Latter Day Saint Movement Founders

Founders and defining early figures of the Latter Day Saint movement begun by Joseph Smith in the 1820s with the publication of the Book of Mormon and the organization of a new church, including his wife Emma Hale Smith, a central figure in the movement's early history in her own right, his successor Brigham Young, who led the westward migration and settlement of Utah after Smith's death, and a later forger whose fabricated early Mormon documents, sold as genuine historical finds, became entangled with the movement's own contested history before the forgery was exposed.