Grave of Joseph Smith

Located in the Smith Family Cemetery at Nauvoo, Illinois.

Fearing the threats of grave desecration made by Joseph's enemies, Joseph's and Hyrum's family placed sandbags in the caskets buried in the city cemetery. Joseph and Hyrum's remains were secretly buried under the basement of the Nauvoo House. After Emma's death the Smith family disinterred Joseph's and Hyrum's remains and re-interred all three under a shed on the property. There were no written records marking the graves and the exact location became lost from memory. In 1928, Joseph's family feared the rising Mississippi River would destroy the graves, so they commissioned an excavation to locate the bodies of Joseph, Emma and Hyrum and had them re-interred in a permanent plot in the Smith Family Cemetery, at the site shown in the following pictures.

"So that after the testimony of the Scriptures on this point, the assurance is given by the Holy Ghost, bearing witness to those who obey Him, that Christ Himself has assuredly risen from the dead; and if He has risen from the dead. He will, by His power, bring all men to stand before Him: for if he is risen form the dead the bands of the temporal death are broken that the grave has no victory, It then, the grave has no victory, those who keep the sayings of Jesus and obey His teachings have not only a promise of a resurrection from the dead, but an assurance of being admitted into His glorious kingdom; for He himself says, Where I am, there also shall my servant be." - Joseph Smith, April 1834