Welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast, hosted by historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmont,

where we explore the early days of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

and gain rare historical insights into how a young farm boy was able to establish a new church

and grow it by way of visions, manifestations,

and miracles.

Hi, welcome to a special episode of the Standard of Truth podcast.

Today we thought we would talk a little bit about the martyrdom of

Joseph Smith as we are approaching the 177th anniversary of his murder. There are a lot of things

that we could cover with this, but we will cover at least some of them as we go through and hopefully

give all of our listeners a better understanding of some of the events that led to that awful

tragedy and of course one of the most important aspects of church history. I think probably

if you had to find a place to start, I mean, you could start pretty far back if you're trying

to find a start to the persecution of Joseph Smith. I mean, as he explains from the moment he tells anyone about the first vision,

he's already has a problem with other people.

But shortly after the Latter-day Saints are driven out of Missouri,

you have them living as refugees in Illinois, the good people

of Quincy take them in, and they make the determination to purchase land further up the river

in Commerce, Illinois and outside of it, which is later to be renamed Navu.

Now, they are able to organize their city in such a way that they get an immense amount of power.

And that's actually a little bit by design.

Illinois at the time is controlled by the Democratic Party.

Now, there are two parties in America at the time to major parties.

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