Joseph SmithJoseph Smith Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was a religious leader in the United States who founded Mormonism and the Latter Day Saint movement. By the time Smith died fourteen years later, he had garnered tens of thousands of adherents afte publishing the Book of Mormon at the age of 24. The religion he founded is still practiced today, with millions of followers worldwide and various churches claiming Smith as their founder, the largest of which is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont, and relocated to the western portion of New York State with his family after a series of crop failures in 1816. Smith claimed seeing a series of visions while living in an area of great religious revivalism during the Second Great Awakening. The first of these occurred in 1820, when he saw "two personages" (later identified as God the Father and Jesus Christ). In 1823, he said an angel appeared to him and lead him to a buried book of golden plates containing a Judeo-Christian history of an ancient American society. Smith released the Book of Mormon in 1830, describing it as an English translation of those plates. Read More Read Less