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107-463: Purportedly the final testament of an ancient American ruler named "Rajah Manchou of Vorito", Strang asserted that this discovery vindicated his claims to be the true successor of Joseph Smith , founder of the Latter Day Saint movement—as opposed to Brigham Young , whom most Latter Day Saints accepted as Smith's successor in 1844. The plates also lent credence to Strang's claim that Voree, not

214-656: A communal Zion in the American heartland. They first gathered in Kirtland, Ohio , and established an outpost in Independence, Missouri , which was intended to be Zion's "center place". During the 1830s, Smith sent out missionaries, published revelations , and supervised construction of the Kirtland Temple . Because of the collapse of the church-sponsored Kirtland Safety Society , violent skirmishes with non-Mormon Missourians, and

321-566: A competing "reform church" , and in the following month, at the county seat in Carthage , they procured indictments against Smith for perjury (as Smith publicly denied having more than one wife) and polygamy. On June 7, the dissidents published the first (and only) issue of the Nauvoo Expositor , calling for reform within the church but also appealing politically to non-Mormons. The paper alluded to Smith's theocratic aspirations, called for

428-631: A grand jury hearing in Daviess County, Smith and his companions escaped custody, almost certainly with the connivance of the sheriff and guards. Many American newspapers criticized Missouri for the Haun's Mill massacre and the state's expulsion of the Mormons. Illinois then accepted Mormon refugees who gathered along the banks of the Mississippi River , where Smith purchased high-priced, swampy woodland in

535-423: A land speculation scheme. According to Scott, Barnes and Strang "made the 'plates' out of Ben [Perce]'s old kettle and engraved them with an old saw file, and ... when completed they put acid on them to corrode them and give them an ancient appearance; and that to deposit them under the tree, where they were found, they took a large auger ... which Ben [Perce] owned, put a fork handle on the auger and with it bored

642-481: A tea kettle or teakettle , is a device specialized for boiling water, commonly with a lid , spout , and handle . There are two main types: the stovetop kettle , which uses heat from a hob , and the electric kettle , which is a small kitchen appliance with an internal heating element . The word kettle originates from Old Norse ketill , " cauldron ". The Old English spelling was cetel with initial che- [tʃ] like 'cherry', Middle English (and dialectal)

749-514: A Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American civilization. In 1830, Smith published the Book of Mormon, which he described as an English translation of those plates. The same year he organized the Church of Christ , calling it a restoration of the early Christian Church . Members of the church were later called "Latter Day Saints" or "Mormons". In 1831, Smith and his followers moved west, planning to build

856-603: A Strangite website, Derek J. Masson, a non-Mormon scholar, reportedly argued in an unpublished 1977 paper that Strang's translation was sound. This same site alleges that a second scholar, Robert Madison , concluded in 1990 that the text on the plates appears to represent a genuine, albeit unknown, language, and that Strang's translation appeared to be "a superb (if poetic) rendition of that text into English." Independent scholarly assessment of Masson's and Madison's conclusions does not exist. Joseph Smith Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844)

963-455: A brigadier general in the Missouri militia, refused to carry out the order. Smith was then sent to a state court for a preliminary hearing , where several of his former allies testified against him. Smith and five others, including Rigdon, were charged with treason, and transferred to the jail at Liberty, Missouri , to await trial. Smith bore his imprisonment stoically. Understanding that he

1070-401: A case of baked clay. Strang subsequently claimed to have deciphered this record, which he said was authored by an ancient Native American named "Rajah Manchou of Vorito." The Voree plates measured approximately 2.5 inches long, and between 1.25 and 1.5 inches wide. According to one anonymous witness, they were "about the thickness of a piece of tin, fastened together in one corner by

1177-710: A cosmology of many gods. Memorials to Smith include the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City the former Joseph Smith Memorial building on the campus of Brigham Young University as well as the Joseph Smith Building there, a granite obelisk marking Smith's birthplace, and a fifteen-foot-tall bronze statue of Smith in the World Peace Dome in Pune , India. Smith's death resulted in

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1284-457: A dispute with a federal bureaucrat – he organized the secret Council of Fifty , which was given the authority to decide which national or state laws Mormons should obey, as well as establish its own government for Mormons. Before his death the Council also voted unanimously to elect Smith "Prophet, Priest, and King". The Council was likewise appointed to select a site for a large Mormon settlement in

1391-611: A few wealthy and influential converts, including John C. Bennett , the Illinois quartermaster general . Bennett used his connections in the Illinois state legislature to obtain an unusually liberal charter for the new city, which Smith renamed " Nauvoo ". The charter granted the city virtual autonomy, authorized a university, and granted Nauvoo habeas corpus power—which allowed Smith to fend off extradition to Missouri. Though Latter Day Saint authorities controlled Nauvoo's civil government,

1498-429: A handle on top, a spout, and a lid. Some also have a steam whistle that indicates when the water has reached its boiling point. Kettles are typically made with stainless steel but can also be made from copper or other metals. In countries with 200–240   V mains electricity, electric kettles are commonly used to boil water without the necessity of a stove top. The heating element is typically fully enclosed, with

