“Oh God, Where Art Thou?”

LDS Church Archives, Kenneth R. Mays
Liberty Jail (circa 1888)
Original publisher: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Digital publisher: Brigham Young University. Harold B. Lee Library (10/16/2002)

Fifty years after Joseph and Hyrum Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Lyman Wight, Caleb Baldwin, and Alexander McRae men were imprisoned in Liberty Jail, the photograph above was taken. By 1888, the jail, constructed of roughly-cut limestone, was crumbling. Andrew Jensen (the fellow posing on the caved-in rooftop) lead a group of people to document the site. He recorded that the jail was in a “deteriorating state.”

In 1963, President Joseph Fielding Smith dedicated a recreated Liberty Jail along with a visitors’ center in Liberty, Missouri. They were able to build an accurate replica by referencing Jensen’s 1888 records.

To read a narrative account of the Liberty Jail captivity, see “Within the Walls of Liberty Jail,” by Justin R. Bray on the Church’s website.

In 2024, more artifacts, including the prison door seen in this photo, were acquired by the Church. You can see them in this Church News article.

Gospel Questions

1. Jesus speaks of Joseph Smith's friends as those with "warm hearts and friendly hands" (D&C 121:9). How have you felt the warm hearts and friendly hands of your friends? What can you do this week to extend your heart and hands to a friend?

2. In this reading, we are taught that in order to have confidence in the presence of God, we need charity towards everyone and to "let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly" (D&C 121:45). Why do charity and virtue lead to confidence before God? How will this particular confidence impact your prayers?

3. Joseph Smith explains "a very large ship is benefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm, by being kept workways with the wind and the waves" (D&C 123:16). When you were in the wind and the waves of a storm, what very small helm kept you workways?

For Children & Youth

Hi. Among the saddest episodes of our Church’s early history is the imprisonment of Joseph Smith and five other men in Missouri. Under terrible winter conditions, sickening food, and cruel treatment, Joseph Smith dictated letters during his four-month experience, and these have become scripture. Joseph’s son Joseph Smith III remembers visiting his father in the jail with his mother when he was just a little boy.