How did the Mormon leader Joseph Smith die?

Answer 1

Joseph Smith was killed by a mob while awaiting trial on spurious charges at Carthage Jail in Illinois. The armed mob of men with painted faces stormed the jail and shot him and his brother Hyrum to death.. The Wikipedia article on the subject provides a lot of detail about the subject, a link is provided.

Answer 2

Joseph Smith was shot by mobbing dissenters while awaiting trial at the jail in Carthage, Illinois. The trial was ordered because he used his power as Mayor of Nauvoo to order the destruction of an anti-Mormon printing press on the grounds that it was a disturbance of the public peace.

Answer 3

Joseph Smith was killed by a mob while awaiting trial at Carthage Jail in Illinois. He had destroyed the printing press of a newspaper that had criticised him and the Mormon Church, an action that led finally to the state governor ordering him to surrender and face charges of inciting a riot, to which a charge of treason was then added, probably because Smith had earlier declared a state of emergency in Nauvoo.

Answer 4

The early Mormon Church splintered several times. In 1844, William Law and Robert Foster, disagreed with Smith about how to manage the economy of Nauvoo, a city founded and run by the Mormons in Illinois, as well as saying that Smith had proposed marriage to both their wives. They formed a competing church and procured indictments against Smith for perjury and polygamy. On June 7, they published the Nauvoo Expositor, in which they called for reform within the church and appealed to the county's broader community.

Fearing dissent, the Nauvoo city council ordered the press used by Law and Foster to be destroyed by the Nauvoo Legion, an autonomous militia led by Joseph Smith, with the rank of Lieutenant General. Wikipedia explains that destruction of the newspaper provoked a strident call to arms from Thomas C. Sharp, editor of the Warsaw Signal and longtime critic of Smith. Fearing an uprising, Smith mobilised the Nauvoo Legion and declared martial law. A small detachment of the state militia was mobilised and Governor Thomas Ford threatening to raise a larger militia unless Smith and the Nauvoo city council surrendered themselves. Smith and his brother were jailed on a charge of inciting a riot, to which was added the charge of treason.

A mob stormed the jail and shot both Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum. The supposed reason was support for a free press, but no doubt the mob was also motivated by religious intolerance and perhaps also politics.

Answer 5

Joseph Smith was killed by an anti-Mormon mob outside Carthage Jail, who shot him through the window as he was attempting to climb out, possibly to save the other people still within.

Answer 6

He died because of religious bigotry and hate, he was shot by someone is a mob that stormed the jail where he had been arrested and was being held.

Answer 7

Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were shot and killed by a mob in the afternoon of June 27, 1844 in Carthage, Illinois.