Page "Mormons" Paragraph 10

Mormons trace their origins to the visions that Joseph Smith reported having in the early 1820s while living in upstate New York.

In 1823 Smith said an angel directed him to a buried book written on golden plates containing the religious history of an ancient people.

Smith published what he said was a translation of these plates in March 1830 as the Book of Mormon, named after Mormon, the ancient prophet-historian who compiled the book, and on April 6, 1830, Smith founded the Church of Christ.

The early church grew westward as Smith sent missionaries to preach the new gospel.

In 1831, the church moved to Kirtland, Ohio where missionaries had made a large number of converts and Smith began establishing an outpost in Jackson County, Missouri, where he planned to eventually build the city of Zion ( or the New Jerusalem ).

In 1833, Missouri settlers, alarmed by the rapid influx of Mormons, expelled them from Jackson County into the nearby Clay County, where local residents took them in.