KnoWhy #794 | May 27, 2025
Why Is Missouri Important to the Restoration?
Post contributed by
Scripture Central
“Hearken, O ye elders of my church, saith the Lord your God, who have assembled yourselves together, according to my commandments, in this land, which is the land of Missouri, which is the land which I have appointed and consecrated for the gathering of the saints. Wherefore, this is the land of promise, and the place for the city of Zion.” Doctrine and Covenants 57:1–2
The Know
As early as September 1830, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had begun looking forward to the time when the city of Zion and the New Jerusalem would be built up as the Lord had promised. With only the indication that Zion “shall be on the borders by the Lamanites,” it would not be until July 20, 1831, that the exact location would be revealed (Doctrine and Covenants 28:9). In this revelation, the Lord confirmed to Joseph that “the land of Missouri . . . is the land which I have appointed and consecrated for the gathering of the saints. Wherefore, this is the land of promise, and the place for the city of Zion” (Doctrine and Covenants 57:1–2).
Following this and other revelations concerning the building up of Zion, Saints began to move to Independence, Missouri, a new frontier town (founded in 1827) that the Lord designated as “the center place” of Zion (Doctrine and Covenants 57:3). Thus, between 1831 and 1838, Missouri was a key gathering place for the Saints alongside Kirtland, Ohio, and many formative events of the Restoration occurred there.1 As such, understanding the history of the Church in Missouri helps modern readers better understand many revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants that refer to Zion and the events that occurred there.
At that time, Independence was a boomtown on the Missouri River, located at the trail head of the Santa Fe Trail and servicing new trade routes into Mexico and the Rocky Mountains.2 Minerals, exotic furs, and textiles fetched high prices in the eastern United States and Europe. This business hub and county seat was closely controlled by the tightly interconnected local families who had settled there a few years before the Saints, and it remained a small frontier town prior to 1831.
Between July 1831 and the first half of 1833, Independence grew dramatically as an estimated 1,200 Latter-day Saints moved to the city and the surrounding areas.3 In Independence, Church members quickly established personal farms, a bishops’ storehouse to aid those moving to the area, a printing press, a general outfitting merchandise store, and other businesses. Most importantly, however, on August 3, 1831, “a spot for the temple . . . upon a lot which is not far from the [Jackson County] courthouse” was purchased and dedicated by Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon (Doctrine and Covenants 57:3). At least eight elders were present.4
Unfortunately, in the summer of 1833 tensions with the more established residents of Independence and the newcomers reached a boiling point. In dereliction of the Saints’ property rights, the Missourians forcefully drove them out of Independence, preventing any work on the temple from beginning.5 Today, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints owns a portion of the original temple lot, as do two other offshoot groups who did not follow the prophet Brigham Young and the Saints farther west into the Rockies, as Joseph had repeatedly directed in Nauvoo.6
In 1834, Joseph Smith raised a relief force of a couple hundred volunteers, known as Zion’s Camp, that marched to Missouri to try to help restore the Saints to their lands and homes in Independence.7 However, not enough Saints in Kirtland volunteered to help, and Missouri Governor Dunklin rescinded his offer to assist the Saints once they arrived in Missouri. As such, the Lord accepted the sacrifice the members of Zion’s Camp had made and informed them that the time for the Saints to reclaim their homes had not yet arrived.8 Meanwhile, those Saints who had been forced from their land in Independence found places of temporary refuge especially in Clay County, Missouri, as they attempted to use the courts to recover their property in Independence. However, with their lawsuits unsuccessful, the majority of those Saints relocated to the newly formed Caldwell County in 1836.9
In Caldwell County, the Latter-day Saints founded another important community, which they named Far West and which would be the central gathering place for the Saints between 1836 and 1838. In Far West, Joseph Smith received multiple revelations regarding a variety of important topics.10 The Saints were also commanded to “build a house unto me, for the gathering together of my saints, that they may worship me”.11 Though the Saints would again be forcibly removed from Missouri before construction on that temple could commence, Brigham Young and other Apostles would later return to lay the cornerstone for that temple to fulfil the Lord’s commandment.12
At the same time Saints were settling Far West, they also settled an area near Spring Hill, just north of Far West. In a revelation given to Joseph Smith, the Lord called the area “Adam-ondi-Ahman, because . . . it is the place where Adam shall come to visit his people, or the Ancient of Days shall sit, as spoken of by Daniel the prophet” (Doctrine and Covenants 116:1). This revelation revealed this site to have great significance for the events preceding the Second Coming, and that naturally drew additional Latter-day Saint settlers.13 A site for a temple in that area was also dedicated by Brigham Young, though no work would be done on it before the Saints were removed from Missouri.14
In 1838, mobs and legal abuses again turned against the Saints, and more persecutions arose. To make matters worse, a new governor, Lilburn W. Boggs, was elected. He was one of the old settlers of Independence, deeply disliked the Saints, and accepted falsified testimonies from some of Joseph Smith’s enemies. Armed with that faulty and exaggerated information, Boggs concluded that the Latter-day Saints were the primary instigators of the violence in northern Missouri.15 He issued a statewide order on October 27, 1838, that all Latter-day Saints “must be exterminated or driven from the State . . . for the public peace.”16 Violence reached its worst three days after this order was signed as a mob fell upon Haun’s Mill, a small Latter-day Saint settlement, massacring many of the men, women, and children who lived there.17 Around this time, a battle also broke out at Crooked River between an organized group of Missouri militiamen and the Latter-day Saint soldiers from their Caldwell County.
