1. Glen M. Leonard, Nauvoo: A&ngsp;Place of Peace, a People of Promise (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2002), 362–68, 380–98.

2. Joseph Smith Jr., History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, 2d ed., rev., 7 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1971), 6:565, 605–7 (hereafter cited as History of the Church).

3. History of the Church, 7:143–45.

4. E. Cecil McGavin, Nauvoo the Beautiful (Salt Lake City: Stevens and Wallis, 1946), 138–42.

5. Both John Taylor and Willard Richards refer to the attackers as a mob and as Missourians. Those who drove the Mormons from Far West, Missouri, in 1838 were state militia acting under the direction of their officers and the governor. In the twenty-first century, the word mob is viewed as a leaderless group acting on negative emotions.

6. For an examination of early accounts, see Dean C. Jessee, “Return to Carthage: Writing the History of Joseph Smith’s Martyrdom,” Journal of Mormon History 8 (1981): 3–19; Davis Bitton, “The Martyrdom of Joseph Smith in Early Mormon Writings,” John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 3 (1983): 29–39; and Davis Bitton, The Martyrdom Remembered: A One-Hundred-Fifty-Year Perspective on the Assassination of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Aspen Books, 1994).

7. History of the Church, 6:616–22. This source contains two accounts, one written by the editor and the other by Willard Richards titled “Two Minutes in Jail,” taken from Times and Seasons 5 (August 1, 1844): 598–99, a reprint from the Nauvoo Neighbor.

8. History of the Church, 7:102–7.

9. When standing on the platform looking north you will see the jailer’s bedroom door to your right, the stairwell directly beneath you, the north wall of the cells directly ahead, and the door that provides access to the jail cells in front of you and to your left. Unless otherwise noted, all measurements in this article were taken by the authors.

10. Joseph A. McRae and Eunice H. McRae, Historical Facts regarding the Liberty and Carthage Jails (Salt Lake City: privately published by the McRaes, 1954), 116. Page 119 has a picture of one of the interior walls of the jail (unidentified as to which room) with the plaster stripped off to show the laths.

11. We considered the possibility that the bedroom door may have been a replacement for the original door and possibly the bullet hole and bullet nicks were made at a later time; however, ample evidence negated this. Seven of the eight doors in the jail (the exception being the front door) are of the same wood, and all are handmade. The section of the door around the latch with the partial bullet holes was removed sometime after the martyrdom as a souvenir by a resident of Carthage. A Church missionary couple sent to be caretakers of the jail in the 1930s, the McRaes, heard of its existence and prevailed on the resident’s descendants to return it. The piece of wood was restored to the door, and its grain matched that of the surrounding door. McRae and McRae, Historical Facts, 99. Another item of interest related to the bedroom door was not mentioned in other accounts we found. On inspecting this door in June 1999, we found that a wedge of wood had been crudely cut, probably with a knife blade from the inside top edge of the door, a long time ago. The wedge was about twelve inches long and an inch at the top then tapering downward. Perhaps a souvenir hunter from many years ago thought the door historic enough to cut a good-sized piece off it.

12. McRae and McRae, Historical Facts, 116; James W. Woods, “The Mormon Prophet: A True Version of the Story of His Martyrdom; Reminiscences of an Old Timer, Who Was Joe Smith’s Attorney,” Ottumwa Democrat, May 13, 1885, reprinted in Journal History of the Church, June 27, 1844, Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, microfilm copy in Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. James Woods claimed to have counted thirty-five bullet holes in the walls of the room. However, his testimony of the actual martyrdom was unreliable in several details. For example, Woods confused the two brothers, saying that Joseph was wounded in the face and abdomen, but actually those were Hyrum’s wounds. Woods did go to the bedroom and spend some time looking at it and making a count of holes in the walls and ceilings.

13. Frederick Hawkins Piercy, Route from Liverpool to Great Salt Lake Valley, reprint, ed. Fawn M. Brodie (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1962), illustration xvi.

14. John Taylor describes one ball shot through the keyhole and another through the panel, striking Hyrum Smith in the face. History of the Church, 7:102.

15. McRae and McRae, Historical Facts, 98, 99.

16. The accounts by Willard Richards and John Taylor both mention a door latch, not a doorknob. Frederick Piercy’s drawing, done in 1853, shows a door latch mounted several inches higher than the current doorknob.

17. McRae and McRae, Historical Facts, 113, 120.

18. History of the Church, 6:616–22; 7:102–7. John Taylor’s comment appears in 7:103. Unfortunately, he did not further amplify this statement.

19. When Governor Ford came to Nauvoo the day Joseph and Hyrum Smith were martyred, Ford told the assembled citizens that the large number of privately owned firearms held by the Saints was a cause of prejudice among their neighbors against them (see History of the Church, 6:623). We believe the presence of these privately owned muskets was a decisive factor in keeping the men in surrounding communities from attacking Nauvoo at the time of the Smiths’ murders and in the weeks thereafter. See Leonard, Nauvoo, 114–15, 377.

