleveland, another of his wives, who stood as witness. Snow's journal entry for the day reads only: This is a day of much interest to my feelings. Sarah Cleveland had been sealed to Joseph the same day.
A revelation supplies the words for Sarah Ann Whitney's sealing
Joseph Smith dictated a revelation instructing Bishop Newel K. Whitney in the exact language to use in sealing his seventeen-year-old daughter Sarah Ann to Joseph. The ceremony bound the pair to be each other's companion so long as you both shall live, preserving yourselves for each other and from all others, and also throughout eternity, reserving only those rights which have been given to my servant Joseph by revelation and commandment and by legal authority in times past.
Levi Richards's diary and a New York Spectator interview
Two 1843 records preserve Smith telling the story to others. Richards noted a sermon in which Smith repeated the Lord's message that no church was His. A non-Mormon editor quoted Smith saying he prayed 'O Lord, what church shall I join?' and saw first a light, then 'a glorious personage in the light, and then another personage,' the first saying 'Behold my Beloved Son, hear Him.'
Emily and Eliza Partridge sealed without Emma's knowledge
Heber C. Kimball sealed nineteen-year-old Emily Dow Partridge to Joseph Smith on 4 March, and her sister Eliza a few days later. Both were orphaned daughters of the late Bishop Edward Partridge and were living in the Smith household. Emily recorded that neither sister knew of the other's marriage at the time, everything was so secret.
The Kinderhook plates: 'has translated a portion'
William Clayton wrote that he had seen six brass plates covered with ancient characters and that 'Prest J. has translated a portion and says they contain the history of the person with whom they were found and he was a descendant of Ham through the loins of Pharaoh king of Egypt.' The plates were later shown to be a nineteenth-century forgery made to entrap Smith.
Lucy Walker, seventeen, sealed to Joseph Smith
William Clayton officiated while Emma was in St. Louis buying store goods. Walker later recounted that Joseph had told her, I have been commanded of God to take another wife, and you are the woman, and gave her until the next day to decide, adding that if she rejected the message the gate will be closed forever against you. She sought and said she received a revelation of her own.
The Partridge sisters are sealed a second time, in Emma's presence
Emma agreed to two additional wives on condition that she choose them, and chose Emily and Eliza Partridge, not knowing they were already sealed to her husband. Emily wrote that to save family trouble Brother Joseph thought it best to have another ceremony performed, and that from that very hour, however, Emma was our bitter enemy. Emma afterwards also gave Joseph the Lawrence sisters, Maria and Sarah, orphaned Canadian wards for whom Joseph had been appointed legal guardian.
Helen Mar Kimball, aged fourteen, sealed to Joseph Smith
Heber C. Kimball proposed the match to Joseph and then to his daughter, who was two or three months short of her fifteenth birthday. Helen later wrote that her father taught me the principle of Celestial marriage and having a great desire to be connected with the Prophet, Joseph, he offered me to him, and that her mother grieved to see her child, who had scarcely seen her fifteenth summer, following in the same thorny path. Helen continued to live in her parents' home.
Joseph and Emma Smith sealed for time and eternity
Days after Emma took part in four of her husband's plural sealings, the Smiths were sealed to each other in a meeting of the Quorum of the Anointed, the third such sealing performed in the church. James and Harriet Adams were sealed in the same meeting. Emma and Harriet were the first women to witness the quorum's activities; Emma received her endowment on or just before 28 September.
The revelation on plural marriage is written downhinge
Hyrum Smith urged Joseph to dictate the revelation so he could read it to Emma and persuade her. William Clayton wrote ten pages as Joseph dictated. The text promises exaltation to those sealed by proper authority, states that if any man espouse a virgin, and desire to espouse another, and the first give her consent, he cannot commit adultery, and ends by commanding, Let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive all those that have been given unto my servant Joseph, with the warning that if she abide not this commandment she shall be destroyed. Hyrum read it to Emma, who rejected it.