On October 31, 1838, Joseph Smith and other leaders of the Church agreed to meet with leaders of the large Missouri state military unit that had surrounded Far West, but when they arrived the militia immediately took them captive as prisoners of war. The local general ordered Joseph to be executed, but the Prophet was saved by Alexander Doniphan, who refused to carry out that illegal order and threatened to convene a tribunal against the Missouri general.18 Instead, the Church leaders were imprisoned first in Richmond and then in Liberty, and the Church members were forced to leave Missouri and to seek refuge in the neighboring state of Illinois.19
Conditions in Liberty Jail were bleak, and the prisoners were often cold and sick throughout the winter months. But there, Joseph wrote important letters to the Saints that were filled with uplifting and inspired counsel he received from the Lord. Eloquent portions of those revealed words are canonized as Doctrine and Covenants 121–23 and have become some of the most precious and divine words ever written by a prisoner on trial for his life. However, in April, on a transfer for another hearing in yet another county, the sheriff transferring the prisoners assisted Joseph and the others, allowing them to escape. Joseph eventually rejoined Emma and the Saints back across the Mississippi in Quincy, Illinois.
The Why
While the Saints obviously experienced in Missouri some of the most tragic events in the Church’s history, that brief period also yielded some of the greatest revelations and blessings that the Lord has promised to His faithful followers. Earlier, in August 1831, shortly after designating Independence, Missouri, to be the place for the city of Zion, the Lord had also said:
Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God concerning those things which shall come hereafter, and the glory which shall follow after much tribulation. For after much tribulation come the blessings. Wherefore the day cometh that ye shall be crowned with much glory; the hour is not yet, but is nigh at hand. (Doctrine and Covenants 58:3–4; emphasis added)
Although the Saints suffered unspeakably in Missouri, several blessings emerged out of that fiery furnace. The world today would not have the valuable revelations found in sections 113–23 of the Doctrine and Covenants had it not been for that refining fire.
Through the tragedies the Saints endured, most stayed faithful to what they knew to be true. Many of those who served in Zion’s Camp and sacrificed in Missouri learned personal lessons of faithfulness and loyalty. They would go on to fill the ranks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and hoist the banner of Zion worldwide. With the dissolution of the First Presidency upon the death of Joseph Smith, most of the men and women in the Church continued to follow Brigham Young as the President of the Quorum of the Twelve, designated by Joseph Smith in Doctrine and Covenants 107:24 as the presiding body, “equal in authority and power” to the First Presidency.
When the Church moved less than a decade later to the Rocky Mountains, just as Joseph Smith had anticipated, they continued to look forward to the day when Joseph’s many prophetic promises could all be fulfilled.20 While no work has yet been commissioned to build any new temples in Independence, Far West, or Adam-ondi-Ahman, the Church has built a temple in St. Louis, Missouri, and another temple has been announced for Springfield, Missouri. Currently Missouri is home to a dozen stakes of Zion. Latter-day Saints retain a bright hope for the possibility that the three dedicated early temple sites may be built when and how that will be revealed to the living prophet and apostles.
Finally, while the Lord has revealed that Missouri will be the physical location of the city of Zion in a future day, Scott C. Esplin has well noted, “In the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord progressively expanded the Saints’ understanding regarding Zion.” Specifically, Zion is more than a place; it is also an eternal cause. “By faithfully enduring trials, obeying God’s law, properly using agency, sharing the gospel, and purifying our hearts, we will become Zion,” Esplin observed.21 Similarly, President Russell M. Nelson taught, “Zion is wherever righteous Saints” might live.22 Thus, all faithful Saints should strive to keep their covenants and prepare themselves for the Lord’s return, when cities and stakes of Zion will dot the earth worldwide, an important goal that was first envisioned and set forth in Missouri.
