From pro-LDS sources only
The Life of Joseph Smith
Born in Vermont in 1805. Killed at Carthage Jail in 1844. In between: the First Vision, the Book of Mormon, a new church, moves from New York to Ohio, Missouri and Illinois, and a great deal of conflict. Here is his life year by year, from the Joseph Smith Papers, the Church’s own histories and Latter-day Saint scholars, with a source for every fact.
- Lived
- 38 years
- Moved
- from Vermont to Illinois
- Church members by the end of 1844
- 26,146
- Events here
- 112
His whole life on one chart
Every event on this site, in its year and its story, like the printed chart. Scroll or drag sideways to move through his life, or use the strip to jump. Click any box to read it, or a story’s name to follow it through the timeline.
- Bold a turning point
- Outlined also part of another story
- a plural wife, with her age when she married Joseph
- she was already married to another man
- Busy years get more room and quiet years less; the strip above the chart is to scale.
Chapter 1 · 1805–1816
A farm family in New England
Joseph Smith Jr. is born in Vermont, the fifth child of Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith. The family farms and moves often, and his father has dreams the family later remembers as visions.
- Age 0
Joseph Smith Jr. is born
Joseph Smith Jr. is born in Sharon, Vermont, to Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith, a farming family.
Sources
His father farmed land he rented from Lucy’s father, Solomon Mack.
- Age 4
Grandfather Solomon Mack’s conversion
Lucy’s father, Solomon Mack, turns to Christ during a long illness and writes a booklet about his life and conversion.
More, and sources
Sick with rheumatism at 76, he wrote that he seemed to see a bright light at night and heard a voice calling him. The booklet, printed at Windsor, Vermont, about 1811, tells of his life as a settler, soldier, merchant and farmer.
- Age 5
Joseph Sr.’s dream of a barren field
Joseph Smith Sr. tells his family of a dream in which a guide leads him across a barren field to a box on a log.
More, and sources
The guide said the field was the world, “inanimate and dumb in regard to the true religion,” and that the box held what would make him wise. Beasts drove him off before he could eat. Lucy Mack Smith recorded the dream in her 1845 history.
- Age 5
Joseph Sr.’s dream of the fruit tree
Joseph Smith Sr. dreams of a narrow path leading to a tree with delicious fruit, and he brings his family to it.
More, and sources
Across the valley stood a spacious building full of finely dressed people who scorned the family. Church History in the Fulness of Times compares it to Lehi’s dream of the tree of life in the Book of Mormon. The family had just moved from Royalton, Vermont, to Lebanon, New Hampshire.
- Age 7
Surgery saves Joseph’s leg
After typhoid fever, seven-year-old Joseph gets a bone infection in his leg, and a surgeon saves it without amputating.
More, and sources
Dr. Nathan Smith of Dartmouth Medical College cut away pieces of infected bone from Joseph’s left leg in West Lebanon, New Hampshire. Joseph refused liquor to dull the pain and asked for his father to hold him and his mother to leave the room.
Chapter 2 · 1816–1827
Palmyra and the First Vision
The Smiths settle in western New York in a season of religious revivals. These years hold the First Vision, the angel Moroni’s yearly visits, the death of Joseph’s brother Alvin, his work as a treasure seer, and his marriage to Emma Hale.
- Age 10
Failed harvests and a move west
After three failed harvests in Norwich, Vermont, the frosts of 1816, the “Year Without a Summer,” push the family to move to New York.
More, and sources
The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora, a volcano in present-day Indonesia, upset weather worldwide, and killing frosts struck New England from June to August 1816. Joseph Sr. went ahead to Palmyra, New York, to find land he could afford. Lucy followed with the children, and Joseph, still limping, walked much of the way.
- Age 11
A small shop in Palmyra
In Palmyra village the family rents a house and gets by on day labor and a small shop.
More, and sources
Lucy and her daughters made and sold pies, root beer and decorative cloths, while Joseph Sr. and the older sons dug wells, split fence rails and harvested hay. A Palmyra resident, Pomeroy Tucker, later described Joseph Sr.’s “cake and beer shop.”
- Age 12
Was Joseph Sr. a Freemason?
A man named Joseph Smith is initiated into the Freemasons, a men’s fraternal order, at their lodge in Canandaigua, New York.
More, and sources
Joseph Jr. himself became a Mason much later, in Nauvoo in March 1842.
A note on the sources. Historians disagree whether this Joseph Smith was Joseph’s father. The Church’s history names Joseph’s brother Hyrum, not Joseph Sr., as a Mason in the 1820s.
- Age 12
A log home on their land
The family moves into a log home on 100 acres they are buying, about two miles south of Palmyra village.
More, and sources
They had made a first payment on the land and had permission to build. They lived in the log home until 1825, and again in 1829–30.
A note on the sources. Some neighbors later called the Smiths squatters. BYU historian Donald Enders rejects this, saying they had a legal claim to the land.
- Age 13
Joseph Sr.’s dream of twelve images
Joseph Smith Sr. dreams that, sick and lame, he is led to a garden where twelve wooden images bow to him and he is healed.
More, and sources
The images, each “the size of a very large man,” sat six to a seat on two carved seats. Lucy Mack Smith places this dream after the family built their log house.
- Age 13
Religious revivals reach Palmyra
A wave of religious revivals reaches the Palmyra area, and preachers from different churches compete for converts.
More, and sources
Historians call the revivals of the early 1800s the Second Great Awakening; in the countryside, camp meetings drew crowds for days. Lucy Mack Smith remembered a revival that reached every church near the Smith home and ended in “a terrible dispute” over converts. Joseph, by his own account, could not tell which church was right.
- Age 13
Joseph Sr.’s dream of the meetinghouse
Joseph Smith Sr. dreams he reaches a meetinghouse too late on the day of judgment and is let in only after praying for forgiveness.
More, and sources
In the dream he thought “there was no need of being in a hurry.” He was admitted after praying in the name of Jesus Christ to be forgiven of his sins. Lucy Mack Smith calls it “the sixth” of his dreams.
- Age 13
Joseph Sr.’s dream of a peddler
Joseph Smith Sr. dreams that a peddler offers to write down the one thing he lacks for salvation, but he wakes before it is written.
More, and sources
Lucy Mack Smith dates this dream, the last of his that she records, to 1819.
- Age 14
The First Vision
Joseph, 14, prays in the woods about which church to join; he said God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him. He first wrote about it twelve years later.
Sources
In his best-known account, from 1838, Joseph wrote that a pillar of light came down on him and that he was told to join none of the churches.
A note on the sources. The vision is known only from Joseph’s own accounts. None is from the 1820s, and the first is from 1832. The closer look below shows when each was recorded and how they differ.
A closer look
When the First Vision was told
Everything known about the vision comes from Joseph’s own accounts, and none of them is from the 1820s. He first wrote it down in 1832, 12 years later, and it first appeared in print in 1840. Until then, the Joseph Smith Papers says, “the history of the church, as it was then generally understood, began with the gold plates.”
Written down
1832In print
1840Other events
AngelChurchCowdery’s history- Summer 183212 years afterFirst written account, in Joseph’s own hand Not published until 1965.
- Nov. 183515 years afterTold to a visitor, Robert Matthews, and copied into Joseph’s journal Not published until the 1960s.
- 183818 years afterDictated for his history of the Church, now scripture as Joseph Smith—History
- 1839–184020 years afterJoseph speaks publicly about his early visions while in the eastern states
- Sept. 184020 years afterIn printFirst account in print: Orson Pratt’s missionary pamphlet, Edinburgh, Scotland
- Mar. 184222 years afterThe Wentworth letter, Joseph’s short account for a Chicago editor
- Mar. 184222 years afterIn printFirst printed in the United States: the Wentworth letter (Mar. 1), then the 1838 history (from Mar. 15), in the Times and Seasons
- 184222 years afterIn printOrson Hyde’s pamphlet in German, printed in Frankfurt
- June 184323 years afterLevi Richards writes down what Joseph said about it at a meeting in Nauvoo
- Aug. 184323 years afterJoseph tells it to a Pittsburgh newspaper editor, David Nye White
- Sept. 184323 years afterIn printWhite’s interview is printed in the Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette
- May 184424 years afterAlexander Neibaur writes down Joseph telling it at his home, a month before Joseph’s death
The four main accounts
12 years later
The 1832 account
Written by Joseph and his scribe Frederick G. Williams in a short history. It sat unpublished in a letter book until 1965.
“I cried unto the Lord for mercy for there was none else to whom I could go and to obtain mercy and the Lord heard my cry in the wilderness and while in ‹the› attitude of calling upon the Lord ‹in the 16th year of my age› a piller of fire light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me and I was filled with the spirit of god and the ‹Lord› opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me saying Joseph ‹my son› thy sins are forgiven thee.”
15 years later
The 1835 account
Joseph told it to a visitor at his home in Kirtland; his scribe Warren Parrish copied it into his journal. Unpublished until the 1960s.
“and I called on the Lord in mighty prayer. A pillar of fire appeared above my head. It presently rested down upon me and filled me with joy unspeakable. A personage appeared in the midst of this pillar of flame, which was spread all around and yet nothing consumed. Another personage soon appeared, like unto the first. He said unto me, “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” He testified unto me that Jesus Christ is the son of God. And I saw many angels in this vision. I was about fourteen years old when I received this first communication.”
18 years later
The 1838 account
Dictated for Joseph’s official history and printed from March 1842. Now scripture, as Joseph Smith—History in the Pearl of Great Price.
“When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!”
22 years later
The Wentworth Letter
Written for a Chicago newspaper editor and printed in the Church’s Nauvoo paper, the Times and Seasons, borrowing words from Orson Pratt’s pamphlet.
“I was enwrapped in a heavenly vision and saw two glorious personages who exactly resembled each other in features and likeness, surrounded with a brilliant light which eclipsed the sun at noonday. They told me that all religious denominations were believing in incorrect doctrines and that none of them was acknowledged of God.”
Why so late? Joseph’s 1838 account says that when he told a Methodist preacher about the vision, the preacher “treated my communication not only lightly, but with great contempt,” and that telling it brought persecution. Saints, the Church’s history, says that afterward “he kept it mostly to himself,” and historian Steven C. Harper writes that Joseph “was apparently reticent to tell his story at all after it was initially rejected.” The preacher, like the vision, is known only from Joseph’s later accounts.
A note on the sources. The accounts share a basic story but differ in emphasis and detail. The 1832 account speaks of “the Lord,” which the Church’s essay says “can be read to refer to one or two personages”; the other three describe two. The essay says each account emphasizes different things for a different audience, and that the growing detail can be read as “increasing insight, accumulating over time.”
“Accounts of the First Vision” (Joseph Smith Papers) · History, circa Summer 1832, historical introduction (Joseph Smith Papers) · Oliver Cowdery, “Letter IV,” and note 66 (Joseph Smith Papers) · Orson Pratt’s 1840 pamphlet (Joseph Smith Papers) · “First Vision Accounts” (Gospel Topics Essays) · Steven C. Harper, “Remembering the First Vision” (BYU Religious Studies Center)
- Age 16
A seer stone and treasure seeking
Joseph finds a stone while helping dig a well, and becomes known locally as a seer who can find lost or hidden things.
More, and sources
Many people then believed gifted people could look into a stone to find lost objects, and Joseph used his to help neighbors find lost things and look for buried treasure. It appears to be the same stone he later used, placed in a hat, for most of the Book of Mormon translation. In his 1838 history he openly acknowledged working on a treasure dig in 1825.
A note on the sources. No source gives a date when his treasure seeking began. Accounts also differ on whose well it was: Church historian B. H. Roberts named Clark Chase, and historian Richard Bushman says Joseph was digging with Willard Chase.
- Age 17
Moroni’s first visit
Joseph said an angel named Moroni visited him three times in one night and told him of gold plates buried in a nearby hill.
Meanwhile Joseph’s brother Alvin dies Nov. 1823
Sources
Joseph said the plates held a record of ancient people in the Americas. The next day, he said, he went to the hill, about three miles from home, and found the plates in a stone box, but was not allowed to take them yet; his earliest history says it was because he “saught the Plates to obtain riches.” He was told to come back each year for four years.