A copy of the revelation is burned
Bishop Newel K. Whitney had a copy made by Joseph C. Kingsbury before the original was destroyed. William Clayton reported that Joseph said Emma had so teased, and urgently entreated him for the privilege of destroying it that he consented to pacify her. William McLellin, who spoke with Emma in 1847, wrote that Joseph himself pulled open the fire with his fingers and burned it after she refused to touch it. Emma denied burning it in an 1856 interview.
The Council of Fifty is organized
A secret council recorded by William Clayton as the "Council of Fifty or Kingdom of God" met to consider western settlement, Smith's presidential campaign and petitions to government. Its members later included non-Mormons. Smith was ordained king, priest and ruler over the council; whether the ordination carried any political claim is disputed.
The Council of Fifty is organized
Joseph Smith convened, over his Red Brick Store, the body that became known as the Council of Fifty — a civil and political council concerned with the Kingdom of God, distinct from the church's ecclesiastical structure. William Clayton kept the minutes.
The 'last charge' to the Twelvehinge
At a Council of Fifty meeting Joseph Smith is remembered to have told the assembled men that his work was nearly done and that he was rolling the burden of the kingdom off his own shoulders onto theirs, telling them to round up their shoulders and bear it. The words are known from later recollections — Orson Hyde's 1869 address, Benjamin F. Johnson, Wilford Woodruff, Dennison Lott Harris — and from a declaration the Twelve drafted in late 1844 or early 1845. Clayton's 1844 minutes record only 'instructions pertaining to the kingdom of God.'
William and Jane Law excommunicated; a rival church organised
A council of thirty-two leaders excommunicated William and Jane Law and Robert Foster for unchristian conduct without summoning them. Three days later William Law held a public meeting denouncing Joseph as a fallen prophet and organised the True Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Law said he would reconcile only if Joseph would acknowledge publicly that he had taught and practised the doctrine of plurality of wives and own the whole system to be from Hell.
Alexander Neibaur records a conversation at Smith's house
Neibaur, a Jewish convert who was teaching Smith German and Hebrew, wrote in his journal that Smith told him that day of his early religious quest and of going into the woods to pray. It is the last known contemporary record of Smith telling the story; he was killed five weeks later.
Joseph Smith denies polygamy in public
Days after a Hancock County grand jury indicted him for adultery and fornication on the Laws' complaint concerning Maria Lawrence, Joseph Smith addressed the Saints in Nauvoo: What a thing it is for a man to be accused of committing adultery, and having seven wives, when I can only find one. I am the same man, and as innocent as I was fourteen years ago; and I can prove them all perjurers. He had by then been sealed to roughly thirty women.
The Nauvoo Expositor prints the secrethinge
The single issue of the dissenters' paper carried affidavits from Austin Cowles, William Law and Jane Law describing the plural-marriage revelation, including the provision granting a man the privilege of marrying ten virgins. It also charged Joseph with attempting to unite church and state and called him a demon in human shape. Three days later the city council, with Joseph presiding as mayor, declared the press a public nuisance and ordered it destroyed; it was smashed and the papers burned the same evening.
The city council declares the Expositor a nuisance and the press is destroyedhinge
The council sat for hours across two days. Joseph Smith said that if he had a council who felt as he did the establishment would be a nuisance before night, and called it a greater nuisance than a dead carcass; Hyrum Smith said the best way was to smash the press and pi the type. The council passed a libel ordinance and ordered the nuisance abated. About eight o'clock the marshal reported that he had removed the press, type and printed papers into the street and burned them.
A warrant issues at Carthage for riot
Justice of the peace Thomas Morrison wrote out an arrest warrant charging Joseph Smith and others with "unlawfully & with force" destroying the Expositor, treated as the publishers' property. Charles A. Foster, writing aboard a steamer on 12 June, gave the New York Herald the proprietors' account of two or three hundred Legionnaires breaking the office door with a sledgehammer.
Nauvoo's own courts discharge the defendants
The Nauvoo municipal court released Smith on habeas corpus, finding the riot charge unsubstantiated because the abatement had been orderly; the next day Smith, sitting as judge, discharged the others. On 17 June the defendants submitted to a hearing before justice of the peace Daniel H. Wells, who also discharged them. To Hancock County non-Mormons this looked like a man judging his own case.
