In January 1841, Smith declared in a revelation that Latter Day Saint Robert D. Foster should fulfill the contract he had entered into to build a house for Smith to live in.[1] The house was constructed by Foster, and the Smith family moved into the Mansion House on August 31, 1843.[2] The house was a two-storey building built of white pine in the Greek Revival style.[3]
Initially, Smith used the house to entertain guests in Nauvoo, giving visitors free room and board. However, because he was unable to cover the expenses that this free lodging entailed, Smith began charging guests in September 1843 and running the Mansion House as a hotel. A sign posted on the front of his house on September 15, 1843 read:
In consequence of my house being constantly crowded with strangers and other persons wishing to see me, or who had business in the city, I found myself unable to support so much company free of charge, which I have done from the foundation of the Church. My house has been a home and restingplace for thousands, and my family many times obliged to do without food, after having fed all they had to visitors; and I could have continued the same liberal course, had it not been for the cruel and untiring persecution of my relentless enemies. I have been reduced to the necessity of opening "The Mansion" as a hotel. I have provided the best table accommodations in the city; and the Mansion, being large and convenient, renders travelers more comfortable than any other place on the Upper Mississippi. I have erected a large and commodious brick stable, and it is capable of accommodating seventy-five horses at one time, storing the requisite amount of forage, and is unsurpassed by any similar establishment in the State.[4]
At one point Smith had installed a bar, but quickly reversed his action at the request of his wife, Emma.[5] In January 1844, Smith leased the hotel to Ebenezer Robinson, who continued to operate it.[6]
The mummies and papyri from which the Book of Abraham is claimed to be derived were also displayed to visitors in the mansion house for 25 cents.[7]
After Smith and his brother Hyrum were killed in Carthage Jail in June 1844, their bodies were displayed in the Mansion House, where approximately ten thousand people viewed the bodies on June 29.[9]George Q. Cannon constructed the Smiths' death masks in the house.[10]
Emma Smith and her children continued to live in the Mansion House. After Emma Smith married Lewis C. Bidamon in 1847, they lived in the house until 1869, when they moved to the Nauvoo House. In the 1890s, the hotel wing of the home was removed.
The Doctrine and Covenants is a part of the open scriptural canon of several denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement. Originally published in 1835 as Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of the Latter Day Saints: Carefully Selected from the Revelations of God, editions of the book continue to be printed mainly by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ.
Nauvoo is a small city in Hancock County, Illinois, United States, on the Mississippi River near Fort Madison, Iowa. The population of Nauvoo was 950 at the 2020 census. Nauvoo attracts visitors for its historic importance and its religious significance to members of several groups: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; the Community of Christ, formerly the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS); other groups stemming from the Latter Day Saint movement; and the Icarians. The city and its immediate surrounding area are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Nauvoo Historic District.
Emma Hale Smith Bidamon was an American homesteader, the first wife of Joseph Smith, and a prominent leader in the early days of the Latter Day Saint movement, both during Smith's lifetime and afterward as a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. In 1842, when the Ladies' Relief Society of Nauvoo was formed as a women's service organization, she was elected by its members as the organization's first president.
Washing and anointing is a ritual purification ordinance, similar to chrismation, that is part of the temple endowment ceremony practiced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and Mormon fundamentalists.
Joseph Smith III was the eldest surviving son of Joseph Smith and Emma Hale Smith. Joseph Smith III was the Prophet-President of what became the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, renamed Community of Christ in 2001, which considers itself a continuation of the church established by Smith's father in 1830. For fifty-four years until his own death, Smith presided over the church. Smith's moderate ideas and nature set much of the tone for the church's development, earning him the sobriquet of "the pragmatic prophet".
William Marks was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and was a member of the First Presidency in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Marks is mentioned in the Doctrine and Covenants in sections 117 and 124 of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints edition and in section 115 of the Community of Christ edition.
The Kirtland Temple is the first temple built by adherents of the Latter Day Saint movement and is located in Kirtland, Ohio, United States. Designed by Joseph Smith, the founder and original leader of the movement, the architecture mixes the Federal, Greek Revival, and Gothic Revival architectural styles. The temple was owned and operated by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS) for more than a century. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has owned the site since March 5, 2024. It has been a National Historic Landmark since 1969.