1605-450: A higher priesthood. Smith's authority was undermined when Cowdery, Hiram Page , and other church members also claimed to receive revelations. In response, Smith dictated a revelation which clarified his office as a prophet and an apostle , stating that only he had the ability to declare doctrine and scripture for the church. Smith then dispatched Cowdery, Peter Whitmer, and others on a mission to proselytize Native Americans . Cowdery

1712-456: A hitherto-undiscovered chronicle of a long-lost American people. This, said Strang, would prove that he was Smith's true successor. Strang next testified that on September 1, 1845, an angel of God appeared to him and showed him the location of "the record of my people in whose possession thou dwellest." Accordingly, he went on September 13 to the indicated site, located in Voree , Wisconsin , south of

1819-509: A long slanting hole under a tree on 'The Hill of Promise,' as they called it, laying the earth in a trail on a cloth as taken out, then put the 'plates' in, tamping in all the earth again, leaving no trace of their work visible.” Wingfield W. Watson , a high priest in the Strangite sect who knew Strang, vigorously challenged these allegations in an 1889 publication entitled The Prophetic Controversy #3 . Among other things, Watson points out that

1926-558: A new round of violence against the Mormons, the Nauvoo City Council declared the newspaper a public nuisance, and Smith ordered the Nauvoo Legion to assist the police force in destroying its printing press . During the council debate, Smith vigorously urged the council to order the press destroyed, not realizing that destroying a newspaper was more likely to incite an attack than any of the newspaper's accusations. Destruction of

2033-523: A new temple. In the weeks and months after Smith and Rigdon arrived at Far West, thousands of Latter Day Saints followed them from Kirtland. Smith encouraged the settlement of land outside Caldwell County, instituting a settlement in Adam-ondi-Ahman , in Daviess County . Political and religious differences between old Missourians and newly arriving Latter Day Saint settlers provoked tensions between

2140-453: A party of Missourians surprised and killed seventeen Mormons in the Haun's Mill massacre . The following day, the Mormons surrendered to 2,500 state troops and agreed to forfeit their property and leave the state. Smith was immediately brought before a military court , accused of treason , and sentenced to be executed the next morning, but Alexander Doniphan , who was Smith's former attorney and

2247-441: A period of "rapid-fire translation". Between April and early June 1829, the two worked full time on the manuscript, then moved to Fayette, New York , where they continued the work at the home of Cowdery's friend, Peter Whitmer . When the narrative described an institutional church and a requirement for baptism , Smith and Cowdery baptized each other. Dictation was completed about July 1, 1829. According to Smith, Moroni took back

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2354-408: A power rating of 2–3 kW. This means that the current draw for an electric kettle is up to 13   A, which is a sizeable proportion of the current available for many homes: the main fuse of most homes varies between 20 and 100 amps. In countries with 120 V mains electricity, twice as much current is drawn for the same power. In modern designs, once the water has reached its boiling point,

2461-522: A repeal of the Nauvoo city charter, and decried his new "doctrines of many Gods". (Smith had recently given his King Follett discourse , in which he said that God was once a man, and that men and women could become gods.) It also attacked Smith's practice of polygamy, implying that he was using religion as a pretext to draw unassuming women to Nauvoo to seduce and marry them. Fearing the Expositor would provoke

2568-420: A revelation announcing that in order to redeem Zion, his followers would have to receive an endowment in the Kirtland Temple , which he and his followers constructed. In March 1836, at the temple's dedication, many who received the endowment reported seeing visions of angels and engaged in prophesying and speaking in tongues. In January 1837, Smith and other churchleaders created a joint stock company , called

2675-419: A ring passing through them." A second witness described them as being "thickly covered with ancient characters of curious workmanship." Stephen Post , the brother of Strangite apostle Warren Post, visited Strang in 1850 and examined the plates for himself, noting that "they were not polished very smooth before engraving, by appearance." Unlike his brother, Stephen Post had trouble believing Strang's account of

2782-558: A secret code which was not deciphered until over one hundred years later by his grandson. Comparison of the script used in the coded portions of Strang's diary and the script used on the Voree plates shows remarkable similarities between the two. Keith Thompson alleges that the text on the plates matches Strang's published translation. Although he did not identify the values of specific characters, he claimed to have shown how words such as "and", "in", and "are" appear in multiple places. According to

2889-532: A series of crop failures in 1816. Living in an area of intense religious revivalism during the Second Great Awakening , Smith reported experiencing a series of visions. The first of these was in 1820, when he saw "two personages" (whom he eventually described as God the Father and Jesus Christ ). In 1823, he said he was visited by an angel who directed him to a buried book of golden plates inscribed with

2996-692: A succession crisis within the Latter Day Saint movement. He had proposed several ways to choose his successor, but never clarified his preference. The two strongest succession candidates were Young, senior member and president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and Rigdon, the senior remaining member of the First Presidency. In a church-wide conference on August 8, most of the Latter Day Saints present elected Young. They eventually left Nauvoo and settled