- Age 17
Joseph’s brother Alvin dies
Joseph’s oldest brother, Alvin, dies at 25, four days after falling ill with severe stomach pain.
Meanwhile Moroni’s first visit Sept. 1823
More, and sources
He was given a heavy dose of a medicine called calomel; historians have suggested appendicitis as the main cause. At his funeral a preacher suggested Alvin had gone to hell, which angered Joseph Sr.
“Do everything that lies in your power to obtain the records.”
- Age 18
First yearly visit to the hill
Joseph returns to the hill alone for the first of his yearly visits, and again does not receive the plates.
More, and sources
In 1823 Moroni had told him to bring “the right person,” his oldest brother, but Alvin had died. As Saints, the Church’s narrative history, tells it, Joseph lifted the plates out, set them down, and turned to find them gone; Moroni told him to come back the next year.
- Age 19
Second yearly visit to the hill
Joseph makes his second yearly visit to the hill near Manchester to receive instruction from Moroni, and again does not receive the plates.
Meanwhile Joseph meets Emma Hale Oct. 1825 · Digging for a lost silver mine Nov. 1825
More, and sources
A note on the sources. A neighbor, Willard Chase, said in 1833 that Samuel T. Lawrence went with Joseph this time. His statement was published by critics of the Church, and the Joseph Smith Papers name no companion.
- Age 19
Joseph meets Emma Hale
Hired by Josiah Stowell to dig for treasure in Harmony, Pennsylvania, Joseph boards with Isaac and Elizabeth Hale and meets their daughter Emma.
Meanwhile Second yearly visit to the hill Sept. 1825
More, and sources
Joseph later wrote that he “was put to board with a Mr. Isaac Hale.” Isaac Hale witnessed the workers’ contracts and let them live in his home, but he grew wary of the treasure hunt and of Joseph.
- Age 19
Digging for a lost silver mine
Joseph and his father apparently sign an agreement with Josiah Stowell and other investors to share anything found in their search for silver.
Meanwhile The family loses the farm Dec. 1825 · Second yearly visit to the hill Sept. 1825
More, and sources
Stowell, who had heard of an old Spanish silver mine near Harmony, hired the Smiths because of Joseph’s reputation with seer stones; the Smiths didn’t start the company. After nearly a month of digging without success, Joseph wrote, he talked Stowell into stopping.
“finally I prevailed with the old gentleman to cease digging after it”
A note on the sources. The agreement is known only from an 1880 newspaper printing, and no original survives, so it can’t be authenticated. The Joseph Smith Papers editors say it fits the rest of the historical record.
- Age 19
The family loses the farm
Behind on payments, the Smiths lose the farm they were buying; a neighbor, Lemuel Durfee, buys it and lets them stay as renters.
Meanwhile Digging for a lost silver mine Nov. 1825 · Joseph’s 1826 court hearing Mar. 1826
More, and sources
The Smiths were buying the farm on a land contract, not a mortgage, paying in yearly installments with the last one due in December 1825. Lucy Mack Smith said a carpenter named Russell Stoddard and his partners got a deed from the land agent before the final payment, then gave it up to Durfee. The family paid rent by improving the land, and sons Samuel and Don Carlos worked for Durfee.
- Age 20
Joseph’s 1826 court hearing
Joseph is charged before a local judge, Albert Neely, as a “disorderly person” for using a seer stone to find lost goods.
Meanwhile The family loses the farm Dec. 1825 · Second yearly visit to the hill Sept. 1825
More, and sources
The charge fell under a New York law against “pretending” to find lost goods; Saints says a nephew of Josiah Stowell brought it, believing Joseph was taking advantage of his uncle. In the court record, Joseph said he had used his stone off and on to look for lost property but had given it up because it hurt his eyes. Joseph Sr. and Stowell also testified.
A note on the sources. Accounts of the outcome conflict: the court record, printed in 1873, says he was found guilty, a neighbor of Stowell’s said he was “condemned” but let go because he was young, and others said he was discharged or acquitted. The Church’s history calls acquittal the most likely result.
- Age 20
Third yearly visit to the hill
At his third yearly visit to the hill, Joseph said, Moroni told him he was still not ready to receive the plates.
Meanwhile Joseph marries Emma Hale Jan. 1827
More, and sources
Saints says Moroni told him to “quit the company of the money diggers” and to bring “the right person” next time. Joseph concluded it was Emma Hale.
- Age 21
Joseph marries Emma Hale
Because Emma’s parents oppose the match, Joseph and Emma Hale elope and marry in South Bainbridge, New York.
Meanwhile Third yearly visit to the hill Sept. 1826
Sources
They were married at the house of “Squire Tarbill,” a local justice of the peace, then went to live with Joseph’s parents in Manchester.
“my wife’s father’s family were very much opposed to our being married”
- Age 21
A promise to Isaac Hale
Emma’s father, Isaac Hale, and a neighbor, Peter Ingersoll, later said Joseph promised Hale he would give up glass-looking and work for a living.
Meanwhile Joseph gets the gold plates Sept. 1827 · Martin Harris offers to help Oct. 1827
More, and sources
Glass-looking meant looking into a stone to find treasure or lost things. Ingersoll, hired to move Emma’s belongings from Harmony, said Hale accused Joseph of digging for money and offered to help him in business if he moved to Pennsylvania and worked for a living, and Joseph agreed. Joseph and Emma moved to Harmony that December.
A note on the sources. Both statements were collected and published in 1834 by critics of the Church. The Church’s essay on the translation cites Martin Harris that Joseph had already stopped treasure seeking by 1826.
Chapter 3 · 1827–1830
The Book of Mormon
From the night Joseph brings home the gold plates to the day the Book of Mormon goes on sale and the Church is organized: the scribes, the lost 116 pages, the seer stone, the witnesses and the printer.
- Age 21
Joseph gets the gold plates
Just after midnight, Joseph and Emma drove to a hill near the Smith farm, where Joseph said he retrieved the gold plates.
Meanwhile A promise to Isaac Hale Aug. 1827
Sources
They went in Joseph Knight Sr.’s wagon; Knight and Josiah Stowell, who had both hired Joseph in earlier years, were staying at the Smith home. Emma waited while Joseph went to get the plates. He hid them in the woods and brought them home within a week. Many of his former treasure-digging partners “felt they had a claim to the plates,” the Joseph Smith Papers says, and some, including Willard Chase, tried to find them.
- Age 21
Martin Harris offers to help
Martin Harris, a respected Palmyra landowner, became interested in the plates and gave Joseph money to carry on the work.
Meanwhile A promise to Isaac Hale Aug. 1827
More, and sources
Harris was old enough to be Joseph's father and became interested after Joseph's mother, Lucy, invited him to visit. He helped pay Joseph's debts and gave him $50, which made possible Joseph and Emma's move to Harmony, Pennsylvania, in December 1827, with the plates hidden in a barrel of beans.
“I give it to you to do the Lord’s work.”
- Age 21
Copying characters from the plates
In Harmony, with Emma's help, Joseph copied many of the strange characters from the plates onto paper and began translating some.
Meanwhile Joseph and Emma's first son dies June 1828 · A promise to Isaac Hale Aug. 1827
More, and sources
Martin Harris later took a smaller sample of the characters to show to scholars.
“I copied a considerable number of them, and by means of the Urim and Thummim I translated some of them”
- Age 22
Martin Harris visits the scholars
Martin Harris took a sample of the characters to scholars in New York and came away more convinced they were authentic.
Meanwhile Joseph and Emma's first son dies June 1828
More, and sources
On the way he saw Luther Bradish in Albany. In New York City he showed the characters to Samuel L. Mitchill and Charles Anthon of Columbia College.
A note on the sources. Charles Anthon later denied Harris's account of their meeting.
- Age 22
Martin Harris becomes scribe
In Harmony, Martin Harris began writing down the translation as Joseph dictated it, producing the pages that were later lost.
Meanwhile Joseph and Emma's first son dies June 1828
More, and sources
In an 1859 interview, Harris described the translating instrument as two stones set in a bow of silver, and said he never dared to look into them himself. The Book of Mormon calls this instrument the interpreters; Latter-day Saints today know it as the Urim and Thummim.
A note on the sources. Harris gave this description about three decades later. The printed chart joins two separate sentences from his interview into one.
- Martin Harris Acted as JS's Scribe, ca. 12 April 1828 (Joseph Smith Papers event)
- Martin Harris interview, Tiffany's Monthly (1859), and Emma Smith Bidamon to Emma Pilgrim (1870), in "Documents of the Translation of the Book of Mormon," Opening the Heavens (BYU Studies)
- "Book of Mormon Translation," Gospel Topics Essays
- Age 22
Martin Harris borrows the manuscript
Joseph reluctantly let Martin Harris take the translated pages, which Joseph called the Book of Lehi, home to Palmyra.
Meanwhile Joseph and Emma's first son dies June 1828
More, and sources
Harris promised to show them only to certain family members. Joseph later wrote that he had "wearied the Lord" by asking permission to let Harris take them.
- Age 22
Joseph and Emma's first son dies
Emma gave birth to a son in Harmony, Pennsylvania; he died the same day, and for a time Emma seemed close to death too.
Meanwhile The 116 pages are lost July 1828 · Martin Harris becomes scribe Apr. 1828
More, and sources
Joseph stayed at Emma's side. After two weeks her health began to improve.
“In Memory of An Infant Son of Joseph And Emma Smith June 15th 1828.”
A note on the sources. The printed chart names the baby Alvin. A relative later wrote "Alvin" in a family Bible, but Emma said the baby was never named.
- Age 22
The 116 pages are lost
At his parents' home in Manchester, Joseph learned that Martin Harris had lost the manuscript pages; they have never been found.
Meanwhile Joseph and Emma's first son dies June 1828
More, and sources
The number 116 comes from Joseph's 1829 preface to the Book of Mormon and may have been an estimate, not an exact count. Back in Harmony, Joseph received a revelation now printed as section 3 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Church's book of modern revelations.
“All is lost!”
- Age 22
The plates return; translating slowly resumes
Joseph said the plates and interpreters were taken from him after the loss and later given back; his mother dated their return Sept. 22, 1828.
Meanwhile Joseph and Emma's first son dies June 1828
More, and sources
Progress was slow. Emma Smith and Joseph's brother Samuel may have served briefly as scribes in early 1829, but no record shows which parts they wrote.
A note on the sources. Joseph's history says the plates were given back after "a few days"; his mother gave Sept. 22. Sources also differ on when translating resumed; the Joseph Smith Papers says only that it had by March 1829.
- Age 23
Martin Harris asks for proof
Doubting, Martin Harris came to Harmony wanting proof of the plates; a revelation said three witnesses would see them, and he could be one.
More, and sources
Harris's wife, Lucy, had filed a complaint accusing Joseph of fraud. The revelation, given at Harris's request and now Doctrine and Covenants 5, also spoke of establishing a church, about a year before one was organized. The Joseph Smith Papers says it "allayed his doubts," and he went home to Palmyra.
“I will establish my Church”
- Age 23
Oliver Cowdery becomes scribe
Oliver Cowdery, a young schoolteacher, came to Harmony and began writing as Joseph dictated, and the translation moved quickly.
Meanwhile Joseph and Oliver baptize each other May 1829 · Hyrum Smith and the Whitmers join June 1829
More, and sources
Oliver, a year younger than Joseph, had been teaching school near the Smith farm and staying with Joseph's parents. Starting near the beginning of Mosiah, the translation reached 3 Nephi by May 15 and ran to the end of the record before Joseph turned to the opening books.
- Age 23
Joseph and Oliver baptize each other
Joseph and Oliver said John the Baptist gave them the Aaronic Priesthood; then they baptized each other in the Susquehanna River.
Meanwhile Oliver Cowdery becomes scribe Apr. 1829 · Seer stone in a hat 1829
More, and sources
The Aaronic Priesthood is the lesser of the Church's two priesthoods. Joseph's record of the angel's words is now Doctrine and Covenants 13.
