SALT LAKE CITY, April 7 (UPI) -- A contingent of Illinois officials apologized in Salt Lake City, Utah, Wednesday for the treatment Mormons got in Illinois 157 years ago.
The delegation was to meet with Utah Gov. Olene Walker and officials with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Chicago Tribune said.
They planned to present a signed copy of Illinois House Resolution 627, which was passed unanimously last week. It condemns and apologizes for an 1838 Mormon extermination order and forced expulsion of 2,000 from the then-bustling city of Nauvoo in 1847.
Founder Joseph Smith and his followers had already been chased from New York and Missouri, while Illinois seemed to welcome them with open arms to buy swampland along the Mississippi River in Illinois and drain it for settlement.
Armand Mauss, a noted author on the Mormons said they fell out of favor for amassing too much political clout too quickly.
Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were killed by a vigilante mob in Carthage, Ill., in 1844.
