In the winter of 1838-39 a large number of people moved into the country on the east bank of the Mississippi River in the state of Illinois. They had taken the name of "Latter-Day Saints," but were generally called Mormons, and were followers of a new religion that had been founded by a man named Joseph Smith a few years earlier. This strange new religion had attracted many people to it, and the greater number of them had first moved to Ohio, and then into the new state of Missouri, but they were not well received by the people of either of those states, and had finally been driven from Missouri at the point of the sword. Fortunately for them there was plenty of unoccupied land in the West, and their leader decided to take refuge near the town of Quincy in Illinois. At that time a man had only to reside in the state for six months in order to cast a vote for president, and as an election was near at hand the politicians of Illinois were glad to welcome the Mormons. Looking about, the newcomers found two "paper" cities, or places that had been mapped out on paper with streets and houses, but had never actually been built. The Mormon leaders bought two large farms in the "paper" town of Commerce, and many thousand acres in the country adjoining, and there they laid out their new city, to which they gave the strange name of Nauvoo. The Mormon city lay along the Mississippi River, and its streets and public buildings were planned on a large scale. People flocked to the place, and as the Mormon missionaries were eager workers the number of converts grew rapidly. A temple was built, which a stranger who saw it in 1843 said was the wonder of the world. Many Mormon emigrants came from England, usually by ship to New Orleans, and thence by river steamboat up the Mississippi to Nauvoo. By the end of 1844 at least fifteen thousand people had settled there, and as many more were scattered through the country in the immediate neighborhood. Nauvoo was the largest city in Illinois, and its only rival in that part of the West was St. Louis. Joseph Smith had obtained a charter, and both the political parties, the Whigs and the Democrats, were doing their best to make friends of his people. Nauvoo had little of the rough look of most newly-settled frontier towns, and handsome houses and public buildings sprang up rapidly along its fine wide streets. [Illustration: NAUVOO HAD HANDSOME HOUSES AND PUBLIC BUILDINGS]