- Age 23
Hyrum Smith and the Whitmers join
David Whitmer moved Joseph and Oliver to his family's farm in Fayette, New York, where Joseph baptized his brother Hyrum and David Whitmer.
Meanwhile The Three and Eight Witnesses June 1829 · Seer stone in a hat 1829
More, and sources
The move came around June 1, 1829. Peter Whitmer Jr. was baptized with them, about June 5–8, and John Whitmer probably that month; John sometimes served as a scribe.
- Age 23
Copyright for the Book of Mormon
Joseph secured the Book of Mormon's copyright by filing its title page with the federal court clerk in Utica, New York.
Meanwhile Joseph and Oliver baptize each other May 1829 · Hyrum Smith and the Whitmers join June 1829
More, and sources
The clerk was Richard R. Lansing of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York. The Joseph Smith Papers editors think Joseph more likely sent Oliver Cowdery, or mailed the page, than went himself. Before the book came out, Joseph used the copyright to stop Abner Cole, a local satirist, from printing passages in his newspaper.
- Age 23
Finding a printer
Joseph and Martin Harris struggled to find a printer: three in Palmyra and Rochester, New York, turned the job down.
Meanwhile Joseph and Oliver baptize each other May 1829 · Hyrum Smith and the Whitmers join June 1829
More, and sources
The three were Egbert B. Grandin, Jonathan Hadley and Thurlow Weed. After Elihu Marshall of Rochester agreed, they went back to Grandin in Palmyra, hoping to print closer to home, and he took it on once Harris offered part of his farm as security.
- Age 23
The Three and Eight Witnesses
Three men said an angel showed them the plates, and eight more said they handled them; the Book of Mormon printed both statements.
Meanwhile Hyrum Smith and the Whitmers join June 1829
More, and sources
The Three Witnesses, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris, had their experience near the Whitmer home in Fayette. Soon after, near the Smith family's home, came the Eight Witnesses: Christian, Jacob, Peter Jr. and John Whitmer, Hiram Page, Joseph Smith Sr., Hyrum Smith and Samuel Smith. Each of the Three later parted ways with the Church (Cowdery and Harris returned), but all kept affirming their testimony.
A note on the sources. The witnesses described the experience as both spiritual and physical. In 1838 a disaffected member, Stephen Burnett, wrote that Martin Harris denied seeing the plates "with his natural eyes"; Harris felt misrepresented and tried to clarify.
- Age 23
Seer stone in a hat
Joseph often dictated the translation while looking at a seer stone placed in a hat to block out the light.
Meanwhile Joseph and Oliver baptize each other May 1829 · Hyrum Smith and the Whitmers join June 1829
More, and sources
The seer stone was a small oval stone Joseph had found in the ground years before; like others in his day, he had used it to look for lost objects and buried treasure, a familiar folk practice then. Emma Smith recalled that the part Martin Harris lost was translated with the interpreters, and the rest with the stone. The Church's essay says he used both, often the stone, and that the two were apparently interchangeable.
“After that he used a small stone, not exactly black, but was rather a dark color.”
A note on the sources. The printed chart says all of today's Book of Mormon came through the stone. That rests on Emma's recollection four decades later; the Church's essay says only that he often used it.
- "Book of Mormon Translation," Gospel Topics Essays
- Richard E. Turley Jr., Robin S. Jensen and Mark Ashurst-McGee, "Joseph the Seer," Ensign, Oct. 2015 (with photograph of the seer stone)
- Martin Harris interview, Tiffany's Monthly (1859), and Emma Smith Bidamon to Emma Pilgrim (1870), in "Documents of the Translation of the Book of Mormon," Opening the Heavens (BYU Studies)
- Age 23
The translation is finished
At the Whitmer home in Fayette, Joseph finished the translation with 1 Nephi through the Words of Mormon, seven books that replaced the lost pages.
Meanwhile Joseph and Oliver baptize each other May 1829 · Hyrum Smith and the Whitmers join June 1829
More, and sources
With Oliver Cowdery as the main scribe, most of the book was translated between April 7 and about July 1, 1829.
A closer look
From treasure seeking to the Book of Mormon
The angel’s visits came in the same years Joseph was hunting for buried treasure with a seer stone, and the stone he later put in a hat to dictate most of the Book of Mormon appears to be the one he found around 1822. Here is the story in order.
- About 1822Joseph finds a stone while helping dig a wellBy one account the well was Willard Chase’s. Gospel Topics essay
- Sept. 1823An angel tells him of gold plates buried in a nearby hillHis earliest history says that at first he “saught the Plates to obtain riches,” and the Church’s history says he thought he “knew exactly where to find enough treasure to free his family from poverty.” He was told to come back each year. History, circa Summer 1832 (Joseph Smith Papers)
- 1820sMeanwhile he uses seer stones to help neighbors find lost objects and look for buried treasureThe 1826 court record, printed in 1873, says he “looked into his hat” to tell a man about money he had lost. Docket entry, 20 March 1826 (Joseph Smith Papers)
- Oct. 1825Josiah Stowell hires him, because of the stone, to dig for a lost Spanish silver mine; he boards with the Hales and meets Emma
- Mar. 1826A court hearing: charged as a “disorderly person.” The judge’s bill calls him “the Glass Looker.”
- Sept. 1826“Quit the company of the money diggers,” the angel tells him, by Martin Harris’s account
- Sept. 22, 1827He gets the plates, and with them the “interpreters,” two stones set in silver bowsJosiah Stowell and Joseph Knight Sr., who had both hired him to dig, were staying at the Smith home that night. Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1845 (Joseph Smith Papers)
- Fall 1827His old treasure-digging partners want a shareMany of them “felt they had a claim to the plates,” the Joseph Smith Papers says; Willard Chase’s group sent for a conjuror to find them. To some neighbors, the angel “seemed similar to the treasure guardians of folk belief.” Revelations and Translations, vol. 3, introduction (Joseph Smith Papers)
- Apr.–June 1828The first 116 pages, dictated with the interpreters, are written and then lost
- Apr.–June 1829After a long pause, nearly all of the book we have is dictated in about 12 weeks, mostly with the seer stone, placed in a hatEmma remembered him “sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.” Gospel Topics essay
- Spring 1830He gives the stone to Oliver Cowdery and stops using it, David Whitmer said
- 1853Brigham Young: “I have Joseph[’]s 1st Seer Stone which I [h]ad from O[liver] C[owdery]”
- 2015The Church, which still has the stone, publishes photographs of it
“God gave Joseph Smith power to translate the Book of Mormon, redirecting Joseph’s use of the seer stone toward work of a spiritual nature.”
A note on the sources. Joseph said he learned where the plates were in a vision during the angel’s first visit. Martin Harris said in 1859 that “it was by means of this stone he first discovered these plates”; BYU Studies calls that the only source close to Joseph to say so, and secondhand.
From the plates to a printed book
Joseph had the plates for a year and a half before the translation took off. Then, the Church’s essay says, “almost all of the present Book of Mormon text was translated during a three-month period between April and June” 1829: the 588-page first edition, in what historian John W. Welch estimates was about 65 working days.
- With the plates before Oliver Cowdery came
- 18 months
- Nearly the whole book, dictated (about 65 working days)
- 12 weeks
- Typesetting and printing
- 8 months
- Sept.–Nov. 1827; fall and winter 1828–29, when Joseph farmed; July 1829. No translating recorded
- Dec. 1827 – Mar. 1828. In Harmony, Joseph copies characters from the plates and translates some, with Emma and her brother Reuben Hale as scribes
- Apr. 12 – June 14, 1828. Martin Harris writes the first 116 pages; Joseph and Emma’s first son dies the next day
- July – Sept. 1828. The pages are lost. The plates and interpreters are taken from Joseph, then given back, by Sept. 22, his mother wrote
- Late Feb. – Mar. 1829. Translating resumes slowly, with Emma and Joseph’s brother Samuel as scribes; how many pages they wrote is unknown
- Apr. 7 – June 30, 1829. Oliver Cowdery writes as Joseph dictates nearly the whole book: Mosiah to 3 Nephi by May 15, then, at the Whitmer farm in Fayette, the rest, finishing by the end of June
- Aug. 1829 – Mar. 26, 1830. Martin Harris mortgages his farm to pay E. B. Grandin, who typesets and prints 5,000 copies in Palmyra
“Treasure Seeking” (Church History Topics) · “Book of Mormon Translation” (Gospel Topics Essays) · “Seer Stones” (Church History Topics) · “Joseph the Seer” (Ensign, Oct. 2015), with photographs of the stone · Docket entry, 20 March 1826 (Joseph Smith Papers) · Documents, Volume 1, introductions (Joseph Smith Papers) · John W. Welch, “How long did it take Joseph Smith to translate the Book of Mormon?” (Ensign, Jan. 1988)
- Age 23
Printing begins
Egbert B. Grandin began printing 5,000 copies of the Book of Mormon in Palmyra, paid for by Martin Harris.
Meanwhile Joseph and Oliver baptize each other May 1829 · Hyrum Smith and the Whitmers join June 1829
More, and sources
That was more than twice the usual size for a book at the time. Harris mortgaged his farm to Grandin on Aug. 25, 1829, and later paid the printing costs by selling 151 acres of land.
- Age 24
The Book of Mormon is published
The Book of Mormon went on sale at Grandin's printing office in Palmyra, announced that day in the local Wayne Sentinel newspaper.
Meanwhile The Church is organized Apr. 1830 · Tried twice as a disorderly person June 1830
Sources
Copies sold slowly around Palmyra at first, but interest grew as missionaries carried the book around the country.
- Age 24
The Church is organized
Joseph, Oliver Cowdery and about 40 others met to organize the Church of Christ, as the Church was first called.
Meanwhile The Book of Mormon is published Mar. 1830 · Tried twice as a disorderly person June 1830
Sources
Six people served as the legal organizers. Joseph and Oliver ordained each other elders, the group took the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and those already baptized were confirmed as members.
A note on the sources. Firsthand accounts disagree on where the meeting was held. Joseph's 1839 history says the Peter Whitmer Sr. home in Fayette, New York; an 1842 article by Joseph says Manchester.
- Age 24
Tried twice as a disorderly person
After Joseph oversaw about thirteen baptisms near Colesville, opponents had him arrested and tried twice as a "disorderly person"; both courts let him go.
Meanwhile The Church is organized Apr. 1830 · The Book of Mormon is published Mar. 1830
More, and sources
New York's disorderly persons law covered, among other things, pretending to tell where lost or stolen goods could be found, and the charges looked back to his earlier seer stone use. He was acquitted in South Bainbridge, then discharged in Colesville. Two farmers, John S. Reed and James Davidson, defended him.
A note on the sources. The Joseph Smith Papers dates the hearings to June 29 and 30, 1830, in its legal introduction, but to about June 30–July 3 in its timeline.
- Age 24
Only Joseph receives revelations for the Church
When Hiram Page shared revelations he said came through a stone, a revelation and a conference affirmed only Joseph received revelations for the Church.
Meanwhile Tried twice as a disorderly person June 1830
More, and sources
Earlier that summer, Oliver Cowdery had demanded that Joseph remove words from a revelation. Hiram Page was one of the Eight Witnesses. The September revelation is now Doctrine and Covenants 28, and the conference met on Sept. 26, 1830.
- Age 24
Mission to the Lamanites
A revelation called Oliver Cowdery to preach to the Lamanites, as early members called American Indians; in October he left with three companions.
Meanwhile Tried twice as a disorderly person June 1830
More, and sources
His companions were Peter Whitmer Jr., Parley P. Pratt and Ziba Peterson, and on Oct. 17, 1830, the four signed a covenant to preach to the American Indians. They reached northeastern Ohio on Oct. 29, then went on, on foot through the winter, to Independence, Missouri.
- Age 24
Sidney Rigdon joins
Sidney Rigdon, a preacher who led a congregation in Mentor, Ohio, was baptized with his wife, Phebe, after the missionaries visited.
Meanwhile Tried twice as a disorderly person June 1830 · Twins die, and twins are adopted Apr. 1831
More, and sources
Many members of his congregation joined too, though not all. Parley P. Pratt reported 127 baptisms in the Kirtland area within two or three weeks, and a new convert, Frederick G. Williams, went west with the missionaries.
