During the end of 1838, Joseph Smith and some 50 others were arrested and eventually brought to Richmond, Ray County, Missouri. The prisoners were held at three different locations in Richmond: the unfinished courthouse, an old vacant house or log structure close to the courthouse on Buchanan Street, and at the Ray County jail.
The well-known story in which Joseph rebuked the guards because of their vile obscenities did not occur at the Richmond jail. That story unfolded at the old house on Buchanan Street where Joseph, Parley P. Pratt and five others were held during the court of inquiry. Following the court of inquiry, Parley, who witnessed the event where Joseph rebuked the guards, was transferred with a number of others to the Ray County jail, where he wrote down many pages of memoirs.