Joseph Smith’s Prophecy of the Zion’s Camp Scourge

During Zion’s Camp’s march in 1834, Joseph Smith warned that a scourge would come upon the camp because of its murmuring, contention, and unruly spirits. On June 3, after continued contention, he stood on the back of a wagon and declared that the camp had kindled the Lord’s anger. He prophesied that they would “die like sheep with the rot,” saying repentance could lessen but not entirely avert the chastisement. In June, while the camp was in Clay County, Missouri, near Fishing River, cholera broke out. One account says the outbreak resulted in fifteen deaths within one week; another describes fourteen deaths and says the disease became especially virulent on the night of June 24. John S. Carter was the first to step forward to rebuke the disease, but was immediately stricken and became its first fatality. Joseph Smith tried to lay hands on the afflicted, then stopped when the disease seized him with the force of “the talons of a hawk” and he recognized his own life was in immediate danger. The camp buried the dead at night without coffins, rolling bodies in blankets. The accounts identify Joseph Smith, Sylvester Smith, Joseph Hancock, Ezra Thayre, John S. Carter, and Heber C. Kimball in connection with the event.