Martial law in Nauvoo
Citing newspaper threats and reports from the surrounding country, Smith as mayor declared the city under martial law and ordered the Legion and police to let no person or property pass in or out without orders. The proclamation was later cited as evidence of the treason charge.
Rigdon leaves for Pittsburgh; a letter is later dated to this day
The Rigdon family boarded the steamer Osprey for Pittsburgh, sent there partly to establish residency for the vice-presidential ticket and partly, according to Joseph Smith's diary, to get Rigdon out of danger. James J. Strang would later publish a letter dated the same day in which Joseph appointed him to plant a stake in Wisconsin and, Strangites held, named him successor. Strang further claimed that on 27 June, the day of the martyrdom, an angel ordained him a prophet, seer, revelator and translator, and that the letter reached him by mail on 9 July.
Surrender at Carthage and the treason charge
Joseph and Hyrum Smith and fifteen others surrendered on Governor Ford's guarantee of safety and were arraigned before justice of the peace Robert F. Smith, who was also captain of the Carthage Greys. The riot case was continued and bail posted; Joseph and Hyrum were then served with writs charging treason, a non-bailable offence, and taken to Carthage Jail without a hearing on that charge.
Joseph and Hyrum Smith killed at Carthage
Held in the Carthage jail on charges of riot and treason arising from the Expositor's destruction and the mustering of the Nauvoo Legion, both men were shot by a mob that broke into their cell. Plural marriage was not made public by the church for another eight years, when Orson Pratt announced it in Salt Lake City in August 1852.
Joseph and Hyrum Smith are killed at Carthage Jailhinge
Ford discharged the Warsaw militia that morning, left two companies of the Carthage Greys guarding the jail and rode to Nauvoo. In the late afternoon the discharged Warsaw men returned and stormed the jail. Willard Richards's journal records the cry to surrender, three or four shots, and a hundred armed men around the door. Hyrum was shot first; Joseph was hit at the window. John Taylor was severely wounded and Richards unhurt.
Joseph and Hyrum Smith are killed at Carthagehinge
A mob drawn largely from the disbanded Warsaw militia stormed Carthage Jail in the late afternoon. Hyrum was shot first; Joseph was killed at the window. John Taylor was badly wounded and Willard Richards was unhurt. They were the only two apostles in Illinois — the rest were in the eastern states campaigning for Joseph's presidential run.
Clayton records a designation of Samuel H. Smith
William Clayton recorded that Joseph had said that if he and Hyrum were taken away, his brother Samuel H. Smith should be his successor. Newel K. Whitney used the note to argue against making William Marks trustee-in-trust. Samuel died on 30 July, aged thirty-six, after being chased from Carthage.
Proxy sealings in the Nauvoo temple
As the Saints prepared to leave Illinois, about thirty women were sealed to the dead Joseph Smith for eternity in the newly finished temple, and to living men, chiefly Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball, for time. Most had been sealed to Joseph during his life; Brodie inferred that the remainder had been too. The register of these ordinances is the closest thing to an official contemporary list.
Sources in their own name
Source records in the database whose author line names this person. Each links to the topic that uses it.
The Book of Mormon (1830 edition)
Joseph Smith Jr.
The text as it was first published, including the one-paragraph preface on the lost manuscript, the title page, the copyright notice, and the pre-1837 readings such as 'the mother of God' at 1 Nephi 11:18.
Joseph Smith Jr. and Frederick G. Williams
The only account of the vision partly in Joseph Smith's own handwriting: one personage, forgiveness of sins, and 'the 16th year of my age.'
Book of Commandments (1833) and Doctrine and Covenants (1835 first edition)
Joseph Smith and others
The church's own foundational scripture in the 1830s says only that a remission of sins was 'manifested unto this first elder' before an angel ministered to him — no theophany, no two personages.
