Joseph Smith Jr.

Raised in western New York, he reported visions of God the Father and Jesus Christ and published the Book of Mormon in 1830, which he said he translated from golden plates. He organized his church that same year, claiming to restore a church lost since the apostles, and later taught doctrines of God and humanity that differ fundamentally from the biblical faith. He was killed by a mob at Carthage, Illinois, in 1844.

Early life

A Farm Family in Western New York

Joseph Smith Jr. was born on December 23, 1805, at Sharon, Vermont, the fifth of eleven children of Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith. The family farmed and struggled financially, moving several times before settling around 1816 near Palmyra in western New York. That region was swept by so many revivals that it was later called the burned-over district, and the Smiths were divided over religion: Lucy and some of the children joined a Presbyterian congregation, while Joseph Sr. kept apart from the churches.

As a young man Joseph took part in treasure-seeking, searching for buried valuables with a seer stone, a practice found in the folk culture of rural New England and New York. In 1826 he was brought before a justice of the peace at South Bainbridge, New York, on a complaint connected with it. In January 1827 he married Emma Hale.

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