in the ceiling to the upper room with a heavy wooden door. The upper room had two larger iron barred windows, two feet wide by one foot tall, along with a heavy oak door. Outside the door was a small platform with a stairway down to ground level. Conditions Smith and his companions were imprisoned in Liberty Jail for four and a half months during the coldest part of the Missouri winter. Food was scanty, of poor quality and frequently poisoned. Some of the prisoners suspected that they were sometimes fed human flesh, but comments by the guards regarding "Mormon beef" probably had reference to cattle stolen from the Mormons. Their friends on the outside were occasionally able to bring them wholesome food. No bedding was provided, so the prisoners slept on the stone floor with only a bit of loose straw for comfort. Visitors The prisoners were allowed visitors from time to time. Alexander McRae recorded visits by Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, George A. Smith, Don Carlos Smith, Benjamin Covey, James Sloan, Alanson Ripley, and Porter Rockwell. In March, Frederick G. Williams came with Presendia H. Buell, but the jailer, concerned that tools could be passed, denied them entrance. Mary Smith visited her husband Hyrum Smith in February with their three-month-old son, Joseph F. Smith, who was named and blessed by his father in custody. Her sister, Mercy Fielding Thompson, accompanied her. Emma Smith also visited her husband Joseph multiple times with their children. Restoration The jail was torn down although the walls of the dungeon were still visible when a house was built over it. In 1939, the property was purchased by the LDS Church and in 1963 Joseph Fielding Smith presided over the establishment of a partial reconstruction of the jail wholly within a museum. The reconstructed jail includes a front limestone facade on the east side and a cut away on the west side so visitors see the upper area and the lower dungeon which has mannequins representing Smith and the other prisoners. A replica of the Liberty Jail was constructed in 2014 at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah. References External links Historic Sites: Liberty Jail Official site Ensign Peak Foundation Liberty Jail, Clay County, Missouri, USA Letter to the Church and Edward Partridge, 20 March 1839 Joseph Smith Papers Defunct prisons in Missouri History of the Latter Day Saint movement