The doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints (LDS) holds that Joseph Smith prayed to God to guide him to the one true religion. In a vision, God and Jesus Christ appeared to him saying none of them were, and he should found a new religion. The historical record shows Smith moving his family to a farm in New York, possibly at the behest of the angel Moroni who appeared to him that same year in a vision and led him to gold plates containing ancient lore buried in a hill. Smith had to wait four years to retrieve them and took several more to translate, by which time the historical record picks up again with Joseph Smith, now prophet-in-charge, formally establishing his religion.

On this day, April 6, in 1830, Joseph Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Fayette Township, New York. The church rapidly gained converts from neighboring states, reaching nearly 18,000 members by the time the first temple was built.

Smith envision a utopian city he called “Zion” in Missouri, but it was further west where LDS truly flourished. Mormon zealous proselytizing won it many enemies from the neighboring states, and by the late 1840s, Brigham Young, Smith’s successor as the leader of the Church, began preparations to move to the western frontier, to a land nobody wanted where they could be free. They settled on the Salt Lake basin, in what today is the state of Utah.