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In an article in the Salt Lake Tribune on Thursday, April 8, 2004, we read:

Nearly 160 years after religious persecution in Illinois launched the Mormon exodus to the West, a delegation from the Land of Lincoln met Wednesday with LDS Church and state leaders to formally extend its regrets.

It was in 1844 that a mob murdered LDS Church founder Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum in a jail in Carthage, Ill. Two years later, thousands of Smith’s followers were expelled from Nauvoo and began the 1,200-mile trek to the shores of the Great Salt Lake.

For more background information on the reasons for the Mormon expulsion from Illinois, we recommend the following titles:

• No Man Know My History, by Fawn Brodie
• Cultures in Conflict: Mormon War in Illinois, by John Hallwas and Roger Launius
• Kingdom on the Mississippi Revisited, edited by Roger Launius and John Hallwas

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