Chapter 4 · 1831–1837
Kirtland and Zion
The Church gathers in two places at once: Kirtland, Ohio, where the temple is built, and Missouri, where Joseph names Zion and the Saints are driven from county to county.
- Age 25
The Church moves to Kirtland, Ohio
Joseph and Emma Smith move to Kirtland, Ohio, after a revelation tells the Church to gather there.
Meanwhile Twins die, and twins are adopted Apr. 1831
Sources
The revelation, given in December 1830, is now Doctrine and Covenants 37. Most of the New York members followed that spring. Kirtland stayed the Church’s headquarters until Joseph left it in January 1838.
- Age 25
Twins die, and twins are adopted
Emma Smith’s newborn twins die within hours; soon after, she and Joseph adopt the newborn twins of a friend whose wife had died.
Meanwhile The Church moves to Kirtland, Ohio Feb. 1831 · Zion named in Independence, Missouri July 1831
More, and sources
Julia Clapp Murdock died after giving birth to twins, Joseph and Julia. Her husband, John Murdock, gave the babies to Joseph and Emma when they were nine days old. Emma apparently never named her own twins; the names Louisa and Thadeus were written in a family Bible later, with no source given.
A note on the sources. Sources differ on the Murdock twins’ birth date. The Joseph Smith Papers give April 30, 1831; the Church’s family history page says they were born the day after the Smith twins.
- Age 25
Zion named in Independence, Missouri
Joseph travels to Missouri, where a revelation names Independence the center place of Zion, the promised gathering place for the Saints.
Meanwhile Twins die, and twins are adopted Apr. 1831
More, and sources
On August 3, 1831, Sidney Rigdon dedicated a temple site west of the town and Joseph laid a cornerstone. Until 1838 the Church had two centers: Kirtland, where Joseph lived, and Zion in Missouri. The Saints were driven from Jackson County in 1833, before a temple could be built.
“Behold, the place which is now called Independence is the center place; and a spot for the temple is lying westward, upon a lot which is not far from the courthouse.”
- Age 26
Tarred and feathered in Hiram, Ohio
At night a mob drags Joseph and Sidney Rigdon from their homes in Hiram, Ohio, beats them, and covers them in tar and feathers.
Meanwhile Brigham Young is baptized Apr. 1832 · First Vision: the 1832 account July 1832
More, and sources
One man came with a knife to mutilate Joseph but refused to cut him, and a bottle of acid forced into his mouth broke on his teeth, chipping one. The next day Joseph preached a sermon. His adopted son Joseph Murdock Smith, already sick with measles, died on March 29; Joseph blamed the cold night air let in by the mob.
A note on the sources. The Church’s history links the mob to former members and to anger over newspaper letters by Ezra Booth, a former member, and over the vision now in Doctrine and Covenants 76. A later theory blamed Joseph’s interest in a teenager, Marinda Nancy Johnson (later one of his plural wives), but no Church source supports it, and historian Richard Bushman writes that it “fell for lack of evidence.”
- Age 26
Brigham Young is baptized
Brigham Young, a carpenter who would later lead The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is baptized in Mendon, New York.
Meanwhile Tarred and feathered in Hiram, Ohio Mar. 1832 · First Vision: the 1832 account July 1832
More, and sources
Eleazer Miller baptized him. He marched with Joseph in Zion’s Camp in 1834, and on February 14, 1835, he was ordained one of the first Twelve Apostles.
- Age 26
First Vision: the 1832 account
Joseph wrote his earliest known account of the First Vision in a short history; it is the only account in his own handwriting.
Meanwhile Brigham Young is baptized Apr. 1832 · Tarred and feathered in Hiram, Ohio Mar. 1832
More, and sources
He and his scribe, Frederick G. Williams, took turns writing in a ledger book later used for copying letters; it was not a journal. The account stresses Jesus Christ's forgiveness of Joseph's sins. It was not published at the time, when the Church's story was generally told as starting with the gold plates, and Latter-day Saints learned of it in 1965, when Paul Cheesman printed it in a BYU master's thesis.
- Age 26
Joseph Smith III is born
Emma gives birth to Joseph Smith III in Kirtland, the first of her own children to survive infancy.
Meanwhile School of the Prophets, Word of Wisdom Jan. 1833 · First Vision: the 1832 account July 1832
More, and sources
He was born soon after his father came home from a trip to New York City and Boston. As a boy he visited his father in Liberty Jail. He later led the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, now Community of Christ, for 54 years.
- Age 26
Printing the Book of Commandments
William W. Phelps begins printing Joseph’s revelations as the Book of Commandments at his print shop in Independence, Missouri.
Meanwhile Joseph Smith III is born Nov. 1832 · First Vision: the 1832 account July 1832
More, and sources
Printing was nearly done when a mob destroyed the press on July 20, 1833, before any copies were bound. Members saved pages and bound a few incomplete books. The revelations were published in full in 1835 as the Doctrine and Covenants.
- Age 27
School of the Prophets, Word of Wisdom
Joseph opens a school in Kirtland to prepare Church elders for missions, and there presents the Word of Wisdom, a revelation about food and drink.
Meanwhile Joseph Smith III is born Nov. 1832 · Work begins on the Kirtland Temple June 1833
More, and sources
The school first met on January 22, 1833, in an upstairs room of Newel K. Whitney’s store, to study doctrine, history, languages and more. The Word of Wisdom (Doctrine and Covenants 89) came on February 27, 1833, prompted in part by Emma Smith’s concern about tobacco use at the school. It counsels against wine, strong drink, tobacco and hot drinks.
“not by commandment or constraint, but by revelation and the word of wisdom”
- Age 27
The First Presidency is organized
Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams are ordained as Joseph’s counselors, forming the First Presidency, the council that leads the Church.
Meanwhile Joseph Smith III is born Nov. 1832 · Work begins on the Kirtland Temple June 1833
More, and sources
A revelation of March 8, 1833, now Doctrine and Covenants 90, named them to the role. An earlier counselor, Jesse Gause, had been called in March 1832 and was excommunicated that December.
- Age 27
Work begins on the Kirtland Temple
A Church conference in Kirtland tells the temple building committee to start work right away.
Meanwhile The First Presidency is organized Mar. 1833 · School of the Prophets, Word of Wisdom Jan. 1833
More, and sources
The committee was Reynolds Cahoon, Jared Carter and Hyrum Smith, and the cornerstones were laid on July 23, 1833. According to the Church’s history, Joseph and his two counselors saw the building in a vision that year. Members gave much of their time over the next three years to build it.
A note on the sources. Other accounts put the first day of work on June 5 or June 7, 1833.
- Age 27
Driven out of Jackson County
Vigilantes in Jackson County, Missouri, attack the Saints’ homes and printing office, and most of the county’s roughly 1,200 Saints flee into Clay County.
Meanwhile Work begins on the Kirtland Temple June 1833
More, and sources
Other settlers feared the growing number of Saints would take over the county, and a July 1833 Church newspaper article about free Black converts raised fears of abolition. On July 20 vigilantes wrecked the printing office and tarred and feathered Bishop Edward Partridge and Charles Allen. Violence resumed on October 31, and after a skirmish near the Big Blue River on November 4, the Saints fled across the Missouri River.
- Age 28
Zion’s Camp marches to Missouri
Joseph leads about 230 men, women and children from Ohio and Michigan to Missouri to help the Saints driven from Jackson County.
More, and sources
A revelation framed it as a military mission, but its leaders saw it as defensive: they hoped Governor Daniel Dunklin would call out the state militia to return the Saints to their land. When he would not, a June 22, 1834 revelation (Doctrine and Covenants 105) released the camp, and it broke up at the end of June during a cholera outbreak that killed 13 members. Eight of the first Twelve Apostles had marched in it.
- Age 28
First written accounts of priesthood restoration
Oliver Cowdery publishes the first detailed account of John the Baptist appearing to him and Joseph in 1829 to give them priesthood authority.
More, and sources
The Aaronic Priesthood, the lesser of the Church’s two priesthoods, includes the authority to baptize; Joseph and Oliver dated the visit to May 15, 1829. The first clear record of Peter, James and John giving them the higher, Melchizedek Priesthood is in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants.
“Upon you my fellow servants in the name of Messiah I confer the priesthood of Aaron.”
A note on the sources. These detailed accounts came five or more years after the events. The Church’s history says earlier, less detailed sources mention angels giving Joseph and Oliver authority, and that the visit of Peter, James and John cannot be dated precisely.
- Age 28
The Lectures on Faith
Seven lectures on faith in God are given at the School of the Elders in Kirtland and later printed in the Doctrine and Covenants.
More, and sources
They were the “doctrine” half of the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants and were dropped starting with the 1921 edition. Church leaders felt some lines, such as calling God the Father a “personage of spirit,” could confuse readers given Joseph’s later teaching that the Father has a body.
“A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things, never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.”
A note on the sources. The lectures name no author. Joseph and Sidney Rigdon both taught in the school; most scholars credit most or all of the lectures to Rigdon, and how much Joseph contributed is unknown.
- Age 29
The Twelve Apostles and the Seventy
With the Three Witnesses’ help, Joseph chooses the first Twelve Apostles and the first Seventies, leaders called to preach the gospel worldwide.
More, and sources
Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris, the Book of Mormon’s Three Witnesses, named the Twelve on February 14, 1835, and the first Seventies were ordained on February 28. Eight of the Twelve, and all of the first Seventies, had marched in Zion’s Camp.
- Age 29
Egyptian papyri and the Book of Abraham
Church members and others buy four mummies and several papyrus scrolls, and Joseph begins translating what he said were writings of Abraham.
Meanwhile Fanny Alger Dec. 1835 · First Vision: the 1835 account Nov. 1835
More, and sources
Michael Chandler, who toured with Egyptian artifacts, sold them in Kirtland for $2,400. By that fall Joseph had finished at least the first chapter and part of the second. All five chapters were published in the Times and Seasons in Nauvoo in March–May 1842, and the book became scripture in the Pearl of Great Price in 1880.
“much to our joy [we] found that one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham.”
A note on the sources. Most of the papyri were later lost, probably in the 1871 Chicago fire; ten fragments came to the Church in 1967. Egyptologists, Latter-day Saint and not, agree the characters on them do not match the Book of Abraham and identify them as standard funerary texts; the Church’s essay calls their link to the book “largely a matter of conjecture.”
- Age 29
The Doctrine and Covenants is published
The Church publishes Joseph’s revelations in Kirtland as the Doctrine and Covenants, the book that replaced the unfinished Book of Commandments.
Meanwhile Fanny Alger Dec. 1835 · First Vision: the 1835 account Nov. 1835
More, and sources
A general assembly of the Church accepted it on August 17, 1835, and bound copies were for sale by September. It held the Lectures on Faith (the “doctrine”) and 103 sections of revelations (the “covenants”), up from 65 chapters in the Book of Commandments.
- Age 29
First Vision: the 1835 account
Joseph told a visitor to Kirtland, Ohio, about his First Vision, and the account was copied into his journal.
Meanwhile Fanny Alger Dec. 1835 · The Kirtland Temple is dedicated Mar. 1836
More, and sources
The visitor was Robert Matthews. Joseph's description was written down, and his scribe Warren Parrish later copied it into the journal. This account tells of one heavenly being followed shortly by another, and of angels.
- Age 29
Fanny Alger
Fanny Alger, about 19, worked in the Smith household in Kirtland. Several Latter-day Saints said decades later that Joseph had secretly married her as his first plural wife; Oliver Cowdery called it an affair.
Meanwhile The Kirtland Temple is dedicated Mar. 1836 · First Vision: the 1835 account Nov. 1835
Sources
Historian Brian Hales dates it to late 1835 or early 1836. Mosiah Hancock wrote in 1896 that his father, Levi Hancock, Fanny’s uncle, performed a private ceremony. By later accounts Emma found out and put Fanny out of the house, and Fanny stayed a few weeks with Chauncey and Eliza Jane Webb. William McLellin, an apostle who had left the Church, wrote in 1872 that Emma told him she had found Joseph and Fanny together in the barn: “She looked through a crack and saw the transaction!!!” Fanny left Ohio with her family in September 1836 and on November 16 married Solomon Custer in Dublin, Indiana. Asked about it late in life, she wrote back, “That is all a matter of our own, and I have nothing to communicate.”
