Jul 10, 2026 · 45 min · 13 segments
Why was Joseph Smith killed? What new doctrines did Joseph Smith teach in his final year? Why did Joseph Smith run for President of the United States in 1844? What was the Nauvoo Expositor newspaper?…
And many more were at least very intrigued by this new phenomena on the American frontier.
He was a 37-year-old who had produced a rapidly growing, full-blown religious system, complete with ceremonies, temples, ecclesiastical structures, and hundreds and hundreds of pages of revelations that tens of thousands now regarded as scripture.
Earlier, the saints had thought of Joseph knocking at heaven's door and learning from God through formal revelations.
By Nauvoo, he was considered an experienced heavenly traveler who knew the ways of the ancient prophets, conversed with angels, and might at any moment pass along gems of truth.
Still, the primary driver of conversions was what it still is to this day, missionaries sharing the Book of Mormon, and the number of converts was growing by the day.
For over a decade, he had been calling the saints to gather, and now, after toil, failures, and even bloodshed, he seemed to finally be on his way to building something real.
By 1843, Nauvoo was larger than Chicago, and when Joseph was not involved in ministry in the church, he was fulfilling his civic and legal duties as mayor of Nauvoo.
So in this era of larger-than-life frontier characters, the 37-year-old Joseph Smith was seemed to fit right in, and was known to indulge in the occasional bout of frontier boasting famous in that era.
The literary scholar Kenneth Lynn, in a meditation on frontier humor, asks what motivated classic frontier boasts.
Lynn says frontiersmen sometimes staged a ludicrously savage exhibition to purposely shock Eastern visitors, gaining a splendid revenge on the sophisticates and thus making the would-be laughers laughable.
Joseph's extravagant claims punctured the pretensions of the learned who looked down their noses at his pitiful collection of followers.
Lynn said of Davy Crockett, every defeat, big or small, was an unforgivable insult.
In that spirit, Joseph summed up his feelings by once declaring, I bear record this morning that all the combined powers of the earth and hell shall not overcome this boy.
And while Joseph did indulge from time to time in the 1840s version of trolling on Twitter, these exaggerated frontier boasts were meant to push back on the pretentious critics of him and his working class friends.
It should be remembered that in more serious moments, Joseph explicitly told people that he was not better than they were, and he enjoyed nothing more than being with the ordinary people that he called his
And many more were at least very intrigued by this new phenomena on the American frontier.
He was a 37-year-old who had produced a rapidly growing, full-blown religious system, complete with ceremonies, temples, ecclesiastical structures, and hundreds and hundreds of pages of revelations that tens of thousands now regarded as scripture.
Earlier, the saints had thought of Joseph knocking at heaven's door and learning from God through formal revelations.
By Nauvoo, he was considered an experienced heavenly traveler who knew the ways of the ancient prophets, conversed with angels, and might at any moment pass along gems of truth.
Still, the primary driver of conversions was what it still is to this day, missionaries sharing the Book of Mormon, and the number of converts was growing by the day.
For over a decade, he had been calling the saints to gather, and now, after toil, failures, and even bloodshed, he seemed to finally be on his way to building something real.
By 1843, Nauvoo was larger than Chicago, and when Joseph was not involved in ministry in the church, he was fulfilling his civic and legal duties as mayor of Nauvoo.
So in this era of larger-than-life frontier characters, the 37-year-old Joseph Smith was seemed to fit right in, and was known to indulge in the occasional bout of frontier boasting famous in that era.
The literary scholar Kenneth Lynn, in a meditation on frontier humor, asks what motivated classic frontier boasts.
Lynn says frontiersmen sometimes staged a ludicrously savage exhibition to purposely shock Eastern visitors, gaining a splendid revenge on the sophisticates and thus making the would-be laughers laughable.
Joseph's extravagant claims punctured the pretensions of the learned who looked down their noses at his pitiful collection of followers.
Lynn said of Davy Crockett, every defeat, big or small, was an unforgivable insult.
In that spirit, Joseph summed up his feelings by once declaring, I bear record this morning that all the combined powers of the earth and hell shall not overcome this boy.
And while Joseph did indulge from time to time in the 1840s version of trolling on Twitter, these exaggerated frontier boasts were meant to push back on the pretentious critics of him and his working class friends.
It should be remembered that in more serious moments, Joseph explicitly told people that he was not better than they were, and he enjoyed nothing more than being with the ordinary people that he called his
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