3103-542: A sure sign that Strang was indeed Smith's true successor. For those who remained skeptical or merely curious, Mormon or non-Mormon, Strang readily produced the plates themselves for personal examination. One such investigator was the non-Mormon Christopher Sholes, inventor of the first practical typewriter, and a later inspiration to Thomas Edison . As the editor of the Southport Telegraph , Sholes called upon Strang and perused his discovery. Sholes offered no opinion on

3210-569: A warrant was issued for Smith's arrest on a charge of banking fraud , he and Rigdon fled for Missouri in January 1838. By 1838, Smith had abandoned plans to redeem Zion in Jackson County, and instead declared the town of Far West, Missouri , in Caldwell County , as the new "Zion". In Missouri, the church also took the name "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints", and construction began on

3317-441: Is a kettle fitted with a device that emits an audible whistle when the water in the kettle starts to boil. The action of steam passing through the device causes vibration, in turn creating the sound, known in physics as a tone hole . The exact mechanism by which this occurs was not fully understood until a paper, The Aeroacoustics of a Steam Kettle , was published by R. H. Henrywood, a fourth-year engineering undergraduate at

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3424-451: The 1838 Mormon War . Non-Mormon vigilantes raided and burned Mormon farms, while Danites and other Mormons pillaged non-Mormon towns. In the Battle of Crooked River , a group of Mormons attacked the Missouri state militia, mistakenly believing them to be anti-Mormon vigilantes. Governor Lilburn Boggs then ordered that the Mormons be "exterminated or driven from the state". On October 30,

3531-446: The Book of Mormon from a set of golden plates which he was shown the location of by an angel named Moroni . Following Smith's murder in 1844, a number of claimants came forward to lead his nascent church, including Strang. As a recent convert to Mormonism , Strang did not possess the name recognition among rank-and-file Latter Day Saints enjoyed by Brigham Young and Sidney Rigdon ,

3638-572: The Community of Christ . Joseph Smith was born on December 23, 1805, in Vermont , on the border between the villages of South Royalton and Sharon , to Lucy Mack Smith and her husband Joseph Smith Sr. , a merchant and farmer. He was one of eleven children. At the age of seven, Smith had a bone infection and, after receiving surgery, used crutches for three years. After an ill-fated business venture and three successive years of crop failures culminating in

3745-565: The Kirtland Safety Society , to act as a quasi-bank; the company issued banknotes partly capitalized by real estate. Smith encouraged his followers to buy the notes, in which he invested heavily himself. The bank failed within a month. As a result, Latter Day Saints in Kirtland suffered extreme high volatility and intense pressure from debt collectors. Smith was held responsible for the failure, and there were widespread defections from

3852-508: The Mormon extermination order , Smith and his followers established a new settlement at Nauvoo, Illinois , of which he was the spiritual and political leader. In 1844, when the Nauvoo Expositor criticized Smith's power and his practice of polygamy , Smith and the Nauvoo City Council ordered the destruction of its printing press , inflaming anti-Mormon sentiment. Fearing an invasion of Nauvoo, Smith rode to Carthage, Illinois , to stand trial, but

3959-675: The Republic of Texas , Oregon , or California (then controlled by Mexico ), where Mormons could live under theocratic law beyond the control of other governments. By early 1844, a rift developed between Smith and a half dozen of his closest associates. Most notably, William Law , his trusted counselor, and Robert Foster, a general of the Nauvoo Legion, disagreed with Smith about how to manage Nauvoo's economy. Both also said that Smith had proposed marriage to their wives. Believing these men were plotting against his life, Smith excommunicated them on April 18, 1844. Law and Foster subsequently formed

4066-754: The Salt Lake Valley , Utah Territory . Nominal membership in Young's denomination, which became the LDS Church, surpassed 17 million in 2023. Smaller groups followed Rigdon and James J. Strang , who had based his claim on a letter of appointment ostensibly written by Smith but which some scholars believe was forged . Some hundreds followed Lyman Wight to establish a community in Texas. Others followed Alpheus Cutler . Many members of these smaller groups, including most of Smith's family, eventually coalesced in 1860 under

4173-472: The Salt Lake Valley , was to be the new "gathering place" of the Latter Day Saints. His purported translation of this text is accepted as scripture by his church and some other bodies descending from it, but not by any other Latter Day Saint organization. Unlike the golden plates used by Smith to produce the Book of Mormon , the existence of Strang's plates was verified by independent, non-Mormon witnesses, including Christopher Latham Sholes , inventor of

4280-472: The University of Cambridge , and A. Agarwal, his supervisor, in the journal Physics of Fluids in 2013. Harry Bramson is the inventor of the whistling tea kettle. Automatic tea kettles are meant to make tea brewing easier, built with the capability to make different kinds of tea without much input from the user. Once set, the automatic tea kettle brings the water to the specific temperature for preparing

4387-530: The 1816 Year Without a Summer , the Smith family left Vermont and moved to Western New York , and took out a mortgage on a 100-acre (40 ha) farm in the townships of Palmyra and Manchester . The region was a hotbed of religious enthusiasm during the Second Great Awakening . Between 1817 and 1825, there were several camp meetings and revivals in the Palmyra area. Smith's parents disagreed about religion, but

