Founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or the Mormons, Joseph Smith was raised in rural New England and upstate New York. In 1820 he began experiencing a series of visions that led him away from conventional churches. According to Smith, three years later the angel Moroni showed him golden plates buried in a hillside, allowing him to obtain and begin translating them in 1827. The translation was published in 1830 as the Book of Mormon Book of Mormon; it tells the story of ancient Israelites who had settled in America and were subsequently visited by Jesus Christ. In 1830 the church was founded as a restoration of the original priesthood and church of Christ on the basis… of these texts and other visions. The new church attracted members and also almost immediate persecution, leading Smith to move his band of followers to Kirkland, Ohio, then to Missouri and finally to Nauvoo, Illinois. There a community with several distinctive and controversial practices, including polygamy, was established. Smith was arrested in 1844 and imprisoned in Carthage, Illinois, where he was killed by a mob. After his death, a large group of Mormons under Brigham Young migrated to Utah.