90 Sioux City Academy of Science and Letters. 
menced business as a tailor in Watervliet, N. Y. At 20 
he withdrew from the Methodist church, traveled a year, 
as he says, searching for the Church of Christ, when he 
heard an elder of the Latter Day Saints preach. He went 
to their then headquarters at Kirtland, Ohio, Feb. 10, 
1835, he then being 21 years old, and was baptized, and 
afterward confirmed by Joseph Smith, as a member of 
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He 
wanted to preach, and claimed he was called of God in 
answer to special prayer. He was ordained by Joseph 
Smith, and Sidney Rigdon. Thompson, in one of his 
papers, gives in full what he claims were the words of 
such blessing and commission, which purport to confer 
great spiritual power, and prophesy great things for him. 
Thompson then started out to preach the new doctrine 
among his old acquaintances in New York, with indiffer- 
ent success. In the fall of 1885 he came back to Kirt- 
land, Ohio, and spent the winter, and again in 1836 went 
back to New York and preached in various places and 
was married this year. In the summer of 1837 he organ- 
ized a church of Latter Day Saints at Sandusky, Ohio, 
and in the summer of 1838, following the westward 
migration of the Mormons, he moved with his family to 
Kirtland Camp in Far West Missouri, and soon moved 
to “Adam Ondie Ahem” in Davies county, Missouri, and 
under the exterminating order of Governor Boggs of Mis- 
sourl was compelled to leave there, and went out of that 
state to Quincy, Tlinois, with other Mormons. Early in 
1839 Thompson was sent by the Mormon twelve apostles 
to New York, where his wife soon died from the effects 
of the exposure in the expulsion from Missouri, leaving a 
five-months-old baby. Thompson preached in New York 
for about four years, baptized about 200 converts, 
ordained elders and teachers, and organized there what 
was called the “Genesee Conference of Latter Day 
Saints.” In 1841 he published a book on the “Evidence 
in Proof of the Book of Mormon.” In 1843 he came back 
from New York and under direction of Joseph Smith set- 
tled at Hancock, Wlinois, 20 miles from Nauvoo, and the 
following year was ordained a High Priest. After the 
death of Joseph Smith he removed to Nauvoo and assist- 
ed in voting the power of the church into the hands 