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4494-609: The Church, and Bennett was elected Nauvoo's first mayor. The early Nauvoo years were a period of doctrinal innovation. Smith introduced baptism for the dead in 1840, and in 1841 construction began on the Nauvoo Temple as a place for recovering lost ancient knowledge. An 1841 revelation promised the restoration of the "fullness of the priesthood"; and in May 1842, Smith inaugurated a revised endowment or "first anointing". The endowment resembled

4601-469: The Latter Day Saint community, Smith was viewed as a prophet, martyred to seal the testimony of his faith. After a public funeral and viewing of the deceased brothers, Smith's widow – who feared hostile non-Mormons might try to desecrate the bodies – had their remains buried at night in a secret location, with substitute coffins filled with sandbags interred in the publicly attested grave. The bodies were later moved and reburied under an outbuilding on

4708-499: The Latter Day Saint movement, Smith's legacy varies between denominations: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and its members consider Smith the founding prophet of their church, on par with Moses and Elijah . Meanwhile, Smith's reputation is ambivalent in the Community of Christ , which continues "honoring his role" in the church's founding history but deemphasizes his human leadership. Conversely, Woolleyite Mormon fundamentalism has deified Smith within

4815-413: The Latter Day Saint movement, which continue to treat them as scripture . Smith's teachings discuss God's nature, cosmology , family structures, political organization, and religious community and authority. Mormons generally regard Smith as a prophet comparable to Moses and Elijah . Several religious denominations identify as the continuation of the church that he organized, including the LDS Church and

4922-543: The Latter Day Saint newcomers for both political and religious reasons. Additionally, their rapid growth aroused fears that they would soon constitute a majority in local elections, and thus "rule the county." Tension increased until July 1833, when non-Mormons forcibly evicted the Mormons and destroyed their property. Smith advised his followers to bear the violence patiently until after they had been attacked multiple times, after which they could fight back. Armed bands exchanged fire, killing one Mormon and two non-Mormons, until

5029-490: The Mormons. After an unknown assailant shot and wounded Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs in May 1842, anti-Mormons circulated rumors that Smith's bodyguard, Porter Rockwell , was the gunman. Though the evidence was circumstantial, Boggs ordered Smith's extradition. Certain he would be killed if he ever returned to Missouri, Smith went into hiding twice during the next five months, until the U.S. Attorney for Illinois argued that his extradition would be unconstitutional. (Rockwell

5136-576: The Nauvoo City Council surrendered themselves. Smith initially fled across the Mississippi River, but shortly returned and surrendered to Ford. On June 25, Smith and his brother Hyrum arrived in Carthage to stand trial for inciting a riot. Once the Smiths were in custody, the charges were increased to treason, preventing them from posting bail . John Taylor and Willard Richards voluntarily accompanied

5243-595: The Smith property off the Mississippi River. Members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church), under the direction of then-RLDS Church president Frederick M. Smith (Smith's grandson) searched for, located, and disinterred the Smith brothers' remains in 1928 and reinterred them, along with Smith's wife, in Nauvoo at the Smith Family Cemetery . Modern biographers and scholars – Mormon and non-Mormon alike – agree that Smith

5350-497: The Smiths in Carthage Jail . On June 27, 1844, an armed mob with blackened faces stormed Carthage Jail , where Joseph and Hyrum were being detained. Hyrum, who was trying to secure the door, was killed instantly with a shot to the face. Smith fired three shots from a pepper-box pistol that his friend, Cyrus H. Wheelock , had lent him, wounding three men, before he sprang for the window. (Smith and his companions were staying in

5457-457: The Strangite church as to whether these words should be considered part of Strang's translation or not. Some members of competing restoration churches have insisted that the Voree plates were forged by Strang. Isaac Scott, an ex-Strangite, wrote to Joseph Smith III alleging that he learned from Caleb Barnes, Strang's former law partner, that he and Strang had fabricated the plates from a tea kettle belonging to Strang's father-in-law as part of

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5564-402: The Voree plates contained text written in an unknown script. The fifth side contained a map showing the area where the plates were found, while side one contained engravings of the " all-seeing eye " and a man holding a scepter , with the sun, moon, and stars beneath him. These images were said to represent God, the president of the church , his two counselors , the high council of the church,

5671-498: The Voree plates that Strang never made public. Strang himself had indicated more than once that he had released to his followers only "part of the record of Rajah Manchou of Vorito." H. V. Reed, who had visited Strang and read his translation, published a possible addition to Strang's text in the Chicago Illustrated Journal in January 1873: It shall come to pass in the latter days, that my people shall hear my voice, and

5778-515: The White River on what is now referred to as the "Hill of Promise." Strang led four witnesses to a large oak on the hillside, inviting them to examine the ground around the tree carefully before digging for the plates. All four later testified that they could discern no evidence of digging or other disturbance of the ground. After removing the tree, Strang's companions dug down approximately three feet, where they discovered three small brass plates in