“A dirty, nasty, filthy scrape of his and Fanny Algers”
A note on the sources. Almost everything known comes from accounts written decades later, most of them secondhand and some by hostile witnesses; Hales counts nineteen. Cowdery saw adultery, while Fanny’s family and others later described a plural marriage. At Cowdery’s April 1838 Church trial in Missouri, one charge was that he had falsely insinuated Joseph was guilty of adultery; Joseph “gave a history respecting the girl buisness,” the minutes say, and Cowdery was excommunicated. The Church’s essay says little is known about the marriage, and “nothing is known about the conversations between Joseph and Emma regarding Alger.”
- Fanny Alger (Church History Topics)
- Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo (Gospel Topics Essay)
- Saints, vol. 1, ch. 25, “Move On to the West”
- Brian Hales, “Joseph Smith and Fanny Alger” (josephsmithspolygamy.org)
- William McLellin to Joseph Smith III, July 1872 (transcript, josephsmithspolygamy.org)
- Oliver Cowdery to Warren A. Cowdery, Jan. 21, 1838 (transcript, josephsmithspolygamy.org)
- Minutes, 12 April 1838: Oliver Cowdery’s trial (Joseph Smith Papers)
- Age 30
The Kirtland Temple is dedicated
After three years of building, the Saints dedicate the Kirtland Temple in a day-long service of prayer, sermons, music and the sacrament.
Meanwhile Fanny Alger Dec. 1835 · First Vision: the 1835 account Nov. 1835
Sources
Joseph offered the dedicatory prayer, now Doctrine and Covenants 109. The Saints gave the Hosanna Shout and sang William W. Phelps’s new hymn “The Spirit of God like a Fire Is Burning,” and both became part of later temple dedications. Community of Christ owned and cared for the temple until March 5, 2024, when it passed to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
- Age 30
Elijah and the sealing power
Joseph and Oliver Cowdery said that Jesus Christ appeared to them in the Kirtland Temple, followed by Moses, Elias and Elijah.
Meanwhile Fanny Alger Dec. 1835 · John Taylor and William Law join May 1836
More, and sources
Latter-day Saints believe Elijah gave them the sealing power: the authority for ordinances that join families forever, for the living and the dead. It was Easter Sunday, one week after the dedication. The account comes from Joseph’s journal and was added to the Doctrine and Covenants, as section 110, in 1876.
“To turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, lest the whole earth be smitten with a curse”
- Age 30
John Taylor and William Law join
Two future Church leaders living in Upper Canada, now Ontario, join: John Taylor in May 1836 and William Law by 1837.
Meanwhile The Kirtland Temple is dedicated Mar. 1836 · Fanny Alger Dec. 1835
More, and sources
Parley P. Pratt baptized John Taylor in Toronto on May 9, 1836; Taylor was with Joseph at Carthage Jail in 1844 and became president of the Church in 1880. William Law served as a counselor in the First Presidency in Nauvoo from 1841 to 1844, and in 1844 he published the Nauvoo Expositor.
- Age 30
Saints leave Clay County for Far West
Asked to leave Clay County, Missouri, the Saints move to a new county the state creates for them, Caldwell, and found Far West.
Meanwhile The Kirtland Temple is dedicated Mar. 1836 · Fanny Alger Dec. 1835
More, and sources
In late June 1836, Clay County officials asked the Saints to find a new place to live, and Church leaders there agreed to go. From late 1836 to 1839, as many as 5,000 Saints made homes in and around Far West.
- Age 30
Frederick Granger Williams Smith is born
Emma gives birth to a son in Kirtland, named after Frederick G. Williams, Joseph’s counselor in the First Presidency.
Meanwhile The Kirtland Temple is dedicated Mar. 1836 · Elijah and the sealing power Apr. 1836
More, and sources
He spent most of his life in Nauvoo as a farmer and merchant and died there in 1862, possibly of tuberculosis.
- Age 30
The Kirtland Safety Society fails
Joseph and other leaders start a bank, the Kirtland Safety Society, which fails within a year and shakes many members’ faith.
Meanwhile Frederick Granger Williams Smith is born June 1836 · John Taylor and William Law join May 1836
More, and sources
When Ohio’s legislature did not grant a bank charter, the society ran without one from January 1837, and it stopped operating by August during the nationwide Panic of 1837. Joseph, who lost heavily, and Sidney Rigdon were tried and fined under an 1816 Ohio banking law for issuing its notes. Dissenters led by Warren Parrish formed a rival church, and as many as 10 to 15 percent of Kirtland’s members left.
A note on the sources. Members at the time blamed different causes: leaders for not foreseeing problems, others for land speculation and overspending, or members for not supporting the bank. The Church’s history also points to outside opposition and the national financial crisis.
- Age 31
Dissenters cut off in Kirtland
As dissent grows in Kirtland, Frederick G. Williams is removed from the First Presidency, and a Church council excommunicates 28 people, including Martin Harris.
Meanwhile First Vision: the 1838 account June 1838 · Alexander Hale Smith is born June 1838
More, and sources
Williams was removed on November 7, 1837, and Hyrum Smith replaced him. The Kirtland high council cut off the leading dissenters in late December. Williams was restored to fellowship in 1840, and Martin Harris, one of the Book of Mormon’s Three Witnesses, was rebaptized in 1842 and again in 1870.
“28 persons were, upon mature discussion, cut off from the Church; the leaders were Cyrus Smalling, Joseph Coe, Martin Harris, Luke S. Johnson, John F. Boynton, and W. W. Parrish.”
Chapter 5 · 1838–1839
War in Missouri
Joseph moves to Far West, Missouri. Tension with neighbors becomes open conflict, the governor orders that the Saints be “exterminated or driven from the state,” and Joseph spends the winter in Liberty Jail.
- Age 32
Joseph leaves Kirtland for Far West
Facing dissent, legal trouble and threats, Joseph leaves Kirtland at night and moves to Far West, Missouri, the Church’s new headquarters.
Meanwhile First Vision: the 1838 account June 1838 · Alexander Hale Smith is born June 1838
More, and sources
A revelation on January 12, 1838, told the First Presidency to “move on to the west,” and Joseph left that night. He, Emma and their three children reached Far West on March 14, 1838, and many Kirtland members followed later that year.
- Age 32
Church leaders excommunicated in Missouri
Church councils in Missouri excommunicate several early leaders, including Book of Mormon witnesses Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer.
Meanwhile First Vision: the 1838 account June 1838 · Alexander Hale Smith is born June 1838
More, and sources
Those excommunicated in Missouri in 1838 were John Whitmer, W. W. Phelps, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, Lyman E. Johnson and William E. McLellin; charges against Cowdery included selling his Jackson County land against a revelation and falsely accusing Joseph of adultery. Apostle Thomas B. Marsh was excommunicated in Quincy, Illinois, in March 1839. Apostles Orson Hyde and William Smith were suspended in May 1839, not excommunicated, and restored within weeks.
“My soul is sick of such scrambling for power.”
- Age 32
Alexander Hale Smith is born
Emma gives birth to a son at Far West, Missouri, named after Alexander Doniphan, the lawyer and militia general who helped the Saints.
Meanwhile The Missouri war and Liberty Jail Oct. 1838 · First Vision: the 1838 account June 1838
More, and sources
The next year Emma carried him, eight months old, across the frozen Mississippi River as the Saints fled Missouri. He later followed his brother Joseph III into the Reorganized Church and held leading positions there.
- Age 32
First Vision: the 1838 account
Joseph began a long history of the Church; its First Vision account is now scripture, as Joseph Smith—History in the Pearl of Great Price.
Meanwhile The Missouri war and Liberty Jail Oct. 1838 · Church leaders excommunicated in Missouri Apr. 1838
More, and sources
He started it in Missouri in summer 1838. That first draft does not survive; the text comes from an 1839 copy by clerk James Mulholland, and it was first printed in 1842 in the Times and Seasons, the Church's newspaper in Nauvoo. It centers on Joseph's question of which church was right, and tells of two heavenly beings, one of whom called the other his Son.
- Age 32
The Missouri war and Liberty Jail
Tension over land and voting turns into war in northern Missouri; the governor orders the Saints driven from the state, and Joseph is jailed.
Meanwhile First Vision: the 1838 account June 1838 · Alexander Hale Smith is born June 1838
Sources
After an election-day brawl at Gallatin on August 6, mobs burned Church members’ homes, Latter-day Saints raided Gallatin and Millport, and on October 30 vigilantes killed 17 Saints at Hawn’s Mill. After the siege of Far West, Gen. Samuel D. Lucas ordered Joseph and other leaders executed, but Gen. Alexander Doniphan refused. Joseph was held in Liberty Jail from December 1, 1838, where he dictated letters now partly in Doctrine and Covenants 121–123, until guards let the prisoners escape in April 1839.
“exterminated or driven from the State if necessary”
A note on the sources. Governor Lilburn W. Boggs’s intent is still debated: in 1838 “extermination” could also mean forced removal, and the order was carried out as an expulsion in the winter of 1838–39. The Hawn’s Mill killings were done by vigilantes, not the state militia, and no evidence shows they knew of the order.
A closer look
Church membership, 1830 to 1844
Six people organized the Church in April 1830. It grew every year but one: 1839, the winter the Saints were driven from Missouri.
Year-end totals from the Deseret News Church Almanac, as printed on the chart.
Chapter 6 · 1839–1844
Nauvoo
The Saints build Nauvoo, Illinois, into one of the state’s largest cities. Joseph introduces the endowment and plural marriage, runs for president, and is killed at Carthage Jail.
- Age 33
The Saints move to Nauvoo
Driven from Missouri, Church leaders bought land at Commerce, Illinois, on the Mississippi River, and Joseph's family moved there from Quincy.
Sources
Church agents bought the land on April 30, 1839, and Joseph's family arrived on May 9–10. Joseph renamed the town Nauvoo, a Hebrew word sometimes translated as "beautiful." Members drained swamps and built homes, farms and businesses, and at its height Nauvoo had nearly 10,000 people, one of the largest cities in Illinois.
- Age 33
The apostles' mission to Britain
Apostles of the Quorum of the Twelve served missions in Britain; by 1841 England and Scotland had more than 6,000 Latter-day Saints.
More, and sources
John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff were the first to leave Commerce, on Aug. 8, 1839, and reached Liverpool on Jan. 11, 1840. Most of the apostles came home in spring and summer 1841 with a large company of British converts.
- Age 34
Son Don Carlos born
Joseph and Emma's son Don Carlos was born in Nauvoo. He died at 14 months old, on Aug. 15, 1841.
Meanwhile John C. Bennett joins the Church Sept. 1840 · Nauvoo Temple begun Oct. 1840
More, and sources
He died about a week after his uncle and namesake, Joseph's brother Don Carlos Smith, who died on Aug. 7, 1841.
- Age 34
John C. Bennett joins the Church
John C. Bennett, quartermaster general of the Illinois militia, moved to Nauvoo, was baptized and quickly rose to high office.
Meanwhile Nauvoo Temple begun Oct. 1840 · Son Don Carlos born June 1840
More, and sources
He had begun writing to Joseph in July 1840. He helped draft and win approval for the Nauvoo city charter, then served as Nauvoo's mayor (1841–1842), a major general in the Nauvoo Legion (the city's militia) and assistant president of the Church.
- Age 34
Nauvoo Temple begun
A Church conference chose a committee to build a stone temple on a bluff above Nauvoo, paid for by members' tithes and labor.
Meanwhile Plural marriage begins in Nauvoo Apr. 1841 · John C. Bennett joins the Church Sept. 1840
More, and sources
A revelation on Jan. 19, 1841 (Doctrine and Covenants 124) commanded the temple, and the cornerstones were laid on April 6, 1841. It was built for new ordinances such as baptism for the dead, with a font resting on 12 wooden oxen. Joseph did not live to see it finished; it was dedicated on May 1, 1846, as the Saints were leaving Nauvoo.
