In the years following JS’s death, many church members believed that the murders of JS and Hyrum Smith were the result of a widespread conspiracy that may have included not only Illinois governor Thomas Ford but other national political leaders. In an August 1844 epistle, Brigham Young alluded to such a conspiracy as he warned against corrupt politicians at all levels: “As rulers and people have taken counsel together against the Lord; and against his annointed, and have murdered him who would have reformed and saved the nation, it is not wisdom for the Saints to have any thing to do with politics, voting, or president-making, at present.” In a later account Stephen Markham reported that a political meeting took place at Hamilton Hotel in Carthage the afternoon before the murders, which he claimed was attended by representatives from nearly every state and which to him suggested that JS’s murder was a premeditated conspiracy. Nevertheless, evidence strongly suggests that the murders of JS and Hyrum Smith were perpetrated by Hancock County militia from Carthage and Warsaw who were not involved in a broader national conspiracy. (Brigham Young, “An Epistle of the Twelve,” Times and Seasons, 15 Aug. 1844, 5:619; Stephen Markham, Fort Supply, Utah Territory, to Wilford Woodruff, Great Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, 20 June 1856, Historian’s Office, JS History Documents, ca. 1839–1860, CHL; Oaks and Hill, Carthage Conspiracy, chap. 2; Marsh, “Respectable Assassins,” 1, 21–44, 50.)

Times and Seasons. Commerce/Nauvoo, IL. Nov. 1839–Feb. 1846.

Historian’s Office. Joseph Smith History Documents, 1839–1860. CHL. CR 100 396.

Oaks, Dallin H., and Marvin S. Hill. Carthage Conspiracy: The Trial of the Accused Assassins of Joseph Smith. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975.

Marsh, Debra Jo. “Respectable Assassins: A Collective Biography and Socio-economic Study of the Carthage Mob.” Master’s thesis, University of Utah, 2009.

See Council of Fifty, “Record,” 11 Mar. 1845.