Death on a Thursday Afternoon:
The Martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith
June 27, 1844
On a sultry Thursday afternoon in 1844, an armed body of men rushed Carthage Jail in Hancock County, Illinois (the western frontier of the United States at the time). In a few minutes of "scuffling, shouts, and shots," they killed the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Patriarch Hyrum Smith, President and Associate President of the Church (Davis Bitton, The Martyrdom Remembered: A One-Hundred-Fifty-Year Perspective on the Assassination of Joseph Smith [Salt Lake City: Aspen Books, 1994], xvi).
Latter-day Saints were shocked and stunned by the events of 27 June 1844. Although Joseph and Hyrum's enemies may have felt justified in this extralegal act, other non-Mormons were horrified by these cold-blooded murders. What made the act even more insidious was the fact that the state's governor, Thomas Ford, had given his personal pledge that Joseph and Hyrum would be protected. Anti-Mormons in Hancock County were surprised by the national reaction that decried their cold, heartless, and calculated lawless act.
The events of 27 June continue to cast a long shadow upon the institutional memory of the Church and the Smith family's personal story. It has been a day remembered, recalled, and discussed by scholars, historians, and members of the Church trying to understand what happened and, most importantly, why it happened.
Looking back at the martyrdom events from the perspective of the twenty-first century, we should not be altogether surprised that Joseph and Hyrum were martyred. The Prophet's ministry was punctuated with moments of scorn and ridicule (1820), harassment and opposition (1827–30), and persecution and prosecutions (1830–44), including imprisonment (1838–39). In Illinois, the Prophet and Patriarch faced their greatest threat: a combination of hostile outsiders and former insiders who were concerned about the growing number of Saints and the power and influence Joseph and Hyrum seemed to have among them.
When prominent dissidents published a vicious attack upon the Church and its leaders via the Nauvoo Expositor, Joseph Smith, as mayor, asked the city council to declare the paper a public nuisance. He, along with many others, feared the paper would further enrage the anti-Mormon population in western Illinois—possibly beginning a civil war in which the Latter-day Saints would certainly suffer.
Eventually, Joseph and Hyrum Smith, along with other members of the city council, were charged with riot for this action—one they felt was justified under a broad interpretation of the Nauvoo Charter. They were ordered to appear before the county official in Carthage, one of the centers of anti-Mormon activity. Joseph believed his enemies wanted him in Carthage, away from Nauvoo, to murder him and was unsure whether he would surrender, given the volatile situation existing in Hancock County. However, Joseph and Hyrum eventually decided to go to Carthage after Governor Ford gave them assurances that they would receive a fair trail and that he would ensure their safety while in Carthage.
Everyone seems to have known that Joseph and Hyrum, along with the members of the city council, would be set free. In Carthage, the entire group was released after posting a $5,000 bail.
However, Joseph and Hyrum's enemies planned to keep them from going back to Nauvoo. Before the Prophet and Patriarch could leave Carthage, they were charged with a more serious crime, treason—a capital crime with no options for posting bail. As a result, through this legal maneuver, Joseph and Hyrum were detained in Carthage, giving their enemies the opportunity to assassinate them. Willard Richards and John Taylor, two of the Twelve, decided to stay with Joseph and Hyrum, even though they had not been charged with treason themselves.
During their incarceration, the party was moved to the jailor's bedroom on the second floor in the jail to make them more comfortable. They were in this second-floor room when the armed men attacked the jail.
It was some time after five o'clock when a large band of men, with painted faces to hide their identities, swarmed the jail. No resistance was given from the guards. One group of men entered the main door of the sandstone building on the south side and began to rush up the stairs to where Joseph, Hyrum, Willard, and John being held.
Joseph, Hyrum, Willard, and John rushed to the door, flinging it shut in an attempt to prevent the armed body from entering. The landing soon filled with men bearing arms, some with fixed bayonets.
At the time of the onslaught, the prisoners had only a couple of walking sticks and pistols to protect themselves. Hyrum was shot first. Joseph fired into the crowd through the open door, hoping to keep them at bay. However, there was only a moment of pause in the attack before it continued, increasing its deadly fire.
During the melee, John Taylor attempted to escape through one of the bedroom's windows. He was hit and fell back inside the room.
Joseph went to the same window—in what was most likely an attempt to draw fire away from his friends—and was shot. He fell through the window, exclaiming, "Oh Lord my God!"
As the Prophet fell to the ground, the armed party inside rushed back down the stairs and toward the well, where Joseph lay. He was dead; the deed was done. Someone then shouted, "The Mormons are coming!" causing the group to disperse quickly.
An eerie silence replaced the noise, gunshots, and yelling. Eventually, the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum were taken to the Hamilton House, a hotel where Joseph and Hyrum had met Governor Ford just a few nights before. Here, the mortal remains of the Prophet and Patriarch were cleaned and placed into rough oak caskets. On the following day, 28 June, Artois Hamilton, the owner of the Hamilton House, and Samuel H. Smith, Joseph and Hyrum's younger brother, brought the bodies back to Nauvoo in two wagons.
Saints gathered along the road to pay respects to their fallen leaders as the wagons slowly made their way back to the people and the city both men loved so much. The wagons stopped outside the Mansion House, Joseph's home. Final preparations were made for a public viewing, which was held on 29 June. Some ten thousand to twenty thousand people walked through the Mansion House to see Joseph and Hyrum before their burial.