Casey Paul Griffiths and Mary Jane Woodger, Missouri: Guide for Travel and Study (Cedar Fort, 2023).
Matthew C. Godfrey, “‘The Redemption of Zion Must Needs Come by Power’: Insights into the Camp of Israel Expedition, 1834,” BYU Studies Quarterly 53, no. 4 (2014): 125–46.
Scott C. Esplin, “‘Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise’: Building Zion by Becoming Zion," in You Shall Have My Word: Exploring the Text of the Doctrine and Covenants, ed. Scott C. Esplin, Richard O. Cowan, and Rachel Cope (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Deseret Book, 2012), 134–48.
Alexander L. Baugh, “Joseph Smith in Northern Missouri, 1838,” in Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer, ed. Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Kent P. Jackson (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Deseret Book, 2010), 291–346.
Clark V. Johnson and Leland H. Gentry, “Missouri,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, 4 vols. (Macmillan, 1992), 2:922–27.
Max H. Parkin, “Missouri Conflict,” in Ludlow, Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 2:927–32.
- 1. See Scripture Central, “Why Were the Saints Commanded to Gather in Ohio? (Doctrine and Covenants 38:32),” KnoWhy 788 (April 15, 2025), for a discussion on why the Saints were also commanded to gather in Ohio for much of the time that the Church was being built up in Missouri.
- 2. In this regard, it is possible that Independence also served as a catalyst for Joseph’s plans for the Saints to move to the Rocky Mountains. Many pioneers seeking to travel westward often passed through the area. Some Saints began considering the possibility of going to the Rockies to preach to the Native Americans there as early as 1831 when they were not permitted to preach to the Native Americans near Independence. See “Letter from Thomas Burdick, 28 August 1840,” p. 175n10, The Joseph Smith Papers. As trouble began mounting in Missouri in 1833, Joseph entertained that option but realized that the time was not yet right. See Wilford Woodruff, “Journal (February 1880–December 1885),” October 3–6, 1884, in The Wilford Woodruff Papers, for Wilford Woodruff’s reminisces regarding statements Joseph made in April 1834 to that effect.
- 3. Casey Paul Griffiths and Mary Jane Woodger, Missouri: Guide for Travel and Study (Cedar Fort, 2023), 32–33. Missouri became a state in 1820. Independence was located at the westernmost part of the state along the Missouri River and was a jumping off place for trails leading south to Albuquerque, west to the Rocky Mountains, and northwest toward Oregon.
- 4. R. Jean Addams notes that as many as thirteen elders could have participated. R. Jean Addams, “The Past and Future of the Temple Lot in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri,” in The Temple: Past, Present, and Future: Proceedings of the Fifth Interpreter Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference, “The Temple on Mount Zion,” 7 November 2020, ed. Stephen D. Ricks and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (Interpreter Foundation; Eborn Books, 2021), 38.
- 5. For discussions on the Saints’ expulsion from Jackson County, Missouri, see Grant Underwood, “Expulsion from Zion, 1833,” in Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer, ed. Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Kent P. Jackson (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Deseret Book, 2010), 138–48; Addams, “Past and Future of the Temple Lot,” 45; Griffiths and Woodger, Missouri, 46–51.
- 6. See Ronald K. Esplin, “‘A Place Prepared’: Joseph, Brigham, and the Quest for Promised Refuge in the West,” in Window of Faith: Latter-day Saint Perspectives on World History, ed. Roy A. Prete (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2005), 71–97.
- 7. See Lance D. Chase, “Zion’s Camp,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, 4 vols. (Macmillan, 1992), 4:1627–29.
- 8. When the empty homes of the Saints had been burned by mobs and civil war was threatening to break out, Dunklin retracted his offer to send state militiamen to help the Saints relocate. Instead, he encouraged them to seek damages in the local courts, which would have been futile. See Peter Crawley and Richard L. Anderson, “The Political and Social Realities of Zion’s Camp,” BYU Studies 14, no. 4 (1974): 406–20. For a discussion on why Zion’s Camp did not redeem Zion as they originally intended, see Griffiths and Woodger, Missouri, 55–79; Steven C. Harper, Let’s Talk About the Law of Consecration (Deseret Book, 2022), 64–67; David F. Boone, “Zion’s Camp: A Study in Obedience, Then and Now,” in Sperry Symposium Classics: The Doctrine and Covenants, ed. Craig K. Manscill (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2004), 248–74; Matthew C. Godfrey, ed., Zion’s Camp 1834: March of Faith (History of the Saints, 2018).