5885-678: The adopted Smith died of measles in 1832. In 1841, Don Carlos, who had been born a year earlier, died of malaria, and five months later, in 1842, Emma gave birth to a stillborn son. Joseph and Emma had five children who lived to maturity: adopted Julia Murdock, Joseph Smith III, David Hyrum Smith, Frederick Granger Williams Smith, and Alexander Hale Smith . Some historians have speculated—based on journal entries and family stories—that Smith fathered children with his plural wives. However, in cases where DNA testing of potential Smith descendants from plural wives has been possible, results have been negative. Kettle A kettle , sometimes called

5992-467: The apostles, and the seventies . Strang's published translation of the Voree plates reads as follows: My people are no more. The mighty are fallen, and the young slain in battle. Their bones bleached on the plain by the noonday shadow. The houses are leveled to the dust, and in the moat are the walls. They shall be inhabited. I have in the burial served them, and their bones in the Death-shade, towards

6099-635: The church hierarchy. Converts poured into Kirtland. By the summer of 1835, there were fifteen hundred to two thousand Latter Day Saints in the vicinity, many expecting Smith to lead them shortly to the Millennial kingdom. Though his mission to the Native Americans had been a failure, Cowdery and the other missionaries with him were charged with finding a site for "a holy city". They found Jackson County, Missouri . After Smith visited in July 1831, he pronounced

6206-463: The church, including many of Smith's closest advisers. The failure of the bank was one part of a series of internal disputes led to the demise of the Kirtland community. Cowdery had accused Smith of engaging in a sexual relationship with a teenage servant in his home, Fanny Alger . Construction of the Kirtland Temple had only added to the church's debt, and Smith was hounded by creditors. After

6313-479: The city guaranteed religious freedom for its residents. The charter also authorized the Nauvoo Legion , a militia whose actions were limited only by state and federal constitutions. Smith and Bennett became its commanders, and were styled Lieutenant General and Major General respectively. As such, they controlled by far the largest body of armed men in Illinois. Smith appointed Bennett as Assistant President of

6420-558: The couple began boarding with Smith's parents in Manchester. Later that year, when Smith promised to abandon treasure seeking, his father-in-law offered to let the couple live on his property in Harmony and help Smith get started in business. Smith made his last visit to the hill shortly after midnight on September 22, 1827, taking Emma with him. This time, he said he successfully retrieved the plates. Smith said Moroni commanded him not to show

6527-448: The end of June, Smith deescalated the confrontation, sought peace with Jackson County's residents, and disbanded Zion's Camp. Nevertheless, Zion's Camp transformed Latter Day Saint leadership because many future church leaders came from among the participants. After the Camp returned to Ohio, Smith drew heavily from its participants to establish various governing bodies in the church. He gave

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6634-448: The existence of the golden plates. Harris persuaded Smith to let him take 116 pages of manuscript to Palmyra to show a few family members, including his wife. While Harris had the manuscript in his possession—of which there was no other copy—it was lost. Smith was devastated by this loss, especially since it came at the same time as the death of his first son, who died shortly after birth. Smith said that as punishment for his having lost

6741-494: The family was caught up in this excitement. Smith later recounted that he had become interested in religion by age 12, and as a teenager, may have been sympathetic to Methodism . With other family members, he also engaged in religious folk magic , a relatively common practice in that time and place. Both his parents and his maternal grandfather reported having visions or dreams that they believed communicated messages from God. Smith said that, although he had become concerned about

6848-498: The first fully automatic kettle. A bimetallic strip , heated through a pipe by the steam produced as the water comes to the boil, flexes, and cuts off the current. As little steam is produced before boiling occurs, the bimetallic thermostat is set to activate well below 100 °C (212 °F; 373 K), thus this design works even at higher altitudes where the boiling point is significantly lower. The design has since been widely adopted by other manufacturers. A whistling kettle

6955-486: The first practical typewriter . Strang was accused of having fabricated the plates from a brass tea kettle , a claim which he and his partisans vigorously denied. The plates disappeared around 1900 and their current whereabouts are unknown. According to Latter Day Saint beliefs, many ancient inhabitants of the Americas engraved records on metal plates. Joseph Smith , the movement's founding prophet, claimed that he translated

7062-601: The flock disown the Shepherd and build not on the Rock. The forerunner men shall kill, but a mighty prophet there shall dwell. I will be his strength, and he shall bring forth thy record. Record my words, and bury it in the Hill of Promise. Strang published facsimiles of the Voree plates, and his translations of them, in his church's newspaper, The Voree Herald . Many Latter Day Saints found this new discovery compelling and believed it to be

7169-640: The frontier hamlet of Independence the "center place" of Zion . For most of the 1830s, the church was effectively based in Ohio. Smith lived there, though he visited Missouri again in early 1832 to prevent a rebellion of prominent church members who believed the church in Missouri was being neglected. Smith's trip was hastened by a mob of Ohio residents who were incensed over the church's presence and Smith's political power. The mob beat Smith and Rigdon unconscious, tarred and feathered them, and left them for dead. In Jackson County, existing Missouri residents resented