- Age 35
Changes in the First Presidency
A January 1841 revelation named William Law a counselor to Joseph, and in April John C. Bennett was made assistant president.
Meanwhile Plural marriage begins in Nauvoo Apr. 1841 · Nauvoo Temple begun Oct. 1840
More, and sources
The First Presidency is the Church's highest council: its president and his counselors. The revelation, now Doctrine and Covenants 124, moved Hyrum Smith from counselor to Church patriarch and made Sidney Rigdon's place depend on his faithfulness. Bennett was to serve "until President Rigdon's health should be restored."
- Age 35
Plural marriage begins in Nauvoo
Joseph Smith was sealed to Louisa Beaman, 26, the first plural marriage in Nauvoo. Over the next two and a half years he married or was sealed to dozens of women; every one is listed below.
Meanwhile Nauvoo Temple begun Oct. 1840 · Changes in the First Presidency Jan. 1841
Sources
Joseph said an angel had commanded him to practice plural marriage. He taught it to a few close associates, who pledged to keep it confidential. By June 1844 about 29 men and 50 women had entered plural marriage, besides Joseph and his wives.
A note on the sources. The main record of this sealing is an affidavit that Joseph B. Noble, who performed it, signed in 1869.
The full picture
Joseph’s plural marriages
Joseph had been married to Emma since 1827. Beginning in Kirtland in the 1830s, and mostly in 1842 and 1843, he also married or was sealed to dozens of other women; the Church’s essay puts the number between 30 and 40. Some were teenagers, some already had husbands, and almost all of it was kept secret. Here is every marriage historians have documented, in order, with her age beside his.
- Women documented by name
- 35
- Already had living husbands
- 13
- Were teenagers (youngest 14, oldest 58)
- 10
- First acknowledged in public
- 1852
- Her age: single or widowed
- Her age: already married to a living husband
- Joseph’s age
Each marriage by year, at her age
1835Joseph 291 marriage
1841Joseph 353 marriages
1842Joseph 3611 marriages
1843Joseph 3717 marriages
1835: Joseph was 29; the women were 19. 1841: Joseph was 35; the women were 20, 26, 31. 1842: Joseph was 36; the women were 17, 23, 23, 26 or 27, 33 or 30, 35, 37, 38, 47, 51, 53. 1843: Joseph was 37; the women were 14, 14 or 15, 16, 17, 16 or 17, 19, 19, 19, 22, 26 or 27, 29, 30, 33, 34, 35 or 30, 55 or 56, 58.
Tap or point at a dot for her name. 3 more, whose dates and ages are unknown, are at the end of the list.
Kirtland to Nauvoo, 1835–1840
1 marriage · Joseph was 29
Aug. 17, 1835
Said in public
The Church adopts a statement on marriage for its new book of revelations
“we declare that we believe, that one man should have one wife; and one woman, but one husband, except in case of death”
Approved by a Church assembly in Kirtland while Joseph was away in Michigan. Its author is uncertain; the Joseph Smith Papers says it is generally attributed to Oliver Cowdery.
Late 1835 or early 1836
Fanny Alger
She worked in the Smith household in Kirtland. By later accounts Emma found out and put her out of the house. Her story · Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 19; Joseph was 29.
March 27, 1836
Meanwhile The Kirtland Temple is dedicated
1838
Aug. 1838–April 1839
Meanwhile The Missouri war and Liberty Jail
May 1839
Meanwhile The Saints move to Nauvoo
Sept. 1840
Meanwhile John C. Bennett joins the Church
1841
3 marriages · Joseph was 35
Apr. 5, 1841
Louisa Beaman
The first plural marriage in Nauvoo, performed by her brother-in-law Joseph B. Noble; she came disguised in a coat and hat. Her story · Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 26; Joseph was 35.
Oct. 27, 1841
Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs
She had married Henry Jacobs seven months before. Sealed by her brother Dimick; she later said it was “for eternity.” Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 20; Joseph was 35.
Dec. 11, 1841
Presendia Lathrop Huntington Buell
Zina’s older sister, also sealed by their brother Dimick. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 31; Joseph was 35.
1842
11 marriages · Joseph was 36
Jan. 6, 1842
Agnes Moulton Coolbrith Smith
Don Carlos had died five months before. The sealing is recorded in Brigham Young’s journal. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 33 or 30; Joseph was 36.
Feb. 8, 1842?
Sylvia Porter Sessions Lyon
The date is from an unsigned affidavit draft; Hales dates it to late 1842 or early 1843, after her husband was excommunicated. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 23; Joseph was 36.
Feb. 1842
Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner
Sealed by Brigham Young. She stayed with her husband until his death in 1885: “I did just as Joseph told me to do.” Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 23; Joseph was 36.
Mar. 9, 1842
Patty Bartlett Sessions
Sylvia’s mother. Sealed “for Eternity,” her journal says, with Sylvia present. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 47; Joseph was 36.
March 15–16, 1842
Meanwhile Joseph becomes a Freemason
Apr. 1842 or May 1843
Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde
A list in Joseph’s journal dates it April 1842; her own affidavit says May 1843. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 26 or 27; Joseph was 36.
May 4–5, 1842
Meanwhile The first endowment
May 6, 1842
Meanwhile Former governor Boggs shot
May 1842
Meanwhile John C. Bennett excommunicated
By mid-1842?
Elizabeth Davis Brackenbury Durfee
The date is unknown. A close friend of the Smith family; she was with Emma when Joseph’s body came home from Carthage. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 51; Joseph was 36.
By June 1842?
Sarah Kingsley Howe Cleveland
The date is unknown. One of Emma’s two counselors in the Relief Society; she witnessed Eliza R. Snow’s sealing and kept living with her husband. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 53; Joseph was 36.
Before July 1842
Delcena Johnson Sherman
Known only from her brother Benjamin F. Johnson’s statement. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 35; Joseph was 36.
June 29, 1842
Eliza Roxcy Snow
The poet. Sealed by Brigham Young; she lived in Joseph and Emma’s home from August 1842 to February 1843. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 38; Joseph was 36.
July 1842
Made public by critics
John C. Bennett, cut off from the Church in May, tells the country
His letters in an Illinois newspaper, then his book, accused Joseph of adultery and of proposing marriage to several women. The Church’s history says much of it “was embellished or flatly untrue, but his claim that Joseph had married multiple women was correct.”
July 27, 1842
Sarah Ann Whitney
Her father, Bishop Newel K. Whitney, performed it with words from a revelation dated that day; Emma was away. In 1843 Joseph married her to Joseph C. Kingsbury in a “pretended” marriage, as cover. Hales · Revelation, 27 July 1842
She was 17; Joseph was 36.
Aug. 1842
Martha McBride Knight
Her husband had died on July 31. Sealed by Heber C. Kimball. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 37; Joseph was 36.
Oct. 1, 1842
Said in public
The Church’s newspaper prints statements that it knows of no marriage system but the one in the Doctrine and Covenants
“we know of no system of marriage being practised in the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints save the one contained in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants”
Eliza R. Snow had been sealed to Joseph three months before, and Elizabeth Ann Whitney had witnessed her daughter’s sealing to him in July. The Church’s essay calls these “carefully worded denials” aimed at John C. Bennett’s “spiritual wifery,” silent about what Joseph saw as divinely commanded plural marriage.
Times and Seasons, 1 Oct. 1842 (Joseph Smith Papers) · Church Historian’s Press · Gospel Topics essay
1843
17 marriages · Joseph was 37
Feb. 1843
Ruth Vose Sayers
By one account her husband wanted her sealed to Joseph for eternity. She lived with Sayers until his death in 1861. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 34; Joseph was 37.
Mar. 4, 1843
Emily Dow Partridge
She and her sister Eliza lived with Joseph and Emma after their father died. Sealed in secret; in May, Emma, not knowing, chose the two sisters for Joseph, and the ceremony was repeated in front of her. Emma soon turned against them, and they had to leave the house. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 19; Joseph was 37.
Mar. 8, 1843
Eliza Maria Partridge
Emily’s older sister. Neither sister knew of the other’s sealing at first. Sealed by Heber C. Kimball, and again in May with Emma present. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 22; Joseph was 37.
Spring 1843
Flora Ann Woodworth
Poorly documented. In August 1843, William Clayton wrote, Emma demanded back a gold watch Joseph had given Flora; Flora married another man the next day. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 16; Joseph was 37.
Apr. 1843
Almera Woodard Johnson
Joseph asked her brother, Benjamin F. Johnson, for her. She later said she “lived with the Prophet Joseph Smith as his wife.” (The Joseph Smith Papers records an 1836 marriage to Samuel Prescott, without saying how it ended.) Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 30; Joseph was 37.
May 1, 1843
Lucy Walker
After her mother died, Joseph took her and three siblings into his home; her father was away on a mission. Sealed by William Clayton the day after her 17th birthday. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 17; Joseph was 37.
May 1843
Sarah Lawrence
Joseph had been her legal guardian since 1841, after her father died. Emma agreed and was present. Late in life Sarah denied the marriage. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 16 or 17; Joseph was 37.
May 1843
Maria Lawrence
Sarah’s older sister. In May 1844, on William Law’s complaint, Joseph was indicted for adultery with her. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 19; Joseph was 37.
May 1843
Helen Mar Kimball
Her father, the apostle Heber C. Kimball, “offered me to him,” she wrote. She later called it “for eternity alone.” The Church’s essay names her as the youngest, several months short of 15. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 14; Joseph was 37.
May 28, 1843
Meanwhile Joseph and Emma sealed
June 1, 1843
Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes
She had worked in Joseph and Emma’s home as a nanny, and had married Holmes six months before. They stayed married and had five children. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 29; Joseph was 37.
June 12, 1843
Rhoda Richards
Never married. Her brother Willard Richards sealed her and recorded it in Joseph’s journal that day. The Church’s essay calls Fanny Young the oldest; Rhoda was two years older. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 58; Joseph was 37.
By summer 1843
Hannah Ells
An English-born dressmaker in Nauvoo. Little is known; the sources give two birth years. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 35 or 30; Joseph was 37.
1843?
Nancy Maria Winchester
Known only from two late sources, and some historians leave her out. No date survives. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 14 or 15; Joseph was 37.
July 12, 1843
Kept private
The revelation on plural marriage is written down and read to Emma
It circulated among a few Church members and wasn’t published until 1852.
July 1843
Desdemona Fullmer
She had lived in Joseph’s household in 1842. He forbade her to tell even her parents, she wrote, because it would endanger his life. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 33; Joseph was 37.
Summer 1843
Olive Grey Frost
Arrived from England that April with her sister and brother-in-law, Mary Ann and Parley P. Pratt. Very little is known. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 26 or 27; Joseph was 37.
Sept. 20, 1843
Malissa Lott
Her father ran Joseph’s farm, and she helped Emma with housework. She later testified that Emma “gave her consent.” Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 19; Joseph was 37.
Sept. 28, 1843
Meanwhile The second anointing
Nov. 2, 1843
Fanny Young Murray
Brigham Young’s older sister; he performed the sealing. The last plural marriage Joseph is known to have entered. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
She was 55 or 56; Joseph was 37.
1844
Jan.–Feb. 1844
Jan. 29, 1844
Meanwhile Joseph runs for president
Feb. 1, 1844
Said in public
Joseph and Hyrum announce that an elder has been cut off for preaching polygamy
“Hiram Brown, has been preaching Polygamy, and other false and corrupt doctrines”
Both brothers had plural wives by then.
May 26, 1844
Said in public
Joseph answers the charge of plural wives in a sermon
“What a thing it is for a man to be accused of commiting adultery and haveing seven wives, when I can only find one”
Two days earlier a grand jury had indicted him for adultery. Brian Hales argues he could say this because Illinois law recognized only his first marriage.
June 7, 1844
Made public by critics
Former insiders print the secret in the Nauvoo Expositor
Sworn statements from William Law, Jane Law and Austin Cowles described the revelation. Joseph, as mayor, had the press destroyed three days later, and the charges that followed took him to Carthage.