Willard Richards (1804–54) poignantly experienced the events of 27 June and wrote about them later. He was baptized in 1836, and shortly thereafter he was called to serve a mission in the British Isles (1837–41). During this important mission, Willard met and married Jeannetta Richards in 1838. In the United States, Joseph Smith received a revelation calling Willard to the Quorum of the Twelve (see Doctrine and Covenants 118:6). When Brigham Young arrived in England, Willard was ordained an Apostle on 14 January 1840. After nearly four years of mission service, Willard and his family made their way to America, arriving in May 1841. After Willard settled with the Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois, the new Church gathering place, his responsibilities and associations with the Prophet increased, including being appointed Joseph's private secretary and general Church clerk. When Joseph and Hyrum were incarcerated in Carthage Jail in late June 1844, Willard volunteered to remain with them. He therefore witnessed the sad events of Thursday afternoon in a jail on the western Illinois frontier. Willard prepared a brief description of those events in an article published 24 July 1844, in the Nauvoo Neighbor. (The same short article was published later in the Times and Seasons, 1 August 1845, 598–99.)
Date: 24 July 1844 (Wednesday)
Location: Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois, USA
Source: Willard Richards, "Two Minutes in Jail," The Nauvoo Neighbor, July 24, 1844
Two Minutes in Jail
Possibly the following events, occupied near three minutes, but I think only about two, and have penned them for the gratification of many friends.
Carthage, June 27th 1844.
A shower of musket balls were thrown up the stairway against the door of the prison in the second story, followed by many rapid footsteps. While Generals Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Mr. Taylor, and myself, who were in the front chamber, closed the door of our room, against the entry at the head of the stairs, and placed ourselves against it, there being no lock on the door and no ketch that was useable. The door is a common panel, and as soon as we heard the feet at the stairs head, a ball want sent through the door, which passed between us, and showed that our enemies were desperadoes, and we much change our position. Gen. Joseph Smith, Mr. Taylor, and myself sprang back to the front part of the room, and Gen. Hyrum Smith retreated two thirds across the chamber directly in front of and facing the door. A ball was sent through the door which hit Hyrum on the side of his nose when he fell backwards extended at length without moving his feet. From the holes in his vest, (the day was warm and no one had their coats on but myself,) pantaloons, drawers and shirt, it appears evident that a ball must have been thrown from without, through the window, which entered his back on the right side and passing through lodged against his watch which was in his right vest pocket completely pulverizing the crystal and face, tearing off the hands and mashing the whole body of the watch, at the same instant the ball from the door entered his nose. As he struck the floor he exclaimed emphatically; "I'm a dead man." Joseph looked towards him, and responded, "O dear! Brother Hyrum;" and opening the door two or three inches with his left hand, discharged one barrel of a six shooter (Pistol) at random in the entry from whence a ball grazed Hyrum's breast, and entering his throat, passed into his head, while other muskets were aimed a him, and some balls hit him. Joseph continued snapping his revolver, round the casing of the door into the space as before, three barrels of which missed fire, while Mr. Taylor with a walking stick stood by his side and knocked down the bayonets and muskets, which were constantly discharging through the door way, while I stood by him, ready to lend assistance, with another stick, but could not come within striking distance, without going directly before the muzzle of the guns. When the revolver failed, we had no more fire arms, and expecting an immediate rush of the mob, and the door way full of muskets—halfway in the room, and no hope but instant death from within: Mr. Taylor rushed into the window, which is some fifteen or twenty feet from the ground. When his body was nearly on a balance, a ball from the door within entered his leg, and a ball from without struck his watch, a patent lever, in his vest pocket, near the left breast, and smashed it in "pie," leaving the hands standing 5 o'clock, 16 minutes, and 26 seconds, —the force of which ball threw him back on the floor, and he rolled under the bed which stood by his side, where he lay motionless, the mob from the door continuing to fire upon him, cutting away a piece of flesh from his left hip as large as a man's hand, and were hindered only by my knocking down their muzzles with a stick; while they continued to reach their guns into the room, probably left handed, and aimed their discharge so far around as almost to reach us in the corner of the room to where we retreated and dodged, and then I re-commenced the attack with my stick again, Joseph attempted as the last resort, to leap the same window from whence Mr. Taylor fell, when two balls pierced him from the door, and one entered his right breast from without, and he fell outward exclaiming, "O Lord my God!" As his feet went out the window my head went in, the balls whistling all around. He fell on his left side a dead man. At this instant the cry was raised, "He's leaped the window," and the mob on the stairs and in the entry ran out. I withdrew from the window, thinking it of no use to leap out on a hundred bayonets, then around Gen. Smith's body. Not satisfied with this I again reached my head out of the window and watched some seconds, to see if there were any signs of life, regardless of my own, determined to see the end of him I loved; being fully satisfied, that he was dead, with a hundred men near the body and more coming round the corner of the jail, and expecting a return to our room I rushed towards the prison door, at the head of the stairs, and through the entry from whence the firing had proceeded, o learn if the doors into the prison were open. When near the entry, Mr. Taylor called out "take me;" I pressed my way till I found all doors unbarred, returning instantly caught Mr. Taylor under my arm, and rushed by the stairs into the dungeon, or inner prison, stretched him on the floor and covered him with a bed in such a manner as not likely to be perceive, expecting an immediate return of the mob. I said to Mr. Taylor this is a hard case to lay you on the floor, but if your wounds are not fatal I want you to live to tell the story. I expected to be shot the next moment, and stood before the door awaiting the onset.