Emmeline B. Wells' Divine Thrill Upon Meeting Joseph Smith
Published October 18, 2026 at 4:07 AM
Contributed by
Young Woman's Journal Research
Emmeline B. Wells felt a miraculous electrification or thrill upon shaking hands with the Prophet Joseph Smith at the Nauvoo landing.
The event occurred in May 1844 when Emmeline arrived in Nauvoo via steamboat. She specifically observed the Prophet Joseph Smith towering above the crowd at the river landing, noting that she could see no one else distinctly but him, describing his bearing as majestic and unlike anyone she had ever seen before.
In Their Own Words
“As we stepped ashore, the crowd advanced, and I could see one person who towered away and above all the others around him; in fact I did not see distinctly any others. His majestic bearing, so entirely different from any one I had ever seen, and his countenance, which was so full of love and tenderness, and yet so dignified and noble, was more than a surprise. It was as if I beheld a vision. I felt that I was in the presence of a being of a different order from those I had been accustomed to associate with. Before I was aware of it he came to me, and when he took my hand, I was simply electrified—thrilled through and through to the tips of my fingers, and every part of my body, as if some magic elixir had given me new life and vitality. I felt that I was in the presence of a prophet of God, and I was so overcome that I could not speak. The one thought that filled my soul was, I have seen the prophet of God, he has taken me by the hand.”
— Emmeline B. Wells, in "Joseph Smith, the Prophet," The Young Woman's Journal, vol. 16, no. 12 (December 1905), 555
Sources & References
The Young Woman's Journal, vol. 16 no. 12 (December 1905). L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University digital collections. https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/YWJ/id/14738 (account extracted verbatim from the collection's page-level OCR; research confidence: high) Additional sources (periodical research): Carol Cornwall Madsen, “Emmeline B. Wells: Romantic Rebel,” in Supporting Saints: Life Stories of Nineteenth-Century Mormons (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1985), 305–41. https://rsc.byu.edu/supporting-saints-life-stories-nineteenth-century-mormons/emmeline-b-wells; The Church Historian’s Press, “Chronology: Emmeline B. Wells.” https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/emmeline-b-wells/events Full first-person account: The Young Woman's Journal, vol. 16 no. 12 (December 1905), 555 https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/YWJ/id/14738
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