Doctrine and Covenants (1835 first edition)
Joseph Smith and others
The June 1829 revelation promising Cowdery, Whitmer and Harris a view of the plates 'by your faith' — the instruction that precedes and shapes the Three Witnesses' experience.
Joseph Smith Jr., scribe Warren Parrish
Two retellings five days apart: two personages plus 'many angels' on 9 November, and 'the first visitation of Angels which was when I was about 14, years old' on 14 November.
History, 1834–1836 (Kirtland journal-derived history)
Joseph Smith, Warren Parrish, Frederick G. Williams
Day-by-day Kirtland entries: labor on the Egyptian alphabet on 1 October 1835 when 'the system of astronomy was unfolded,' and the 17 November exhibition of 'the Alphabet of the ancient Egyptian Records' to the visitor Erastus Holmes.
History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834]
Joseph Smith Jr. and scribes
The manuscript behind the canonized account: the revival frame, the struggle with an unseen power, and 'I saw two personages.'
Elders' Journal of the Church of Latter Day Saints (1837–1838)
Joseph Smith, editor
That the Fourth of July oration was not a rogue speech: the church's own paper, edited by Smith, recommended that members obtain the pamphlet.
Joseph Smith
Smith's contemporaneous, favorable reference to 'a company of Danites' — the strongest primary evidence that he knew of and approved the band.
Doctrine and Covenants 119 and 120
Joseph Smith Jr.
The canonical basis of tithing — 'one-tenth of all their interest annually' — and of the Council on the Disposition of the Tithes that authorizes all expenditure.
History, 1838–1856, volume B-1 [1 September 1834–2 November 1838]
Joseph Smith and clerks
The July 1835 statement that Smith was 'continually engaged in translating an alphabet to the Book of Abraham, and arrangeing a grammar of the Egyptian language as practiced by the ancients.'
History, circa June 1839–circa 1841 [Draft 2]
Joseph Smith Jr. and scribes
The working draft of the 1838–39 history, carrying the 'join none of them, for they were all wrong' answer and the creeds-are-an-abomination language.
"Church History," 1 March 1842 (the Wentworth letter), Times and Seasons 3:706–10
Joseph Smith Jr.
Smith's own public summary for a newspaper editor: 'about fourteen years of age,' two personages, a commandment to 'go not after them,' and no 'This is My Beloved Son.'
Times and Seasons, Volume 3 (1841–1842)
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Joseph Smith, editor)
The Book of Abraham as published: Facsimile 1 and Abraham 1:1–2:18 on 1 March, Facsimile 2 and the remainder on 15 March, Facsimile 3 on 16 May, each facsimile with Joseph Smith's own numbered explanation.
Revelation to Newel K. Whitney, 27 July 1842 (sealing of Sarah Ann Whitney)
Joseph Smith Jr.
The only known revelation giving the words of a plural-marriage ceremony, dictated for a seventeen-year-old bride's father to speak.
Revelation, 12 July 1843 [Doctrine and Covenants 132]
Joseph Smith Jr.
The text of the plural-marriage revelation, including its terms for virgins, its threat to Emma Smith, and its date of recording.
Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith—History
Joseph Smith Jr.
The canonical text as Latter-day Saints read it today, canonized in 1880 — the version against which every other account is measured.
Bill of sale, Lewis C. Bidamon and Emma Bidamon to A. Combs, 26 May 1856
Lewis C. Bidamon, Emma Smith Bidamon, Joseph Smith III
That the mummies and records were 'purchased by the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith at the price of twenty four hundred dollars in the year Eighteen hundred thirty-five,' and how the collection left the family.
"Last Testimony of Sister Emma," Saints' Herald, 1 October 1879
Emma Smith Bidamon, interviewed by Joseph Smith III
The closest eyewitness account of the mechanics of dictation, from the person who wrote first and had least to gain.
Last Testimony of Sister Emma, Saints' Herald, 1 October 1879
Joseph Smith III (interviewer); Emma Smith Bidamon
Emma Smith's final recorded denial that her husband ever had another wife, and the RLDS position built on it.
Appears alongside
People who share the most dated events with Joseph Smith Jr..
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