Joseph Smith the Storyteller

Mormon history is beset with conflicts from its very beginning in New York. Joseph Smith was a storyteller who got himself in trouble numerous times with his imaginative stories. 

> There was the “glass-looking” arrest where Smith was charged with defrauding people by claiming to find treasure with a “seer stone.” He was given “leg bail” which means “get out of town and don’t come back.”

> His First Vision story has nine different and contradictory versions.

> He started a bank in Kirtland, OH, but when it went belly up he got a revelation from God to leave quickly.

> His misdeeds in Nauvoo, IL, got him arrested and put in the Carthage, IL, jail. His offense was the destruction of the newspaper, The Nauvoo Expositor, because it exposed his polygamy practice. He went too far, legally speaking, by also destroying the printing press on which the Expositor was printed. While in jail his enemies took advantage of his vulnerability and surrounded the jail. Smith commanded The Nauvoo Legion [a militia] which is said to have numbered 5,000 men at some point. His being sixteen miles away from Nauvoo in the Carthage jail gave his enemies the opportunity to attack. Some of the men in the mob charged up the stairwell toward the room in which Joseph and his brother Hyrum were being held. There was a shootout at the top of the stairs where Hyrum was killed and Joseph ran to the window opposite the stairs where he was shot. He fell through the window to ground below, dead. He has been lauded by Mormons since then as a martyr which raises a question.

Jail room in Carthage, Illinois, in which Joseph and Hyrum Smith were held, with window through which Joseph Smith fell to his death

Carthage Jail in which the Smith’s were held. The upper window is the one through which he fell and died.

If Mormon Apostle Bruce McConkie was correct in saying that a martyr voluntarily surrenders his life, then was Joseph Smith a martyr if he shot back at his assailants? The account is contained in History of the Church, Vol. 6, page 618, which says, “When Hyrum fell, Joseph exclaimed, ‘Oh dear, brother Hyrum!’ and opening the door a few inches he discharged his six shooter in the stairway (as stated before), two or three barrels of which missed fire.” (See also History of the Church, Vol. 6, page 620, and Vol. 7, page 102. 

January 14, 2022 E-Letter