| Joseph Smith organized the Mormon religion after experiencing a series of visions from 1827 to 1830 that called him to restore true Christianity. Smith translated the Book of Mormon from gold plates that he said the angel Moroni revealed to him. The new religion, officially called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, drew converts rapidly. Due to severe persecution by outsiders, the Mormons fled from New York to Ohio and Illinois. A mob, suspicious of the economic and political power of the Mormons, as well as the Mormon practice of polygamy, killed Smith in Carthage, Illinois, in 1844. |