20. An alternate explanation was that a 69-caliber pistol was used to shoot through the door. This was also a possibility, but it was highly unlikely. The United States made only a thousand Model 1816 flintlock pistols in 69 caliber, then changed to 54-caliber pistols, and by 1830 had produced about thirty thousand pistols in this caliber. The thousand 69-caliber pistols were sold as surplus with the adoption of the 54-caliber pistol, since musket ammunition was not suitable for use in a pistol. Norm Flayderman, Flayderman’s Guide to Antique American Firearms and Their Values, 9th ed. (Iola, Wis: Gun Digest Books, 2007), 328–29. Neither Willard Richards nor John Taylor mentions the mob being armed with or discharging pistols.

21. The U.S. Model 1795 and 1816 muskets were made at the two U.S. armories at Springfield, Massachusetts, and Harpers Ferry, Virginia, as well as by a number of independent gunmakers who received government contracts. About 150,000 Model 1795 muskets and 675,000 Model 1816 muskets were manufactured between 1795 and 1840 at the two federal arsenals; an additional 100,000 Model 1816 muskets were made by government contractors. Flayderman, Flayderman’s Guide, 538–40, 553–54. Midwest militia units were using the percussion-converted, smoothbore Model 1816 muskets as late as 1863. General Ulysses S. Grant reported exchanging about 60,000 smoothbore militia muskets for new, rifled, British-manufactured muskets imported by the Confederacy after the fall of Vicksburg in July 1863. Most of General Grant’s troops at Vicksburg were raised in the Midwest, including Illinois, and were armed with muskets supplied to the militia units of each state. Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs, ed. Caleb Carr (New York: The Modern Library, 1999), 306.

22. Caliber is a measurement of the diameter of the bore of a firearm measured in hundredths of an inch; for example, a 69-caliber musket has a barrel with an internal diameter of 0.69 inches.

23. History of the Church, 6:617.

24. History of the Church, 6:620–21.

25. In 1843 and 1844, experiments were conducted to test the gunpowder being produced at the Washington Arsenal using an 1816 musket loaded with 80 grains of black powder. Using a ballistic pendulum, the velocity of a 0.64-inch lead ball at the musket’s muzzle was estimated at 1,500 feet per second and the energy at the muzzle of 2,060 foot-pounds. Captain Alfred Mordecai, “Experiments on Gunpowder Made at the Washington Arsenal in 1843 and 1844.” Copy in possession of John Spangler, Salt Lake City. Modern black-powder loading manuals could not confirm this and suggested muzzle velocities on the order of 1,000 to 1,200 feet per second with an 80-grain powder charge. C. Kenneth Ramage, ed., Lyman Black Powder Handbook, 12th ed. (Middletown, Conn: Lyman Publications, 1997), 142. Since there were no values given for a 69-caliber ball, we have interpolated between the 58-caliber and the 75-caliber data. Cartridges were also issued that contained a 0.64-inch ball and three 0.33-inch balls. These cartridges were used primarily for guard duty and referred to as “buck and ball.” There is no evidence that such were used by those who killed the Smith brothers.

26. Woods, “Mormon Prophet”; B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1965), 2:279–81 (hereafter cited as Comprehensive History).

27. History of the Church, 7:104.

28. History of the Church, 6:619. The front door to the jail had been replaced sometime in the past. McRae and McRae, Historical Facts, 120.

29. History of the Church, 6:616; 7:102.

30. Comprehensive History, 2:284.

31. History of the Church, 7:102.

32. History of the Church, 7:102.

33. While shooting one day Joseph Lyon was hit on left side of his face with burning powder particles from a 54-caliber flintlock pistol that was fired from about five feet to his left. It was quite painful even though the grains of powder did not break the skin.

34. History of the Church, 6:619.

35. History of the Church, 7:102.

36. History of the Church, 6:617, 619; 7:102.

37. Pearson H. Corbett, Hyrum Smith: Patriarch (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1963), 86.

38. History of the Church, 7:102.

39. History of the Church, 6:617; Shannon M. Tracy, In Search of Joseph (Orem, Utah: Kenninghouse, 1995), 57. See also, “Findings of the Coroner’s Jury on the Carthage Tragedy,” Deseret Evening News, September 12, 1890.

40. Richard Neil Ord and Gayle G. Ord, “Artifacts of the Martyrdom,” unpublished draft manuscript in authors’ possession; Tracy, In Search of Joseph, 41–43, 52–53.

41. Ord and Ord, “Artifacts of the Martyrdom.” Photographs of the clothing are printed in Tracy, In Search of Joseph, 75–77.

42. We had not noticed that the vest had a large piece of fabric removed from the right side until Eldred Smith pointed it out and told us he had stitched the fabric together to hide the defect.

43. Joseph L. Lyon, “Hyrum Smith’s Clothes and Pocket Watch,” notes on a visit with Eldred G. Smith, Salt Lake City, April 26, 1999, in authors’ possession.

44. History of the Church, 6:619; 7:102, 107.

45. History of the Church, 6:629. A musket ball shot through the floor of the mouth would have passed upward through the hard palate, through the bottom of the skull, and into the brain. The short distance between the hallway and Hyrum Smith’s body means the ball would have passed though the top of the skull, shattering it. In the pictures of the Smith brothers’ skulls taken in January 1928 at the time of their reburial, there was no evidence of fractures to the top or back of either skull. Compare with Tracy, In Search of Joseph, 52, 53.

46. Joseph L. Lyon, “Cast of Hyrum Smith’s Death Mask,” notes of a meeting with Grant Fairbanks, M.D., April 25, 1999, copy in authors’ possession.

47. Tracy, In Search of Joseph, 41–43.

48. The skull we have identified as Hyrum Smith’s was originally identified as Joseph Smith’s. Shannon Tracy asserted that the skulls of the Smith brothers were misidentified when they were reburied in 1928 by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now Community of Christ). We concur with this assertion. The skull identified by the excavators as Hyrum Smith’s had no hole in the left maxilla, but a small defect to the right maxilla. The skull identified as Joseph Smith’s was missing the bones of the nose, the floor of the mouth, the frontal sinuses and upper jaws. This would be consistent with a traumatic fracture to these structures such as that caused by a 69-caliber musket ball striking the left maxilla. Tracy, In Search of Joseph, 48–60.

49. History of the Church, 7:102; 6:620.

50. History of the Church, 6:617, 620; 7:102–3. Writing about Joseph Smith’s assassination for Atlantic Monthly in 1869, John Hay, who knew many of the attackers personally, reflected their anger that the victims were armed and blamed the “Jack Mormon” sheriff of Hancock County, Miner Deming, for allowing the prisoners to have firearms. John Hay, “The Mormon Prophet’s Tragedy,” Atlantic Monthly 24 (December 1869): 676.

51. Flayderman, Flayderman’s Guide, 56–57.

52. History of the Church, 6:620; 7:103.

53. History of the Church, 7:103. B. H. Roberts quoted John Hay, who said that four men were wounded and that three of the wounds were in the upper arms and one in the face. One man was said to have died at a later time from an arm wound. See Comprehensive History, 2:285 n. 19.

54. History of the Church, 6:607–8.

55. History of the Church, 7:103–4.

56. History of the Church, 7:104.

57. History of the Church, 7:104–5.

58. Leonard, Nauvoo, 397 n. 47; Ord and Ord, “Artifacts of the Martyrdom.”

59. History of the Church, 6:620.

60. In our minds, John Taylor’s account is subject to two interpretations concerning the window to which he ran. His 1856 account said, “I made a spring for the window which was right in front of the jail door, where the mob was standing.” History of the Church, 7:104. The south window in the bedroom looks down on the front door of the jail, and there were people standing in front of that door. John Taylor’s use of the words “jail door” could also refer to the door to the jailer’s bedroom, but he refers to the bedroom door simply as “the door” adding no modifier in the other parts of his account. He does use the words “jail door” once again in his account: “Immediately afterwards I saw the doctor going toward the jail door, and as there was an iron door at the head of the stairs adjoining our door which led into the cells for criminals, it struck me that the doctor was going in there, and I said to him, ‘Stop, Doctor, and take me along.’ He proceeded to the door and opened it, and then returned and dragged me along to a small cell prepared for criminals.” Here, John Taylor uses “jail door” to mean the entrance into the iron-barred cells on the north end of the second floor. B. H. Roberts wrote, “[John Taylor] rolled under the bed, which was at the right of the window in the south-east corner of the room.” History of the Church, 6:618. Willard Richards adds, “Joseph attempted, as the last resort, to leap the same window from whence Mr. Taylor fell.” Willard Richards’s account was written closer to the event, so the east window is most likely, but it presents a problem. To reach the relative safety under the bed, John Taylor would have had to crawl backward, facing the door and dragging his already wounded left leg. This would have been much more difficult than crawling forward if he was wounded by the south window. We know this because he was again wounded in his left arm, hip, and leg before reaching the bed, so his left side had to be facing the bedroom door.

61. “Findings of the Coroner’s Jury.” For example, only two of Hyrum Smith’s six wounds are mentioned.

