Joseph Smith Survives a Brutal Mob Attack: Tarring and Feathering at the Johnson Home

Marinda Nancy Hyde (née Johnson) was a firsthand eyewitness to one of the most violent mob attacks on Joseph Smith's life, which took place at her father's home in Hiram, Portage County, Ohio. She recorded the account in her autobiography:

"The next fall Joseph came with his family to live at my father's house. He was at that time translating the Bible, and Elder Rigdon was acting as scribe. The following spring, a mob, disguising themselves as black men, gathered and burst into his sleeping apartment one night, and dragged him from the bed where he was nursing a sick child. They also went to the house of Elder Rigdon, and took him out with Joseph into an orchard, where, after choking and beating them, they tarred and feathered them, and left them nearly dead. My father, at the first onset, started to the rescue, but was knocked down, and lay senseless for some time."

The attack occurred on the night of March 24–25, 1832. Joseph had been caring for his adopted son Joseph Murdock Smith, who was gravely ill with measles; the exposure from being dragged outside that night proved fatal to the child, who died three days later. Despite being choked, beaten, and covered in tar and feathers, Joseph Smith appeared at church the very next morning — the Sabbath — to preach to the congregation. Several of the mob members were also present in the meeting, among them Symonds Ryder, who had organized the attack.

Sidney Rigdon, who had also been dragged from his home and beaten so severely that his head was lacerated on the frozen ground, suffered lasting effects from the attack. Joseph's survival and his ability to stand and preach to a congregation that included his attackers the very next morning was widely regarded by the Saints as a miraculous demonstration of divine preservation.

Marinda added her personal witness of Joseph's character: "Here I feel like bearing my testimony that during the whole year that Joseph was an inmate of my father's house I never saw aught in his daily life or conversation to make me doubt his divine mission."