Events

June 13, 1844

Nauvoo, Illinois—
Joseph Smith presided over the Nauvoo Municipal Court and discharged all of the other sixteen defendants in the Nauvoo Expositor matter.

June 13, 1844

Nauvoo, Illinois—
Joseph Smith received the report that a mob of about 300 was assembled at Carthage, Illinois, and was ready to attack Nauvoo.

June 14, 1844

Nauvoo, Illinois—
Joseph Smith dictated a letter to Illinois Governor Thomas Ford explaining the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor printing press.
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June 15, 1844

Nauvoo, Illinois—
Joseph Smith was at home examining Benjamin West's painting Death on the Pale Horse, which had been in his reading room for three days.

June 16, 1844

Nauvoo, Illinois—
Joseph Smith gave a sermon in the grove east of the Nauvoo Temple about the Godhead.

June 16, 1844

Nauvoo, Illinois—
Joseph Smith dictated letters to Illinois Governor Thomas Ford and Isaac Morley. Joseph informed Ford of a published account of an organized effort to exterminate the Saints from Illinois by force of arms. Joseph asked the governor for "immediate council and protection." Morley was an officer in the Nauvoo Legion. Joseph advised him to "cause all the troops of said Legion in your vicinity, to be in readiness to act at a moments warning" to defend the Saints against the mob.
  • Personal Writings of Joseph Smith,  Joseph Smith, 607-9
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June 17, 1844

Nauvoo, Illinois—
Joseph Smith was arrested again (see June 12) along with sixteen others for the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor and taken before Daniel H. Wells, justice of the peace, who discharged the prisoners. The Warsaw Signal called for the extermination of the Latter-day Saints from Illinois.

June 17, 1844

Nauvoo, Illinois—
Joseph Smith dictated a letter to John Smith, his uncle, at Macedonia, Illinois, informing him "that we feel determined in this place not to be dismayed if hell boils over all at once. We feel to hope for the best, and determined to prepare for the worst." Joseph counseled his uncle to retreat to Nauvoo if the mob fell upon them "with a superior force."
  • Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, Joseph Smith, pp. 610–11
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June 18, 1844

Nauvoo, Illinois—
Joseph Smith stood in full military uniform on the frame of a building and gave his final address to the Nauvoo Legion.

June 18, 1844

Nauvoo, Illinois—
Truman Gillett Jr. gives an affidavit that William Law had been involved in a plot to abduct Joseph Smith in June 1842, but Gillett had discounted the tale until learning of Law's later misdeeds.

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