7276-579: The golden plates for himself, property they believed should be jointly shared. After they ransacked places where they believed the plates might have been hidden, Smith decided to leave Palmyra. In October 1827, Smith and Emma permanently moved to Harmony, aided by a relatively prosperous neighbor, Martin Harris , who began serving as Smith's scribe in April 1828. Although he and his wife, Lucy, were early supporters of Smith, by June 1828 they began to have doubts about

7383-432: The gospel." Smith said he recounted the experience to a Methodist minister, who dismissed the story "with great contempt". According to historian Steven C. Harper, "There is no evidence in the historical record that Joseph Smith told anyone but the minister of his vision for at least a decade", and Smith might have kept it private because of how uncomfortable that first dismissal was. During the 1830s, Smith orally described

7490-460: The ground, and speaking in tongues . Rigdon's followers were practicing a form of communalism . Smith brought the Kirtland congregation under his authority and tamed ecstatic outbursts. He had promised church elders that in Kirtland they would receive an endowment of heavenly power, and at the June 1831 general conference , he introduced the greater authority of a High ("Melchizedek") Priesthood to

7597-471: The hamlet of Commerce . He attempted to portray the Mormons as an oppressed minority and unsuccessfully petitioned the federal government for help in obtaining reparations . During the summer of 1839, while Mormons in Illinois suffered from a malaria epidemic, Smith sent Young and other apostles to missions in Europe, where they made numerous converts, many of them poor factory workers. Smith also attracted

7704-519: The hostility of those who remembered the 1826 Chenango County trial. After Cowdery baptized several new church members, Smith's followers were threatened with mob violence. Before Smith could confirm the newly baptized, he was arrested and charged with being a "disorderly person." Although he was acquitted , both he and Cowdery fled to Colesville to escape a gathering mob. Smith later claimed that, probably around this time, Peter , James , and John had appeared to him and had ordained him and Cowdery to

7811-417: The jailer's bedroom, which did not have bars on the windows.) He was shot multiple times before falling out of the window, crying, "Oh Lord my God!" He died shortly after hitting the ground, but was shot several more times by an improvised firing squad before the mob dispersed. Following Smith's death, non-Mormon newspapers were nearly unanimous in portraying Smith as a religious fanatic. Conversely, within

7918-477: The kettle (not exposed to water), and was one of the first kettles with a boil-safe device. In 1922, Leslie Large, an engineer working at Bulpitt & Sons of Birmingham, designed an element of wire wound around a core and sheathed in a metal tube. The element could be immersed directly into water which made the kettle much more efficient than stovetop kettles. In 1955, the newly founded British company Russell Hobbs brought out its stainless steel K1 model as

8025-540: The kettle automatically deactivates, preventing the water from boiling away and damaging the heating element. Electric kettles were introduced as an alternative to stovetop kettles in the latter part of the 19th century. In 1893 the Crompton and Co. firm in the United Kingdom started featuring electric kettles in their catalogue . Although these kettles were quite primitive as the heating element couldn't be immersed in

8132-415: The kingdom". Smith also elaborated on his plan for a Millennial kingdom; no longer envisioning the building of Zion in Nauvoo, he viewed Zion as encompassing all of North and South America, with Mormon settlements being " stakes " of Zion's metaphorical tent. Zion also became less a refuge from an impending tribulation than a great building project. In the summer of 1842, Smith revealed a plan to establish

8239-556: The leadership of Joseph Smith III and formed the RLDS Church (Community of Christ), which has about 250,000 members. The first of Smith's wives, Emma Hale, gave birth to nine children during their marriage, five of whom died before the age of two. The eldest, Alvin (born in 1828), died within hours of birth, as did twins Thaddeus and Louisa (born in 1831). When the twins died, the Smiths adopted another set of twins, Julia and Joseph Murdock, whose mother had recently died in childbirth;

8346-625: The manuscript, Moroni returned, took away the plates, and revoked his ability to translate. During this period, Smith briefly attended Methodist meetings with his wife, until a cousin of hers objected to inclusion of a "practicing necromancer " on the Methodist class roll. Smith said that Moroni returned the plates to him in September 1828, and he then dictated some of the book to his wife Emma. In April 1829 he met Oliver Cowdery , who had also dabbled in folk magic; and with Cowdery as scribe, Smith began

8453-674: The millennial Kingdom of God, which would eventually establish theocratic rule over the whole Earth. It was around this time that Smith began secretly marrying additional wives, a practice called plural marriage . He introduced the doctrine to a few of his closest associates, including Bennett, who used it as an excuse to seduce numerous women, wed and unwed. When rumors of polygamy (called "spiritual wifery" by Bennett) got abroad, Smith forced Bennett's resignation as Nauvoo mayor. In retaliation, Bennett left Nauvoo and began publishing sensational accusations against Smith and his followers. By mid-1842, popular opinion in Illinois had turned against

8560-539: The new organization dramatically. After Rigdon visited New York, he soon became Smith's primary assistant. With growing opposition in New York, Smith announced a revelation that his followers should gather to Kirtland, Ohio , establish themselves as a people and await word from Cowdery's mission. When Smith moved to Kirtland in January 1831, he encountered a religious culture that included enthusiastic demonstrations of spiritual gifts , including fits and trances, rolling on

