What Joseph Smith's Secret Records Reveal

In 1844, the Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith surrendered himself to state authorities after destroying an anti-Mormon printing press in Nauvoo, Illinois. When he was sent to nearby Carthage, the county seat, and charged with treason, he knew there was a strong chance he would never escape alive. Before he left he whispered instructions to his secretary, William Clayton, “to burn the records of the kingdom, or put them in some safe hands and send them away or else bury them up.” Clayton, a British convert who became a keeper of Smith’s most important documents, chose the latter option and, according to his later account, “put the records in a small box and buried them in my garden.” The records were too important to burn, despite their scandalous contents. Five days later, on June 27, a mob killed Smith while he was held prisoner at Carthage Jail. The events shocked all Mormons, both those gathered in Nauvoo, the Church’s then-headquarters, as well as those scattered throughout America and Britain. But Clayton, undaunted, made sure to dig up “the records of the kingdom,” which entailed detailed minutes from dozens of clandestine meetings held over the previous months, and months later he transcribed their contents into a small volume he titled, “Record of the Council of Fifty or Kingdom of God.”