- 9. For a brief overview of the Saints’ experiences in Clay County between 1833 and 1836, see
- 10. These included revelations regarding passages in Isaiah, the calling and assignments of missionaries, the building of a temple in Far West under the keys held by Joseph Smith, the gathering of the Saints as Zion scattered abroad in stakes in all the world, the full name of the Church, the acceptance of consecrated sacrifices, the filling of vacancies in the Quorum of the Twelve, and the law of tithing. These revelations are found in sections 113–15 and 117–20 of the Doctrine and Covenants. For a discussion on two of these points, see Scripture Central, “Why Must Christ’s True Church Be Called After His Name? (3 Nephi 27:8),” KnoWhy 482 (November 6, 2018); Scripture Central, “Why Are Saints Invited to Live the Law of Consecration? (Doctrine and Covenants 42:30),” KnoWhy 791 (May 6, 2025).
- 11. Doctrine and Covenants 115:8. For a brief discussion on the Far West temple lot, see Alexander L. Baugh, “The Mormon Temple Site at Far West, Caldwell County, Missouri,” in The Missouri Mormon Experience, ed. Thomas M. Spencer (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2010), 75–99; Alexander L. Baugh, “Joseph Smith in Northern Missouri, 1838,” in Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer, 308–10; Griffiths and Woodger, Missouri, 141–62.
- 12. Baugh, “Mormon Temple Site,” 82–83.
- 13. For a discussion regarding Adam-ondi-Ahman, see Baugh, “Joseph Smith in Northern Missouri, 1838,” 303–8; Alexander L. Baugh, “The History and Doctrine of the Adam-ondi-Ahman Revelation (D&C 116),” in Foundations of the Restoration: The 45th Annual Brigham Young University Sidney B. Sperry Symposium, ed. Craig James Ostler, Michael Hubbard MacKay, and Barbara Morgan Gardner (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Deseret Book, 2017), 157–88; Griffiths and Woodger, Missouri, 163–82.
- 14. Baugh, “Adam-ondi-Ahman Revelation,” 177.
- 15. While some Latter-day Saints fought back against the mobs and ultimately did attack some Missouri militiamen, the Saints as a whole did not breach the rights of any other citizen in the area and were not the instigators of what historians call the Mormon-Missouri War. For more information on the battles that ensued during this time, see Alexander L. Baugh, “A Call to Arms: The 1838 Mormon Defense of Northern Missouri” (PhD diss., Brigham Young University, 1996).
- 16. As Alexander L. Baugh, “Extermination Order,” in Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History, ed. Arnold K. Garr, Donald Q. Cannon, and Richard O. Cowan (Deseret Book, 2000), 351, observes, the first definition of exterminate in the 1828 Webster’s dictionary was “to drive from within the limits or borders.” Hence, Baugh notes that “contrary to popular opinion, the governor may not necessarily have been ordering the state militia or the Missouri citizens to murder the Latter-day Saints. Given this definition, the order may have been interpreted to mean that the Mormons ‘must be exterminated or [in other words] driven from the State . . . for the public peace.’”
- 17. Baugh, “Call to Arms,” 296–98, notes that while the Hawn’s Mill Massacre occurred three days after Boggs’s Extermination Order was signed, it was done independently of Boggs’s order, and there is “no connection” whatsoever between these two events.
- 18. Griffiths and Woodger, Missouri, 159–61; Baugh, “Joseph Smith in Northern Missouri, 1838,” 316–21.
- 19. For a more complete discussion on their exodus from Missouri, see William G. Hartley, “The Saints’ Forced Exodus from Missouri, 1838,” in Holzapfel and Jackson, Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer, 347–90.
- 20. See Esplin, “‘Place Prepared,’” 71–97; Richard E. Bennett, We’ll Find the Place: The Mormon Exodus, 1846–1848 (Deseret Book, 1997), 1–30; Richard E. Bennett, “‘We Are a Kingdom to Ourselves’: The Council of Fifty Minutes and the Mormon Exodus West,” in The Council of Fifty: What the Records Reveal About Mormon History, ed. Matthew J. Grow and R. Eric Smith (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Deseret Book, 2017), 153–66.
- 21. Scott C. Esplin, “‘Let Zion in Her Beauty Rise’: Building Zion by Becoming Zion," in You Shall Have My Word: Exploring the Text of the Doctrine and Covenants, ed. Scott C. Esplin, Richard O. Cowan, and Rachel Cope (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Deseret Book, 2012), 145.
- 22. Russell M. Nelson, “The Gathering of Scattered Israel,” October 2006 general conference.