8667-455: The newspaper provoked a strident call to arms from Thomas C. Sharp , editor of the Warsaw Signal and longtime critic of Smith. Fearing mob violence, Smith mobilized the Nauvoo Legion on June 18 and declared martial law . Officials in Carthage responded by mobilizing a small detachment of the state militia, and Governor Ford intervened, threatening to raise a larger militia unless Smith and

8774-411: The next four years he made annual visits to the hill, but, until the fourth and final visit, each time he returned without the plates. Meanwhile, Smith's family faced financial hardship, due in part to the death of his oldest brother Alvin . Family members supplemented their meager farm income by hiring out for odd jobs and working as treasure seekers, a type of magical supernaturalism common during

8881-450: The old settlers forcibly expelled the Latter Day Saints from the county. After petitions to Missouri governor Daniel Dunklin for aid were unsuccessful, Smith organized and led a small paramilitary expedition, called Zion's Camp , to aid the Latter Day Saints in Missouri. As a military endeavor, the expedition was a failure. The men of the expedition were disorganized, suffered from a cholera outbreak and were severely outnumbered. By

8988-653: The period. Smith was said to have an ability to locate lost items by looking into a seer stone, which he also used in treasure hunting, including, beginning in 1825, several unsuccessful attempts to find buried treasure sponsored by Josiah Stowell , a wealthy farmer in Chenango County . In 1826, Smith was brought before a Chenango County court for "glass-looking", or pretending to find lost treasure; Stowell's relatives accused Smith of tricking Stowell and faking an ability to perceive hidden treasure, though Stowell attested that he believed Smith had such abilities. The result of

9095-473: The plates once Smith finished using them. The completed work, titled the Book of Mormon , was published in Palmyra by printer Egbert Bratt Grandin and was first advertised for sale on March 26, 1830. Less than two weeks later, on April 6, 1830, Smith and his followers formally organized the Church of Christ , and small branches were established in Manchester, Fayette, and Colesville, New York . The Book of Mormon brought Smith regional notoriety and renewed

9202-430: The plates to anyone else, but to translate them and publish their translation. He also said the plates were a religious record of Middle-Eastern indigenous Americans and were engraved in an unknown language, called reformed Egyptian . He told associates that he was capable of reading and translating them. Although Smith had abandoned treasure hunting, former associates believed he had double crossed them and had taken

9309-454: The plates' origin and discovery: "With all the faith & confidence that I could exercise," he later wrote, "all that I could realize was that Strang made the plates himself, or at least that it was possible that he made them." Post equally observed that the brass used in the Voree plates seemed indistinguishable to him from the French brass used in ordinary tea kettles . Four of the six sides of

9416-472: The plates, but described Strang as "honest and earnest" and opined that his followers ranked "among the most honest and intelligent men in the neighborhood." The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ , the two largest factions of the Latter Day Saint movement, both reject Strang's claims to prophetic leadership and the purported authenticity of the Voree plates. According to one source, there may have been text translated from

9523-607: The proceeding remains unclear because primary sources report conflicting outcomes. While boarding at the Hale house, located in the township of Harmony (now Oakland ) in Pennsylvania , Smith met and courted Emma Hale . When he proposed marriage, her father, Isaac Hale, objected; he believed Smith had no means to support his daughter. Hale also considered Smith a stranger who appeared "careless" and "not very well educated." Smith and Emma eloped and married on January 18, 1827, after which

9630-544: The right to call out federal troops in its defense. Smith then wrote to the leading presidential candidates, asking what they would do to protect the Mormons. After receiving noncommittal or negative responses, he announced his own independent candidacy for president of the United States , suspended regular proselytizing, and sent out the Quorum of the Twelve and hundreds of other political missionaries. In March 1844 – following

9737-571: The rites of Freemasonry that Smith had observed two months earlier when he had been initiated " at sight " into the Nauvoo Masonic lodge. At first, the endowment was open only to men, who were initiated into a special group called the Anointed Quorum . For women, Smith introduced the Relief Society , a service club and sorority within which Smith predicted women would receive "the keys of

9844-550: The sun's rising, are covered. They sleep with the mighty dead, and they rest with their fathers. They have fallen in transgression and are not, but the elect and faithful there shall dwell. The word hath revealed it. God hath sworn to give an inheritance to his people where transgressors perished. The word of God came to me while I mourned in the Death-shade, saying, I will avenge me on the destroyer. He shall be driven out. Other strangers shall inhabit thy land. I an ensign there will set up. The escaped of my people there shall dwell when

9951-423: The theory advanced fails to explain how the 12"x12"x3" stone covering block was placed above the case containing the plates. Strang was assassinated in 1856. The Voree plates remained with his family until they disappeared sometime around 1900. Their current whereabouts are unknown. The Voree plates are written in an unknown alphabet. Strang authored a personal diary during his youth, parts of which were written in

