Joseph Smith Jr. (Translator)

Joseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader who founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the principal denomination of the Latter Day Saint movement, on April 6, 1830, in Fayette, New York. Born into a poor farming family in Vermont, Smith reported his first vision in 1820 at age 14, in which he claimed to see God the Father and Jesus Christ, who, in response to his inquiry about which church was true, informed him that none of the existing churches were correct and instructed him to join no existing church. In 1823, he said the angel Moroni revealed the location of ancient golden plates buried near his home, which he retrieved in 1827 and purportedly translated into the Book of Mormon , a 500-page text published in 1830 that he presented as a historical record of ancient American peoples and their dealings with God. Smith's revelations and organizational efforts led to rapid church growth, with migrations to Ohio, Missouri, and eventually Nauvoo, Illinois, where he established a theocratic city-state with a militia, temple, and city charter by 1841. He introduced doctrines including baptism for the dead, eternal marriage, and plural marriage, the latter of which involved entering into plural sealings with an estimated 30 to 40 women, including some teenagers and already married women, which he presented as a divine commandment but practiced in secrecy due to social and legal opposition, accompanied by public denials that fueled internal dissent and external hostility. These practices, combined with economic ventures like the failed Kirtland Safety Society bank and conflicts over land and political power, provoked violence, including expulsions from Missouri and the 1844 destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor newspaper, which exposed polygamy. Smith was arrested on charges of treason and inciting a riot, and on June 27, 1844, he and his brother Hyrum were killed by a mob storming Carthage Jail. His death marked the end of his leadership but propelled the movement's westward exodus under Brigham Young, amid ongoing debates over the empirical basis of his visions and artifacts, which lack independent physical corroboration beyond testimonial accounts.

Joseph Smith Jr. was born on December 23, 1805, in Sharon, Windsor County, Vermont, to Joseph Smith Sr. (1771–1840) and Lucy Mack Smith (1775–1856). He was the fifth surviving child of eleven born to the couple, following an unnamed infant son who died shortly after birth around 1797. His surviving siblings included Alvin (1798–1823), Hyrum (1800–1844), Sophronia (1803–1876), Samuel Harrison (1808–1844), William (1811–1883), Katherine (1812–1900), Don Carlos (1816–1841), and Lucy (1821–after 1884), with some accounts noting additional early infant losses.

The Smith family descended from New England settlers; Joseph Sr.'s father, Asael Smith, had been a farmer and Revolutionary War veteran in Topsfield, Massachusetts , before relocating to Vermont amid regional land speculation and agricultural shifts in the late 18th century . Lucy Mack came from a more established family in Gilsum, New Hampshire , with her father Solomon Mack authoring a memoir detailing personal religious skepticism and later conversion experiences. The parents married in 1796 and initially settled in Tunbridge, Vermont , where Joseph Sr. pursued farming and small-scale ventures like ginseng cultivation, but these efforts yielded inconsistent results due to poor soil quality and market fluctuations common in the post-Revolutionary frontier economy.

Socioeconomically, the family occupied the lower strata of rural New England society, marked by chronic indebtedness, frequent relocations within Vermont (to Royalton, Sharon, and Norwich by 1811), and reliance on subsistence farming supplemented by seasonal labor such as coopering and day work.