Kirtland Safety Society: What It Was and Why It Failed in 1837

LDS Perspective

The Kirtland Safety Society was a financial institution established by Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon in Kirtland, Ohio, in November 1836. Originally organized as a bank to serve the Latter-day Saint community, it was created to provide needed capital in an agricultural economy where assets were largely tied up in land. The Saints sought to expand the local economy to support the gathering of converts, provide assistance to displaced Saints in Missouri, fund the publication of scriptures, and advance the work of establishing Zion. When the Ohio state legislature declined to issue a banking charter for the institution during the winter of 1836–1837, the Society’s directors reorganized it as a joint-stock company—sometimes called an "anti-banking" institution—that issued its own notes as cu

Historical Perspective

The Kirtland Safety Society was a financial institution established in Kirtland, Ohio, during the winter of 1836–1837 by Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and other leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Formally organized on November 2, 1836, the institution was created to address the economic pressures facing the rapidly growing Mormon community, which had swollen from approximately 1,000 to 3,000 residents between 1830 and 1836. The primary objectives were to provide credit, facilitate land speculation—driven by soaring property values from $7 to $44 per acre—and manage debts incurred from the recent construction of the Kirtland Temple. Orson Hyde was dispatched to the Ohio legislature in Columbus to secure a proper bank charter, but when this petition was refused, the i