Hyrum Smith (9 February 1800 – 27 June 1844) was the older brother and assistant of Joseph Smith, the founder and leader of Mormonism. The two of them were killed in a Nauvoo, Illinois prison in 1844 by an angry mob for their controversial beliefs.
Biography[]
Hyrum Smith was born on 9 February 1800 in Tunbridge, Vermont, United States, and he attended Dartmouth College in his teens. Hyrum worked as a farmer, and he worked as an assistant and confidant to his brother Joseph Smith during the years in which he founded the religion of Mormonism. Hyrum was baptized in June 1829 as one of the "Eight Witnesses" who saw the Golden Plates that Joseph had discovered, and on 6 April 1830 he was the oldest of the six founding members of the Church of Christ. From 1831 to 1833 he served proselytizing missions to Missouri and Ohio, and in 1834 he raised a militia to aid Mormons in self-defense in Missouri. Smith and his brother were both arrested in Nauvoo, Illinois for destroying a newspaper after an anti-Mormon publication, and on 27 June 1844 a mob of angry men stormed the prison. Smith was shot twice, and his last words were, "I am a dead man", uttered after he was shot in the face while trying to barricade the door.