June 18, 1844
Meanwhile Martial law in Nauvoo
June 27, 1844
Meanwhile Joseph and Hyrum killed at Carthage
Date unknown
Date unknown
Lucinda Pendleton Morgan Harris
Hales calls the evidence of a sealing in Joseph’s lifetime “non-existent”; she was sealed to him by proxy in 1846, after his death. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
Ages unknown
Date unknown
Esther Dutcher Smith
Known from one 1888 letter saying she was sealed to Joseph “in the days of Nauvoo.” She stayed Albert’s wife. Hales · Joseph Smith Papers
Ages unknown
Date unknown
Mary Heron Snider
Known from a single source: her son-in-law said in 1850 that Joseph had relations with her, which would place it in 1843. Hales is unsure what the relationship was. Hales
Ages unknown
After Joseph’s death
Aug. 29, 1852
Said in public
The Church announces plural marriage in public, in Salt Lake City
“The Latter-day Saints have embraced the doctrine of plurality of wives as part of their religious faith”
The 1843 revelation was published the same year.
Sept. 24, 1890
Said in public
The Manifesto: the Church stops new plural marriages
“my advice to the Latter-day Saints is to refrain from contracting any marriage forbidden by the law of the land”
A note on the sources. Participants kept these marriages confidential, so much of the evidence comes from statements made decades later, which the Church’s essay says “are not always reliable.” Many dates are approximate, and historians count slightly differently. This list follows the 35 women in Brian Hales’s biographies (Todd Compton’s 33, plus two he adds), and gives both values where the Joseph Smith Papers disagree. Some lists add Mary Ann Frost Pratt; the only record is a sealing to Joseph in 1846, after his death, so she isn’t counted here.
A sealing is a marriage performed by priesthood authority that Latter-day Saints believe can last beyond death. Some of Joseph’s sealings were “for time and eternity,” which included married life on earth, and some for eternity only, a relationship in the next life alone; for many of the women the sources don’t say which. Several of the women sealed to Joseph while married to other men later said their sealings were for eternity alone, and most of their husbands seem to have kept living with them.
The Church’s essay says DNA testing has so far found no children from the plural marriages, though two or three are possible.
Masonry, the endowment and plural marriage. Seven weeks after Joseph joined the Freemasons he introduced the temple endowment, which the Church says has similarities to Masonic ritual. The endowment and plural marriage were both kept confidential, and the Church says Joseph “also trusted this group with his teachings regarding plural marriage”: sealings took place in its meetings, and William Law was dropped from it in 1844 mainly over plural marriage. Two weeks after becoming a Mason, Joseph warned the Relief Society about men misusing the secret doctrine, in a letter asking whether its members were “good masons” who could keep it private. Critics from 1842 on said the endowment was a cover for plural marriage. Church historians say plural marriage was not part of it: several of the first men endowed, including Hyrum Smith and William Law, didn’t know about it, and it “was not necessary for exaltation or the greater endowment of power.”
Plural Marriage in Kirtland and Nauvoo (Gospel Topics Essay) · Joseph Smith’s plural wives (Brian Hales, josephsmithspolygamy.org)
- Age 36
A stillborn son
Joseph and Emma's son died during childbirth in Nauvoo. He was never named and was buried the same day.
Meanwhile First Vision: the Wentworth Letter Mar. 1842 · Joseph becomes a Freemason Mar. 1842
- Age 36
First Vision: the Wentworth Letter
Joseph published a short First Vision account in a letter to Chicago newspaper editor John Wentworth, printed in Nauvoo's Times and Seasons.
Meanwhile Joseph becomes a Freemason Mar. 1842 · The first endowment May 1842
More, and sources
It was the first account Joseph published himself and the first printed in the United States; the earliest published account was Orson Pratt’s 1840 pamphlet, printed in Scotland, which the letter borrowed language from. The letter is also the source of the Articles of Faith, a short list of the Church’s beliefs.
- Age 36
Joseph becomes a Freemason
Joseph joined the Freemasons, a fraternal organization known for its rituals, when the Illinois grand master installed a Masonic lodge in Nauvoo.
Meanwhile First Vision: the Wentworth Letter Mar. 1842 · Former governor Boggs shot May 1842
More, and sources
Grand master Abraham Jonas initiated Joseph on March 15, 1842, in the room above Joseph's red brick store, and made him a Master Mason the next day. John C. Bennett, a Mason since about 1827, was the lodge's secretary, and Hyrum Smith and Heber C. Kimball had been Masons since the 1820s. About seven weeks later Joseph introduced the temple endowment.
“there is a similarity of priesthood in masonry”
A note on the sources. There are different ways of understanding how Masonry and the endowment relate. The Church’s history notes shared teaching styles and symbols, but says the endowment did not simply imitate Masonic ritual and that Joseph’s “encounter with Masonry evidently served as a catalyst for revelation.” No source explains why Joseph joined; the Church suggests he may have found Masonry’s “emphasis on confidentiality and loyalty appealing” after being betrayed in Missouri. How the endowment relates to plural marriage is discussed in the plural marriage section.
- Age 36
The first endowment
In his red brick store, Joseph gave nine close associates the endowment, a temple ceremony of instruction and covenants with God.
Meanwhile Former governor Boggs shot May 1842 · John C. Bennett excommunicated May 1842
More, and sources
The nine, who met in the store's upper room, included Hyrum Smith, Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball; the ceremony included a ritual washing and anointing. Joseph gave it before the Nauvoo Temple was finished, to people he trusted to keep it sacred and confidential, and over the next two years more than 50 more men and women received it. After his death, this group helped give it to thousands of Saints in the temple.
“I don’t know what it is, but the Lord bids me to hasten and give you your endowment before the temple is finished.”
- Age 36
Former governor Boggs shot
An unknown attacker shot and seriously wounded Lilburn W. Boggs, Missouri's former governor, in Independence, Missouri.
Meanwhile The first endowment May 1842 · Joseph becomes a Freemason Mar. 1842
More, and sources
As governor in 1838, Boggs had signed the order calling for the Saints to be "exterminated or driven from the State." In July 1842 he signed a statement naming Joseph an accessory, Missouri tried to have Joseph sent there for trial, and Joseph went into hiding. In January 1843 the U.S. District Court at Springfield, Illinois, discharged him.
A note on the sources. John C. Bennett, after his break with Joseph, claimed Joseph had sent Porter Rockwell to kill Boggs. Joseph strongly denied it, and a grand jury did not indict Rockwell for the shooting.
- Age 36
John C. Bennett excommunicated
Church leaders excommunicated (expelled) John C. Bennett for adultery; he resigned as mayor and began attacking Joseph in print.
Meanwhile The first endowment May 1842 · Joseph becomes a Freemason Mar. 1842
More, and sources
Joseph and other leaders acted on May 11, 1842; Bennett resigned as mayor on May 17, and the Church's newspaper, the Times and Seasons, announced it on June 15. In letters to the Sangamo Journal, an Illinois newspaper, Bennett accused Joseph of adultery and of plotting the attack on Lilburn Boggs.
- Age 37
The Kinderhook plates
Men brought Joseph six small brass plates dug from a mound near Kinderhook, Illinois, which were later shown to be a hoax.
Meanwhile Joseph and Emma sealed May 1843 · The second anointing Sept. 1843
More, and sources
Wilbur Fugate later admitted that he, Robert Wiley and a local blacksmith made the plates and buried them the night before they were dug up. Joseph seems to have compared the symbols with Egyptian papyri he had translated in Kirtland rather than attempting a translation by revelation; no translation was produced, and he soon lost interest. Testing of the one surviving plate confirms it is not ancient.
“the history of … a descendant of Ham through the loins of Pharaoh king of Egypt”
A note on the sources. The Church's history says the records don't show whether Joseph suspected a forgery, thought of trying a revelatory translation, or simply took a scholar's interest in the plates.
- Age 37
Joseph and Emma sealed
Joseph and Emma were sealed, a ceremony Latter-day Saints believe joins a married couple for eternity, in the upper room of his red brick store.
Meanwhile The Kinderhook plates May 1843
More, and sources
Joseph's journal records the sealing. The Church's essay says Emma approved, at least for a time, of four of Joseph's plural marriages and took those wives into her household, but she likely did not know about all his sealings and at times denounced the practice.
“undaunted, firm and unwavering, unchangeable, affectionate Emma”
- Age 37
The revelation on plural marriage
Joseph dictated a revelation on eternal and plural marriage, now Doctrine and Covenants 132, and his brother Hyrum read it to Emma.
Meanwhile The second anointing Sept. 1843
More, and sources
Hyrum believed he could convince Emma with it, and William Clayton wrote as Joseph dictated. By then Joseph had entered about twenty-five confidential plural marriages. Emma, Clayton wrote, “did not believe a word of it and appeared very rebellious,” and she later burned the original; a copy survived. It circulated privately among a few Church members and was first published in 1852, in Utah.
- Age 37
The second anointing
Joseph and Emma were the first to receive the second anointing, a new temple ordinance.
Meanwhile The revelation on plural marriage July 1843 · William Law removed; James Strang baptized Jan. 1844
More, and sources
“anointed & ord[aine]d to the highest and holiest order of the priesthood”
- Age 38
William Law removed; James Strang baptized
Joseph removed his counselor William Law from the First Presidency, and about a month later he baptized James J. Strang.
Meanwhile The second anointing Sept. 1843
More, and sources
Law had read the revelation on plural marriage and begged Joseph to renounce it; the Joseph Smith Papers says Law’s concerns about it “were at the root of his increasing opposition to Joseph Smith.” He was excommunicated on April 18, 1844, and later that month formed a new church with other dissenters; in June they published the Nauvoo Expositor. Strang, a lawyer from Burlington, Wisconsin Territory, would claim after Joseph’s death to be his successor.
- Age 38
Joseph runs for president
The Quorum of the Twelve Apostles nominated Joseph Smith for president of the United States after expected candidates would not promise to help the Saints.
Meanwhile Joseph and Hyrum killed at Carthage June 1844 · The Nauvoo Expositor June 1844
More, and sources
His platform, General Smith's Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, was published in February 1844. It called for protecting religious minorities, closing prisons and ending slavery by buying the freedom of enslaved people with money from selling western federal lands. More than 300 Church members campaigned for him across the country.
“I would not have suffered my name to have been used by my friends on any wise as president of the United States or candidate for that office if I and my friends could have had the privilege of enjoying our religious and civil rights as American citizens.”
- Age 38
The Nauvoo Expositor
Dissenters led by William Law, Joseph’s former counselor, printed the secret of plural marriage in the first and only issue of their newspaper. Three days later Mayor Joseph Smith and the city council had its press destroyed.
Meanwhile Joseph runs for president Jan. 1844
More, and sources
It printed sworn statements from William Law, Jane Law and Austin Cowles describing the unpublished revelation on plural marriage, the first public account by people who had read or heard it. It also attacked Joseph’s teachings about God and his mixing of religious and civic power. The publishers were William and Wilson Law, Charles Ivins, Charles and Robert Foster, and Francis and Chauncey Higbee. Destroying the press led to a riot charge, which brought Joseph to Carthage.
“Among the most significant factors in Joseph Smith’s disagreements with these men was the principle of plural marriage.”
A note on the sources. The Church's history says scholars have concluded the city council acted legally in destroying copies of the paper but may have gone beyond its authority in destroying the press itself.
- Age 38
Martial law in Nauvoo
After reports of growing vigilante activity, Joseph declared martial law in Nauvoo and told the city's militia, the Nauvoo Legion, to prepare to defend it.
Meanwhile Joseph runs for president Jan. 1844
- Age 38
Joseph and Hyrum killed at Carthage
An armed mob stormed Carthage Jail in Illinois and shot and killed Joseph Smith, 38, and his brother Hyrum.
Meanwhile Joseph runs for president Jan. 1844
Sources
Joseph had given himself up on a riot charge over the Nauvoo Expositor, trusting Governor Thomas Ford's promise of protection, and was jailed on June 25 on a treason charge. Hyrum was shot first; Joseph was shot as he leaped from a window, and John Taylor was badly wounded. Five men, including Thomas Sharp and Levi Williams, were tried for the killings and acquitted on May 30, 1845.
