Smith claimed to have translated the text from golden plates he said were revealed to him by an angel. The book's publication launched a religious movement that would grow into one of America's largest homegrown faiths, though it also triggered persecution that drove Smith's followers across the country in search of a permanent home, eventually settling in Utah.
Joseph Smith, a young farmer from upstate New York, claimed that beginning in 1823 an angel named Moroni had directed him to a buried set of golden plates inscribed with ancient text, which he said he translated over several years using seer stones placed in a hat. The resulting manuscript, dictated to scribes including Oliver Cowdery, recounted the history of ancient peoples in the Americas and their visitation by Jesus Christ, and was printed by Grandin's print shop in Palmyra in an initial run of 5,000 copies.
The book's publication on this day was less an ending than a beginning: within days, Smith and five others formally organized the Church of Christ (later the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) at Fayette, New York. The new faith attracted converts rapidly but also fierce opposition, rooted partly in theological objection and partly in the political and economic anxieties of the communities Mormons settled among.
Over the following decade and a half, Smith's followers were driven from New York to Ohio, then Missouri, then Illinois, where Smith was murdered by a mob in 1844. His successor Brigham Young eventually led the Latter-day Saints on a grueling trek west to the Salt Lake Valley in Utah, founding a community that grew into a major American religious and cultural institution, now claiming over 16 million members worldwide.
Key people: Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery