Today marks one of the darkest days in this country's history. 176 years ago at about five in the afternoon, a mob of about a hundred men stormed a quiet city in Illinois headed for the jailhouse. The prison guard, already left understaffed, fired a few shots over the heads of the mob before they breached the doors of the prison. Their intent: to kill the Prophet of God held inside.
The four men in the jail at the time, Joseph and Hyrum Smith, John Taylor, and Willard Richards, were aware that the day they had shared together might be their last. Before leaving for Carthage, Joseph had declared,
I am going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer’s morning; I have a conscience void of offense towards God, and towards all men. I SHALL DIE INNOCENT, AND IT SHALL YET BE SAID OF ME—HE WAS MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD. (D&C 135:4)
Later, when incarcerated in the prison even though no trial had taken place, John Taylor sang "The Stranger and His Friend," a hymn recently gaining favor among the Saints and more commonly known today as "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief." The song struck near the hearts of the prisoners given their circumstances:
Stript, wounded, beaten nigh to death,
I found him by the highway side.
I roused his pulse, brought back his breath,
Revived his spirit, and supplied
Wine, oil, refreshment—he was healed.
I had myself a wound concealed,
But from that hour forgot the smart,
And peace bound up my broken heart.
In pris’n I saw him next, condemned
To meet a traitor’s doom at morn.
The tide of lying tongues I stemmed,
And honored him ’mid shame and scorn.
My friendship’s utmost zeal to try,
He asked if I for him would die.
The flesh was weak; my blood ran chill,
But my free spirit cried, “I will!”
Then in a moment to my view
The stranger started from disguise.
The tokens in his hands I knew;
The Savior stood before mine eyes.
He spake, and my poor name he named,
“Of me thou hast not been ashamed.
These deeds shall thy memorial be;
Fear not, thou didst them unto me.” (Hymns, 29)
As the time drew nearer, Joseph approached Willard Richards and asked if he would be willing to stay in the fated room. His response showed the utmost loyalty a friend could ever show in a time of need:
Brother Joseph, you did not ask me to cross the with you. You did not ask me to come to Carthage. You did not ask me to come to Jail with you, and do you think I would forsake you now? But I will tell you what I will do— if you are condemned to be hung for treason I will be hung in your stead and you shall go free.
Joseph responded "You cannot!" but the friend said more resolutely "I will!" (1). Of the four men, Willard Richards would be the only one to walk away without a bullet hole in his clothes, with only a grazed ear.
Finally, the mob came. with murder in their hearts they stormed the jail, making their way upstairs to where the incarcerated were. Joseph and the others attempted to hold them back. Shooting through the door, Hyrum was struck in the face and fell to the floor saying, "I am a dead man!" (D&C 135:1). Joseph, having a small gun in his possession, fired a few shots through the crack in the door before rushing to the window.
John Taylor had previously been shot by the mob through the window, and having been shot multiple times by the mob that were both inside and outside the jail, it is only by divine providence that he survived.
So why would Joseph, knowing that there was no hope in escaping through the window, run towards it? It is perhaps the greatest act of love that Christ Himself showed: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13). As the mob burst through the door they saw their target, and as the mob under the window likewise saw their target, it allowed them to take the life of a Prophet in hopes that they would leave Willard Richards and John Taylor be.
Making a masonic distress signal with his hands, Joseph cried out "O Lord my God!" before he was shot and fell through the window (2). The mob, partially consisting of Masons, would have recognized the sign for help, but no help would come from the duty-bound fraternal brothers.
Many tributes have been written to the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum by believers and non-believers alike. Josiah Quincy, who had met Joseph in Nauvoo earlier that year, wrote:
It is by no means improbable that some future textbook, for the use of generations yet unborn, will contain a question something like this: What historical American of the nineteenth century has exerted the most powerful influence upon the destinies of his countrymen? And it is by no means impossible that the answer to that interrogatory may be thus written: Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet [sic]. And the reply, absurd as it doubtless seems to most men now living, may be an obvious commonplace to their descendants. History deals in surprises and paradoxes quite as startling as this. The man who established a religion in this age of free debate, who was and is today accepted by hundreds of thousands as a direct emissary from the Most High — such a rare human being is not to be disposed of by pelting his memory with unsavory epithets. Fanatic, imposter, charlatan, he may have been; but these hard names furnish no solution to the problem he presents to us. Fanatics and impostors are living and dying every day, and their memory is buried with them; but the wonderful influence which this founder of a religion exerted and still exerts throws him into relief before us, not as a rogue to be criminated, but as a phenomenon to be explained. (3)
John Taylor would go on to pen the announcement of the martyrdom, now canonized in the Doctrine and Covenants:
Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it. In the short space of twenty years, he has brought forth the Book of Mormon, which he translated by the gift and power of God, and has been the means of publishing it on two continents; has sent the fulness of the everlasting gospel, which it contained, to the four quarters of the earth; has brought forth the revelations and commandments which compose this book of Doctrine and Covenants, and many other wise documents and instructions for the benefit of the children of men; gathered many thousands of the Latter-day Saints, founded a great city, and left a fame and name that cannot be slain. He lived great, and he died great in the eyes of God and his people; and like most of the Lord’s anointed in ancient times, has sealed his mission and his works with his own blood; and so has his brother Hyrum. In life they were not divided, and in death they were not separated!...They lived for glory; they died for glory; and glory is their eternal reward. (D&C 135:3, 6)
William W. Phelps would go on to pen a poem Praise to the Man, now a staple of hymnals to believing Latter-day Saints around the world. Martyred though the two men may have been, millions would know Brother Joseph again.
It is here that I add my tribute alongside these men. Joseph and Hyrum Smith, the brother martyrs, have laid down their lives void of offense towards God. They have done a work no man could have done alone. Joseph, only by the gift and power of God, brought forth the Book of Mormon, the Priesthood, Temple ordinances, and all that the Restoration has to offer by the will and divine providence of the Almighty. Hyrum, Patriarch and Assistant President to the Church, witnessed of his brother's divine call all the days of his life, and like his brother, sealed his testimony with his blood. No two greater men have blessed the world in the latter days as witnesses to the Almighty God and Jesus Christ. The legacy they leave behind is one of patience, perseverance, and complete and utter faith in God and sacrifice to Him, not even withholding their lives when necessary. They lived great and died great, and will surely inherit eternal glory in the celestial realms above.
NOTES
1. "Appendix 3: Willard Richards, Journal Excerpt, 23–27 June 1844," p. [36], The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed June 27, 2020, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/appendix-3-willard-richards-journal-excerpt-23-27-june-1844/18 . Spelling and punctuation modernized for readability.
2. Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 550.
3. Josiah Quincy, Figures of the Past From the Leaves of Old Journals, 3rd ed (Boston, 1883), pp. 376-400.
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