Joseph Smith, Jr. (December 23, 1805 - June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and founder of Mormonism. According to Smith, he experienced a series of visions in which an angel directed him to a buried book of golden plates inscribed with a Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American civilization. In 1830, he published what he said was an English translation of these plates, the Book of Mormon. The same year he organized the Church of Christ, calling it a restoration of the early Christian church. In 1831, Smith and his followers moved west, planning to build a communalistic American Zion. They established an outpost in Independence, Missouri. He sent out missionaries, published revelations, and supervised construction of a temple, but the collapse of a church-sponsored bank and violent skirmishes with non-Mormons caused Smith and his followers to establish a new settlement at Nauvoo, Illinois. In 1844, he angered non-Mormons when he destroyed a newspaper that had criticized his power and practice of polygamy. Smith was imprisoned and killed when a mob stormed the jailhouse. By the time of his death, at the age of 38, he had attracted tens of thousands of followers and founded a religion and religious culture that continues to the present. No artist credited, undated.