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Joseph Smith/Martyrdom/Masonic cry of distress: Difference between revisions
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This article is a draft. FairMormon editors are currently editing it. We welcome your suggestions on improving the content.
This page is based on an answer to a question submitted to the FAIR web site, or a frequently asked question.
Questions
== Just before Joseph Smith died, did he begin to give the Masonic cry of distress?
Answer
It is reported that Joseph Smith uttered the words "Oh Lord, my God" as he stood at a second floor window in Carthage Jail -- just before he was shot by members of a mob. The words that accompany the Masonic 'Grand Hailing Sign of Distress' are "Oh Lord, my God, is there no help for the widow's son?"
John Taylor [eyewitness to the martyrdom; Master Mason]: In Carthage jail Joseph Smith and Hyrum Smith "gave such signs of distress as would have commanded the interposition and benevolence of Savages or Pagans. They were both Masons in good standing. . . . Joseph's last exclamation was, 'O Lord, my God!'" (Times and Seasons, vol. 5, no. 13, 15 July 1844, 585).
Heber C. Kimball: "Masons, it is said, were even among the mob that murdered Joseph and Hyrum in Carthage jail. Joseph, leaping the fatal window, gave the Masonic signal of distress. The answer was the roar of his murderers' muskets" (Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball [Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1888], 26).
Zina D. H. Young [1878]: "I am the daughter of a Master Mason [i.e., daughter of Heber C. Kimball]! I am the widow of a Master Mason [i.e., Joseph Smith] who, when leaping from the window of Carthage jail pierced with bullets, made the Masonic sign of distress; but . . . those signs were not heeded" (Andrew Jenson, Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia [Salt Lake City: Andrew Jenson History Company, 1901], 1:698). [NOTE: Zina's statement about 'leaping the window' matches very closely with what her father -- Heber C. Kimball -- said about the incident. But it must be kept in mind that Heber C. Kimball was not an eyewitness to what happened]
==Answer
== From the above LDS accounts, as well as from some contemporary non-Mormon accounts [[citation needed]], it would seem that the last words of Joseph Smith, Jr. were assumed by at least some people in the nineteenth century to be the Masonic cry of distress.
== Notes == None