On December 1, 1838, Missouri authorities imprisoned Joseph Smith, his brother Hyrum, Sidney Rigdon, Lyman Wight, Caleb Baldwin, and Alexander McRae in a jail in Liberty, Missouri, for crimes allegedly committed during conflicts with other Missourians over the past several months. They had surrendered two weeks earlier after Missouri governor Lilburn W. Boggs ordered that Mormons be driven from the state or be exterminated. An initial hearing in Richmond, Missouri, found sufficient evidence that Church leaders had committed crimes against the state of Missouri, and the court ordered that they be held in the Clay County Jail in Liberty until their trial in late spring 1839.

On June 27, 1844, the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were martyred—killed by a mob that attacked them in Carthage Jail, located in Carthage, Illinois. The original jail has been carefully restored and is about a 30-minute drive from Historic Nauvoo.

At Carthage Jail, missionaries lead tours where visitors learn about the ministry of Joseph Smith and the final days in the life of Joseph and Hyrum. Latter-day Saint scripture asserts that Joseph “sealed his mission and his works with his own blood; and so [did] his brother Hyrum. In life they were not divided, and in death they were not separated!” ( Doctrine and Covenants 135:3 ).

Exodus from Nauvoo

At the final dedicatory service for the Nauvoo Illinois Temple on June 30, 2002, President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) asked those in attendance to walk down Parley Street to the waterfront on the Mississippi River. Though it was a hot, humid day, President Hinckley asked everyone to imagine that it was a bitter-cold day in February 1846. That summer evening, more than one thousand Latter-day Saints walked down Parley Street, now referred to as the Trail of Hope.