62. Richard Bruce Winders, Mr. Polk’s Army (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1997), 92–94; Ernest F. Fisher Jr., “Weapons and Equipment Evolution and Its Influence upon the Organization and Tactics in the American Army, 1775–1963,” unpublished manuscript, Office of the Chief of Military History, 1963, File 2-3.7, AB.Z, U.S. Army Center of Military History (CMH), Washington, D.C. A summary can be found at http://www.history.army.mil/StaffRide/Antietam/Small_Arms.htm.

63. History of the Church, 7:103. John Taylor states, “Every moment the crowd at the door became more dense, as they were unquestionably pressed on by those in the rear ascending the stairs, until the whole entrance at the door was literally crowded with muskets and rifles.” He did not further define the use of the word rifle.

64. History of the Church, 6:619–20; 7:102–4.

65. History of the Church, 6:620.

66. History of the Church, 6:620, 627; Willard Richards to Brigham Young, June 30, 1844, in History of the Church, 7:147–48; Jessee, “Return to Carthage,” 17 n. 30.

67. History of the Church, 6:619–20, 627; Willard Richards to Brigham Young, June 30, 1844, in History of the Church, 7:147.

68. Willard Richards and John Taylor to Elder Reuben Hedlock and the Saints in the British Empire, July 9, 1844, in Journal History.

69. History of the Church, 6:619–20. The clothes Hyrum Smith was wearing when he was shot are in the possession of his great-grandson Eldred G. Smith. There was an entrance hole through the left trouser leg, another hole through the back of the right trouser leg, and a hole through the back of the right side of his vest, pants, and shirt. The right edge of the front of the vest had also lost an irregular section of fabric approximately two inches wide by three inches long. The defect in the vest was larger at the top and came to a point at the bottom. It had been stated that this defect was made by a musket ball that struck Hyrum Smith’s chest and then continued into the floor of his mouth. But the defect in the fabric was broad at the top, coming to a point at the bottom, instead suggesting it was made by a musket ball exiting the skull and tearing the fabric from the top downward. The lack of damage to the top of the skull also suggested the damage to the fabric was made by an exiting musket ball. Lyon, “Hyrum Smith’s Clothes and Pocket Watch.” See also Tracy, In Search of Joseph, 75–77.

70. See Leonard, Nauvoo, 397 n. 50.

71. Woods, “Mormon Prophet.”

72. Willard Richards to Brigham Young, June 30, 1844, in History of the Church, 7:147. The wounds reported by Willard Richards in Joseph Smith’s body do not support the story that he was propped up against the well and shot by a firing party of four men after he fell to the ground. Willard Richards counted four wounds in Joseph Smith’s body, two of them in the chest. Both of the chest wounds are believed to have occurred when Joseph Smith was trying to jump from the window. The wound Willard Richards mentioned above Joseph Smith’s clavicle probably was an exit wound; had he been shot after falling to the ground, we would expect Richards to have found three or four more chest wounds.

73. History of the Church, 6:618; Willard Richards to Brigham Young, June 30, 1844, in History of the Church, 7:147.

74. History of the Church, 7:104; Ord and Ord, “Artifacts of the Martyrdom”; Leonard, Nauvoo, 397 n. 47.

75. History of the Church, 6:619.

76. Woods, “Mormon Prophet.”

77. History of the Church, 7:102; History of the Church, 6:617, 619–20.

78. Comprehensive History, 2:256; Piercy, Route from Liverpool, illustration xv. No trees are evident in a woodcut published in William M. Daniels, A Correct Account of the Murder of Generals Joseph and Hyrum Smith at Carthage, on the 27th Day of June; 1844 by Wm. M. Daniels, an Eye Witness (Nauvoo, Ill.: John Taylor, 1845), nor in an engraved version of the image in a later publication. See the illustration in Leonard, Nauvoo, 393.

79. Lyon, “Hyrum Smith’s Clothes and Pocket Watch.”

80. History of the Church, 7:107.

81. History of the Church, 6:621; 7:102–7.

82. History of the Church, 6:621.

83. While testing an 1816 musket’s effect on pocket watches on June 26, 1999, we fired a musket about six inches from a cloth pocket holding a pocket watch. The muzzle blast set the fabric on fire and left a charred hole, about one inch in diameter, in the cloth.

84. History of the Church, 6:620.

85. History of the Church, 6:619–20, 627; Tracy, In Search of Joseph, 56–57; and our physical investigations as noted above.

86. Notes describing test of firepower of a Model 1816 musket, conducted by John Spangler and authors, May 12, 2001, copy in authors’ possession.

87. Even though it duplicated the hardness of the human skull, including the thickness and resistance to breaking, this imitation did not replicate some of the finer details of a human skull.

88. A flintlock-ignited musket was not available to the authors for this experiment. A percussion-cap-ignited musket, the next best alternative, was used instead. The difference in muzzle energy between a flintlock-ignited musket and a percussion-cap-ignited musket was negligible, so the results of the experiment would have been similar regardless of which weapon was used.

Joseph L. Lyon

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