Mormons

Mormons, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, founded in 1830 by Joseph Smith. Mormons accept Smith as having miraculously found and translated a divinely inspired record of the early history and religion of America, the Book of Mormon. With Smith's own writings and the Bible, this forms the Mormon scriptures. The Mormons' attempts to settle in Ohio and Missouri met with recurrent persecution, culminating in the murder of Smith in 1844. In 1847 Brigham Young led the Mormons west to Salt Lake City (still the location of their chief temple). In 1850 Congress granted them the Territory of Utah, with Young as governor. Hostility to the flourishing agricultural community that developed focused on the Mormon sanction of polygamy and came to a climax with the “Utah War” (1857–58). In 1890 the Mormons abolished polygamy, and Utah was admitted to the Union in 1896. The Mormons have a president and counselors; their membership is about 3 million.

See also: Utah; Young, Brigham.