“Sir—You will discontinue my paper—its contents are calculated to pollute me, and to patronize the filthy sheet—that tissue of lies—that sink of iniquity—is disgraceful to any moral man.” — Joseph Smith¹

The Warsaw Signal was a newspaper edited by Thomas Sharp in Warsaw, Illinois.² The Warsaw Signal was wary of growing Latter-day Saint influence in the area and became an outspoken critic of the Saints. Sharp used the term “Jack Mormon” to label people who were not antagonistic towards the Church.³ He would criticize and attack Joseph Smith’s character, teachings, and “Joe’s Scholarship,” using insults like “coward paltroon.”⁴ Sharp's editorials often portrayed the Saints as a threat to local rights and freedoms, outlaws who needed to be driven out. His incendiary rhetoric contributed significantly to the rising hostility that culminated in the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.⁵ A week before the martyrdom, he published this threatening editorial statement: “War and extermination is inevitable! Citizens ARISE, ONE and ALL!!!— Can you stand by, and suffer such INFERNAL DEVILS! to rob men of their property and rights, without avenging them. We have no time for comment, every man will make his own. Let it be made with POWDER and BALL!!!”⁶

1. Letter to Thomas Sharp, 26 May 1841, 2, josephsmithpapers.org

2. “Sharp, Thomas Coke,” josephsmithpaper.org

3. Closing Argument of Onias Skinner, 29 May 1845, Copy [State of Illinois v. Williams et al.], 28, josephsmithpapers.org

4. “The Buckey’s First Epistle to Jo.,” Warsaw Signal, 25 April 1844, 1, catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org; “To V.,” Warsaw Signal, 25 April 1844, 4, catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org

5. Saints, Volume 1, Chapter 43, 530-532; Saints, Volume 1, Chapter 44, 537; “Growing Conflict in Illinois,” Church History in the Fulness of Times Student Manual, 265

6. Brett D. Dowdle, “‘Stirring up Strife’: Threats against Latter-day Saints outside of Nauvoo in June 1844,” josephsmithpapers.org