William Smith was a leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and one of the original members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Smith was the eighth child of Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith and was a younger brother of Joseph Smith Jr., the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement.
In the Latter Day Saint movement, a temple is a building dedicated to being a house of God and is reserved for special forms of worship. A temple differs from a church meetinghouse, which is used for weekly worship services. Temples have been a significant part of the Latter Day Saint movement since early in its inception. Today, temples are operated by several Latter Day Saint denominations. The most prolific builder of temples of the Latter Day Saint movement is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The LDS Church has 335 temples in various phases, which includes 188 dedicated temples, 53 under construction, and 94 others announced. Several others within the movement have built or attempted to build temples. The Community of Christ operates two temples in the United States, which are open to the public and are used for worship services, performances, and religious education. Other denominations with temples are the Apostolic United Brethren, the Church of Christ, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and the Righteous Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Polygamy in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, or plural marriage, is generally believed to have originated with the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith. According to several of his associates, Smith taught that polygamy was a divine commandment and practiced it personally, by some accounts marrying more than 30 women, some of whom had existing marriages to other men. Evidence for Smith's polygamy is provided by the church's "sealing" records, affidavits, letters, journals, and diaries. However, until his death, Smith and the leading church quorums denied that he preached or practiced polygamy. Smith's son Joseph Smith III, his widow Emma Smith, and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints challenged the evidence and taught that Joseph Smith had opposed polygamy. They instead claimed that Brigham Young, the head of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, introduced plural marriage after Smith's death. In 1852, leaders of the Utah-based LDS Church publicly announced the doctrine of polygamy.
David Hyrum Smith was an American religious leader, poet, painter, singer, philosopher, and naturalist. The youngest son of Joseph Smith and Emma Hale Smith, he was an influential missionary and leader in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He was born approximately five months after the murder of his father. Joseph told Emma before he died what the child's name should be. From December 1847, David was raised by his mother and her second husband, Lewis C. Bidamon.
The life of Joseph Smith from 1839 to 1844, when he was 34–38 years old, covers the period of Smith's life when he lived in Nauvoo, an eventful and highly controversial period of the Latter Day Saint movement. In 1844, after Smith was imprisoned in Carthage, Illinois, he was shot and killed when a mob stormed the jailhouse.
Joseph Smith, the founder and leader of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his brother, Hyrum Smith, were killed by a mob in Carthage, Illinois, United States, on June 27, 1844, while awaiting trial in the town jail.
Nauvoo Historic District is a National Historic Landmark District containing the city of Nauvoo, Illinois. The historic district is nearly coterminous with the City of Nauvoo as it was incorporated in 1840, but it also includes the Pioneer Saints Cemetery, the oldest Mormon cemetery in the area, which is outside the town boundary.
The Nauvoo House in Nauvoo, Illinois, was to be a boarding house that Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, and his followers began constructing in the 1840s. The boarding house was never completed, but the structure was later converted into a residential home and renamed the Riverside Mansion. The Nauvoo House, as it is referred to today, is part of the Nauvoo Historic District, a National Historic Landmark.
The Kirtland Temple Suit is an 1880 Ohio legal case that is often cited as the case that awarded ownership of the Kirtland Temple to the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Though the case was dismissed by the court, the publication of the court's findings of fact—as if they had been the decision of the court—reinforced the belief by members of the RLDS Church and others that the court had considered the RLDS Church, and not the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the rightful legal successor to the Latter Day Saint church established by Joseph Smith in 1830.
In the theology of the Latter Day Saint movement, an endowment refers to a gift of "power from on high", typically associated with the ordinances performed in Latter Day Saint temples. The purpose and meaning of the endowment varied during the life of movement founder Joseph Smith. The term has referred to many such gifts of heavenly power, including the confirmation ritual, the institution of the High Priesthood in 1831, events and rituals occurring in the Kirtland Temple in the mid-1830s, and an elaborate ritual performed in the Nauvoo Temple in the 1840s.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the life and influence of Joseph Smith:
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