10058-584: The truth shall speak from the earth, and my people shall hear, and shall come and build the Temple of the Lord. My prophet, unto whom I send my word, shall lead them, and guide them in the ways of peace and salvation. In Voree the name of the Mighty One shall be heard, and the nations shall obey my law, and hear the words of my servant, whom I shall raise up unto them in the latter days. No official determination has been made by

10165-482: The two groups, much as they had in Jackson County. By this time, Smith's experiences with mob violence led him to believe that his faith's survival required greater militancy against anti-Mormons . Tensions between the Mormons and the native Missourians escalated quickly until, on August 6, 1838, non-Mormons in Gallatin, Missouri , tried to prevent Mormons from voting, and a brawl ensued. The election day scuffles initiated

10272-614: The two principal contenders for church leadership. Hence, Strang faced an uphill battle in his quest to be recognized as the heir to Smith's prophetic mantle. To advance his cause, Strang asserted that unlike Rigdon and Young, he had hard evidence of his prophetic calling. One of Smith's titles had been "Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and Translator ", and Strang wished to substantiate his claim to succession by following in Smith's footsteps. So, while Young and Rigdon never offered their followers any newly revealed ancient records, Strang announced on January 17, 1845, that God had promised to lead him to

10379-420: The vision to some of his followers, though it was not widely published among Mormons until the 1840s. This vision later grew in importance to Smith's followers, who eventually regarded it as the first event in the restoration of Christ's church to Earth . Smith himself may have originally considered the vision to be a personal conversion. According to Smith's later accounts, while praying one night in 1823, he

10486-452: The water. Instead, a separate compartment underneath the water storage area in the kettle was used to house the electric heating element. The design was inefficient even relative to the conventional stove-top kettles of the time. In 1902, the 'Archer' electric kettle made by Premier Electric Heaters in Birmingham , England, was marketed as a luxury item. It had an element sealed in the base of

10593-432: The welfare of his soul, he was confused by the claims of competing religious denominations. Years later, Smith wrote that he had received a vision that resolved his religious confusion. He said that in 1820, while he had been praying in a wooded area near his home, God the Father and Jesus Christ together appeared to him, told him his sins were forgiven, and said that all contemporary churches had "turned aside from

10700-419: Was chetel , both come (together with German Kessel "cauldron") ultimately from Germanic *katilaz , that was borrowed from Latin catillus , diminutive form of catinus "deep vessel for serving or cooking food", which in various contexts is translated as "bowl", "deep dish", or "funnel". A modern stovetop kettle is a metal vessel with a flat bottom used to heat water on a stovetop or hob . They usually have

10807-457: Was also assigned the task of locating the site of the New Jerusalem , which was to be "on the borders" of the United States with what was then Indian territory. On their way to Missouri , Cowdery's party passed through northeastern Ohio , where Sidney Rigdon and over a hundred followers of his variety of Campbellite Restorationism converted to the Church of Christ, swelling the ranks of

10914-618: Was an American religious leader and the founder of Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement . Publishing the Book of Mormon at the age of 24, Smith attracted tens of thousands of followers by the time of his death fourteen years later. The religion he founded is followed by millions of global adherents and several churches, the largest of which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Born in Sharon, Vermont , Smith moved with his family to Western New York , following

11021-428: Was effectively on trial before his own people, many of whom considered him a fallen prophet, he wrote a personal defense and an apology for the activities of his followers. "The keys of the kingdom ", he wrote, "have not been taken away from us". Though he directed his followers to collect and publish their stories of persecution, he also urged them to moderate their antagonism toward non-Mormons. On April 6, 1839, after

11128-634: Was later tried and acquitted.) In June 1843, enemies of Smith convinced a reluctant Illinois Governor Thomas Ford to extradite Smith to Missouri on an old charge of treason. Two law officers arrested Smith but were intercepted by a party of Mormons before they could reach Missouri. Smith was then released on a writ of habeas corpus from the Nauvoo municipal court. While this ended the Missourians' attempts at extradition, it caused significant political fallout in Illinois. In December 1843, Smith petitioned Congress to make Nauvoo an independent territory with

11235-406: Was one of the most influential, charismatic, and innovative figures in American religious history. In a 2015 compilation of the 100 Most Significant Americans of All Time, Smithsonian ranked Smith first in the category of religious figures. In popular opinion, non-Mormons in the U.S. generally consider Smith a "charlatan, scoundrel, and heretic", while outside the U.S. he is "obscure". Within

11342-469: Was shot and killed by a mob that stormed the jailhouse. During his ministry, Smith published numerous documents and texts, many of which he attributed to divine inspiration and revelation from God . He dictated the majority of these in the first-person, saying they were the writings of ancient prophets or expressed the voice of God. His followers accepted his teachings as prophetic and revelatory, and several of these texts were canonized by denominations of

11449-455: Was visited by an angel named Moroni . Smith claimed this angel revealed the location of a buried book made of golden plates , as well as other artifacts including a breastplate and a set of interpreters composed of two seer stones set in a frame, which had been hidden in a hill near his home. Smith said he attempted to remove the plates the next morning, but was unsuccessful because Moroni returned and prevented him. He reported that during

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