“They were shot in Carthage jail, on the 27th of June, 1844, about five o’clock p.m., by an armed mob—painted black—of from 150 to 200 persons.”
A note on the sources. The Ensign and BYU Studies identify many of the attackers as men of the Warsaw militia, which had been disbanded that morning. No source supports the idea that most of them were former Church members.
Connecting the dots
From a secret to Carthage
Plural marriage wasn’t the only cause, but it started the fight. The Joseph Smith Papers says opposition to it “laid the foundation for the explosive conflict that erupted in 1844 and culminated in the murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.” Here is how the secret came out, step by step.
1841–1843
Joseph marries more than 30 women in secret
Only a small circle knew, and they pledged to keep it confidential.
May 1842
Nauvoo’s mayor, John C. Bennett, is cut off from the Church
Women testified that he had seduced them by claiming Joseph approved of secret “spiritual wifery.”
July–Oct. 1842
Bennett tells the country
From July 8 an Illinois paper, the Sangamo Journal, printed his letters accusing Joseph of adultery and of proposing marriage to several women, and his book followed in October. The Joseph Smith Papers says he embellished much, but that Joseph was in fact practicing plural marriage.
“Smith was, in fact, secretly practicing plural marriage in Nauvoo by this time.”
Oct. 1842
The Church denies it in print
Statements in its newspaper say it knows of no marriage system but the one in the Doctrine and Covenants.
Aug. 12, 1843
Hyrum reads the new revelation to Nauvoo’s high council
Most accepted it. The stake president, William Marks, his counselor Austin Cowles and Leonard Soby reportedly refused, and Cowles resigned.
Late 1843
William Law, Joseph’s counselor in the First Presidency, reads it and turns against him
His opposition was “a poorly kept secret,” the Joseph Smith Papers says. Church sources add that Law was angry Joseph wouldn’t seal him to his wife, Jane; there were accusations on both sides.
“He afterwards gave me the document to read, and I took it to my house, and read it, and showed it to my wife, and returned it next day.”
Documents, vol. 13, introduction (Joseph Smith Papers) · Hales
Jan. 8, 1844
Joseph removes Law from the First Presidency
“I thank God that he opened my understanding to know between truth and error, in relation to plurality & community of wives”
William Law Removed from First Presidency (Joseph Smith Papers)
April 1844
The Laws are excommunicated and start a rival church
On April 18 William, Jane and Wilson Law and others were cut off. Ten days later the dissenters declared Joseph a fallen prophet and named William Law president.
“it was decided that Joseph was fallen— prophet. &c— & Wm Law was appointed in his place.”
May 23–24, 1844
A grand jury in Carthage indicts Joseph for adultery
The woman named was Maria Lawrence, who had been sealed to him a year before; William and Wilson Law were key witnesses.
“in an open state of adultery with one Maria Lawrence,”
State of Illinois v. JS for Adultery and Fornication (Joseph Smith Papers)
May 26, 1844
June 7, 1844
The Nauvoo Expositor prints the secret
Its one issue carried sworn statements from William Law, Jane Law and Austin Cowles describing the unpublished revelation: the first public account by people who had read or heard it. It also attacked Joseph’s teachings about God and his hold on the city’s government.
“revelation (so called) authorized certain men to have more wives than one at a time, in this world and in the world to come.”
Minutes, 10 June 1844 (Joseph Smith Papers) · Nauvoo Expositor (Church History Topics)
June 8–10, 1844
Mayor Joseph Smith and the city council declare the paper a nuisance, and the press is destroyed
At the council, Hyrum said the revelation was about ancient times, and the Church’s history says members feared the paper would stir up mob violence. That evening, on Joseph’s order, a posse of about 100 men broke up the press, scattered the type and burned the copies.
“that said Revelation was in answer to a question concerning things which transpired in former days, and had no reference to the present time.”
Revised minutes, 17 June 1844 (Joseph Smith Papers) · Order to Destroy Nauvoo Expositor Press (Joseph Smith Papers)
June 12–18, 1844
Charged with riot; Nauvoo under martial law
Francis Higbee, one of the publishers, swore out a riot complaint. Nauvoo’s own courts freed Joseph, mass meetings nearby called for armed action, and Joseph called out the city’s militia and declared martial law, which became the basis of a treason charge.
State of Illinois v. JS et al. for Riot (Joseph Smith Papers)
June 24–25, 1844
Joseph surrenders at Carthage and is jailed for treason
The complaints came from two associates of the Expositor’s publishers. Treason was not bailable, so Joseph and Hyrum stayed in jail.
State of Illinois v. JS and H. Smith for Treason (Joseph Smith Papers)
June 27, 1844
Not the only cause. The same sources also point to fear of Joseph’s combined religious, political and military power in Nauvoo, his new teachings about God, and opponents such as the editor Thomas Sharp, who rallied the county against the Saints. A Joseph Smith Papers history calls it “a mix of business rivalries, economic concerns, legal disagreements, personal disputes, and doctrinal differences.” Joseph was jailed over the press, not over plural marriage; as historian Brian Hales puts it, “plurality was the first in a string of events that ultimately led to his death.”
Documents, vol. 13, introduction (Joseph Smith Papers) · Documents, vol. 15, introduction (Joseph Smith Papers) · Saints, vol. 1, ch. 43 · Nauvoo Expositor (Church History Topics) · Road to Carthage, episode 3 (Joseph Smith Papers podcast) · Brian Hales, “Polygamy and the Martyrdom”
Chapter 7 · 1844 on
After Joseph
Joseph left no single, undisputed successor. Several leaders claimed the right to lead, and the movement split. The two largest churches today are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Community of Christ.
Brigham Young and the Twelve lead
Saints in Nauvoo voted to accept the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, under its president Brigham Young, as the Church's leaders; most members followed them.
More, and sources
Young was in Boston when Joseph died and reached Nauvoo on Aug. 6; on Aug. 8 the Saints heard Sidney Rigdon, then Young, before voting. Young reorganized the First Presidency in December 1847 at Kanesville (now Council Bluffs), Iowa, and moved the Church, today The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to what is now Utah, where it kept plural marriage for about 50 more years. Followers included John Taylor, W. W. Phelps, Parley P. Pratt and Newel K. Whitney; Oliver Cowdery rejoined in November 1848, and Martin Harris was rebaptized on Sept. 17, 1870.
“If a man had been blinded, he would hardly have known if it were not Joseph.”
A note on the sources. Early accounts said Young sounded strikingly like Joseph that day; years later, dozens of Saints wrote fuller accounts of a miraculous change in his look and voice.
James Strang's church
James J. Strang, baptized only months before, said a letter from Joseph named him successor, and he founded his own church in Wisconsin.
More, and sources
Strang's letter was dated June 18, 1844; the Twelve excommunicated him on Aug. 26, 1844. His Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was based at Voree, Wisconsin, and later on Beaver Island, Michigan. For a time John C. Bennett was his "general-in-chief" (1846–1847), and Martin Harris sat on his high council at Kirtland in 1846.
Sidney Rigdon's Church of Christ
Sidney Rigdon claimed to guide the Church as the First Presidency's surviving member; once excommunicated, he led his own church from Pittsburgh.
More, and sources
Rigdon had moved to Pittsburgh shortly before Joseph's death and returned to Nauvoo on Aug. 3, 1844, offering to act as the Church's "guardian." He was excommunicated in September 1844, and his Church of Christ lasted until 1847. Followers for a time included William Law, John C. Bennett and William E. McLellin.
“You want a head, and unless you unite upon that head you are blown to the four winds.”
David Hyrum Smith born
Emma gave birth to Joseph's son David Hyrum Smith in Nauvoo, nearly five months after his father's death.
More, and sources
He later served as second counselor to his brother Joseph Smith III in the presidency of the Reorganized Church (1873–1885).
A closer look
Joseph and Emma’s children
Emma gave birth to nine children, and the couple adopted two more. Six of the eleven died as babies or small children.
- 1828Son, unnamed died the day he was born
- 1831Thaddeus and Louisa (twins) died within hours of birth
- 1831Joseph and Julia Murdock (adopted twins) Joseph died in 1832; Julia lived to adulthood
- 1832Joseph Smith III later led the Reorganized Church
- 1836Frederick Granger Williams Smith died in Nauvoo in 1862
- 1838Alexander Hale Smith born in Far West, Missouri
- 1840Don Carlos Smith died at 14 months
- 1842Son, stillborn buried the day he was born
- 1844David Hyrum Smith born five months after his father’s death
Bennett and McLellin leave entirely
Two men who passed through several of these churches, John C. Bennett and William E. McLellin, eventually left the Latter Day Saint movement altogether.
More, and sources
Bennett was expelled from Strang's church in 1847, later worked as a physician and poultry breeder, and died at Polk City, Iowa, in 1867. McLellin joined groups led by William Law, Sidney Rigdon, James Strang, David Whitmer and Granville Hedrick before breaking with all organized religion in 1869.
David Whitmer's Church of Christ
Book of Mormon witness David Whitmer, with John Whitmer and William E. McLellin, met at Far West, Missouri, to re-form the Church of Christ.
More, and sources
David Whitmer was to be its president. Hiram Page briefly joined McLellin's Church of Christ in 1848, and in 1875 David Whitmer founded the Church of Christ (Whitmerite).
The Reorganized Church and Joseph Smith III
Believing the Church should be led by Joseph's descendants, the Reorganized Church made his son Joseph Smith III its president in 1860.
More, and sources
Joseph III, 11 when his father died, took office at Amboy, Illinois, and Emma, who had stayed in Illinois, joined the church that year. He later lived in Plano, Illinois, and Lamoni, Iowa. Now called Community of Christ, it is one of the two largest groups to form after Joseph's death, besides The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
About this site
This began in 2022 as a printed chart, 86 inches long. A website is easier to read, easier to share and much easier to correct, so this is now the main edition. Every event was checked against the sources linked under it, mostly the Joseph Smith Papers and the Church’s own histories. Where the printed chart got something wrong, this site is corrected.
See the original chart, zoom into any box, or download the PDF. It’s free to print, share, edit and remake.
Sources
- The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saintschurchofjesuschrist.org
- Gospel Topics EssaysThe Church’s own essays on the hardest questions in its history.
- The Joseph Smith Papers: EventsA day-by-day chronology from the Church Historian’s Press.
- WikipediaMostly for dates, timelines, biographical data and images.
- Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, by Richard Lyman BushmanThe standard biography, by a Latter-day Saint historian (2005).
- A Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, by B. H. RobertsSix volumes (1930) by an early Church historian and general authority.
- FAIR (Faithful Answers, Informed Responses)Latter-day Saint apologetics.
- BYU StudiesBrigham Young University’s scholarly journal.
From the compiler
My name is Riley Adamson.
In my free time, I love making charts that explain complex things and thought it’d be a fun challenge to make one about Joseph Smith. My other charts are on topics like economics, particle physics and river systems. I’m not looking for fame, and I’m also not looking to hide. It’s nice to know my work is appreciated, but not what drives me to make things.
All of this was compiled in good faith to be as accurate as possible from pro-LDS sources. I’m not an expert in LDS history or Joseph Smith. If you find an error, please kindly let me know and I’ll do my best to correct it.
Talking about history points that are agreed on by Church Historians, BYU Professors and other leading apologists is not persecution. The glory of God is intelligence, or light and truth. There should be no interest in hiding the actions of his Prophets. I believe that history should be easily consumable and sharable, even if it is not faith promoting or useful.
I imagine members will say “You only cherrypicked the negative things.” Well, are they accurate? Shouldn’t the Work of God be the most scrutinizable and durable things of all history? No facts should be able to slow the Work of God.
I believe in religious freedom. I hope that you’re well informed about your religion as it makes everyone better. More informed members are better missionaries and better neighbors. I believe more information and perspective typically makes you more thoughtful and compassionate.
If something here is scary or hurts your feelings, I’m genuinely sorry. Please take time to process. Please don’t shoot the messenger. I have no interest in challenging your religious views.