Between 1800 and the Civil War, evangelical Protestantism became the "grand absorbing theme" of American religious life. During some years in the first half of the nineteenth century, revivals occurred so often that religious publications that specialized in tracking them lost count. The Smiths, hardscrabble tenant farmers living in western New York, were among those caught up in the era's religious fervor. 14-year old Joseph Smith, the eldest son, wanted desperately to believe, but found all the alternatives unsatisfying. "[I] wanted to get religion too, wanted to feel and shout like the rest but could feel nothing," he told a friend. Finally he went to a secluded place in the forest to ask God which of the many religions he should join. According to his account, the Father and the Son appeared to him. Assuring young Smith that his sins were forgiven, Jesus told him that none of the churches were right and that he should join none. When he told a few local preachers of this vision, he was greeted with skepticism and open scorn, and grew increasingly alienated from mainstream churches.

Three years later Smith would report another visitation, this time from an angel named Moroni. This angel showed him a hill near his home where sacred golden tablets had been buried. He also told him that he would have to return to this "Hill Cumorah" every year to receive further revelations until he was spiritually prepared to translate the tablets. Four years later, on September 21, 1827, he retrieved the plates and, with the aid of scrying-stones provided for the purpose, began translating the "Book of Mormon." At first only Smith was permitted to see the plates: later Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris would report that they had seen the plates, and the Angel Moroni. In later years all three would be excommunicated from the Church, but none would ever deny their experience. By 1830 the 'Book of Mormon" would be translated and published… and Joseph Smith would find himself the leader of a religious movement.

The Book of Mormon chronicled the adventures of a tribe of Israelites who had fled persecution and escaped to America to found a "New Zion." In further revelations, Smith claimed that he and his followers - the Latter-Day Saints -- were to found Zion in Missouri and prepare for Christ's return. He also advised against drinking coffee, tea and other 'hot drinks' and sent missionaries out to various Native American tribes, claiming they were actually the ancestors of the "Lamanites" who had come from the Holy Land. By the spring of 1831 Smith, along with most of his followers, moved to Ohio. There he established a bank, a printing press, and a newspaper supervised the building of the Church's first temple and initiated extensive missionary work in the United States, Canada and England. Only twenty-six years old, Smith's rise from an uneducated farmer and itinerant seer and "treasure finder" was meteoric - some even called it miraculous.

Others were more skeptical. While many were attracted to Smith's message that Heaven was not hard to attain and that every person contained some divinity which could be augmented indefinitely, transforming the human into a god, others saw this as blasphemy. In 1832 Smith was tarred and feathered by an angry mob in Hiram, Ohio; in 1838 he and a large percentage of his followers were forced to relocate to Missouri as the "gentiles" in Ohio grew increasingly hostile to this cult. (Skeptics have suggested that Smith left Ohio for Missouri one step ahead of his creditors, after his bank's failure … and have pointed out that Mormon militias were given to counterattacks against "enemies of the faith" and lapsed Mormons).

By 1839 Smith had come to Illinois, where he founded Nauvoo. This Mormon stronghold soon came to rival Chicago in size, and Joseph Smith became mayor. From this island of relative stability, he began expounding further upon Church doctrines. Among these doctrines was "plural marriage" - the idea that saints and prophets could, like the Old Testament prophets, have multiple wives. This teaching was controversial for nonbelievers and Mormons alike: by 1844 a movement was afoot among Mormon dissenters to oust Smith as a "fallen prophet." When Smith, with the backing of his City Council, ordered that the presses for their paper (the Nauvoo Expositor) be destroyed as a "threat to public order," he was arrested and charged with incitement to riot. He was taken to the Carthage Jail to await a hearing. On June 27, 1844 rioters broke into the jail and shot Smith and his brother Hyrum. His body was brought home to Nauvoo, and his funeral attended by 10,000 Mormons. Today over 10 million people accept the Book of Mormon as divine revelation.