Miraculous Storm at Fishing River Protects Zion's Camp (June 1834)

In mid‑June 1834 (accounts give dates ranging roughly June 16–22, 1834), at Fishing River near Richmond/Clay County, Missouri, Joseph Smith led Zion's Camp—approximately 200–205 men—toward Clay and Ray Counties. Multiple witnesses recount that the camp faced imminent danger from armed Missourians/Ray County militia (reports vary; contemporaneous estimates put the mob at roughly 300–400 men, with Colonel John Sconce named in some accounts). Before an expected attack, messengers arrived with urgent warnings (some accounts say two men warned Joseph Smith to disband the camp because "there won't be one of you left tomorrow morning"). Other witnesses record that a black slave woman warned Luke Johnson that men lay in wait to kill travelers.

According to the assembled accounts, Joseph Smith and others perceived the threat, prayed for protection, and roused and moved the camp. A dramatic storm then manifested over the camp: observers described a great black cloud that stopped over Zion's Camp, with intense thunder, continuous lightning, and a prolonged downpour of rain and hail. Newel Knight recorded extraordinarily severe hail that cut holes in the mob's hats and soaked their ammunition, contributing to the mob's retreat; he also reported that "scarcely any hail fell in the camp of the brethren" while surrounding trees were stripped of limbs and "twisted like withes." Several witnesses described the waterways rising rapidly—Newel Knight wrote that the Big Fishing River rose forty feet and the Little Fishing River rose thirty feet in thirty minutes; other accounts variously describe a ten‑foot rise. Philo Dibble, Levi W. Hancock, Joseph Holbrook, Luke Johnson, Jenkins Salsbury (Salisbury), Lyman Wight, Orson Hyde, and others recorded aspects of the event.

Orson Hyde later referenced a revelation given to Joseph Smith at Fishing River on June 22, 1834, promising that the Lord would fight the battles of the Saints and citing the storm and rising waters as evidence of divine protection. While details (exact dates, measured rises in the river, and the duration/intensity of the storm) vary among accounts, all four records describe the same single incident in which a sudden, violent storm and the rapid rising of the Fishing River prevented an attack on Zion's Camp and preserved the camp from its enemies.