Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"In 1844 Smith was arrested for treason in Illinois and killed in prison by a mob. [1001 Days] "'They draw near to me with their lips while their hearts are far from me, and mine anger is kindling against the inhabitants of the earth to visit them according to their ungodliness.' So spoke Jesus Christ, reported by a young man in the 'burned-over district' of western New York state who claimed to have seen Him in a vision. Christ's Second Coming, thus ominously proclaimed, would not be long delayed. 'Behold and lo I come quickly as it [is] written of me in the cloud clothed in the glory of my Father.' For Joseph Smith, Jr., of Palmyra on the Erie Canal, this vision led not merely to his personal conversion but to revelations prompting him to found the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If Jesus was returning 'quickly,' then the people of the 1830s were already living in the 'latter days' of history. Joseph Smith, like William Miller, felt called to preach an urgent premillennial warning." [Howe: What Hath God Wrought, p. 312-3]