For generations of Latter-day Saints, the story of John Taylor’s pocket watch stopping a bullet at Carthage Jail has been a defining symbol of the Martyrdom, seemingly frozen in time at 5:16 p.m. However, for nearly as long as the watch has been displayed at the Church History Museum, questions have persisted: did a bullet actually strike it, or—as proposed by researchers in the late 1990s—did the damage occur when Taylor fell against the windowsill? In relentless pursuit of accurate portrayals of our history, the Church History Department commissioned an exhaustive forensic analysis to settle the debate in 2020, and a new interview over at the Latter-day Saint history blog, From the Desk, features department manager Brian Warburton detailing the fascinating findings of this investigation.

Did John Taylor’s Pocket Watch Save His Life at Carthage Jail?

Warburton explains that the investigation was prompted by a desire to ensure the museum wasn’t inadvertently replacing one assumption with another. Within weeks of the events at Carthage Jail, John Taylor expressed belief that the pocket watch saved his life:

The story written and told for several generations is that during the attack at Carthage, John Taylor ran from the door toward the window in the upstairs room of the jail and was shot in the thigh, causing him to pitch forward and begin to fall out of the window.

Taylor stated that, as he began to fall out of the window, he felt a force push him back inside, and he then dropped onto the windowsill. After a stunned moment on the windowsill, he crawled over to a nearby bed and slid under it for protection. …

Upon examining the watch, John Taylor and his family concluded that it must have been hit by a ball.

Taylor later wrote:

My family however were not a little startled to find that my watch had been struck with a ball. I sent for my vest and upon examination found that there was a cut, as if with a knife, in the vest pocket, which had contained my watch. In the pocket the fragments of the glass were found literally ground to powder.

It then occurred to me that a ball had struck me, at that time I felt myself falling out of the window, and that it was this force that threw me inside.

John Taylor

Taylor continued that he hadn’t been able to account for the feeling he had of falling out the window, but then finding himself still inside the room.

This became the dominant narrative from the 1840s until around 2000.

In 1998, a study by Neil Ord and Charles Pitt proposed the “Windowsill Theory,” suggesting the watch broke upon impact with the jail window frame. This was the result of a study on the watch, commissioned because “In the 1990s, museum staff began reporting that patrons were asking questions and leaving comments about the watch.” In their report, they explained:

They examined the watch together and concluded it had not been struck by a bullet. Instead, they believed it had been damaged when John Taylor fell against the windowsill. Ord and Pitt surmised that the watch had taken the brunt of the impact when it hit the hardwood sill.

A few days later, James Gaskill, a ballistics expert, examined the watch and issued a much less conclusive finding. Gaskill’s report seems to have been overshadowed by the Ord/Pitt report and largely forgotten.

Glen Leonard, the museum director at the time, then published the theory publicly for the first time in his 2002 book, Nauvoo: A Place of Peace, A People of Promise. This popularized the notion, as Warburton explained in the interview:

After Leonard’s book, several prominent historians picked up the new narrative about the watch and incorporated it into their works. It was even included in Church publications such as Saints Vol. 1 and in signage at the Church History Museum. …

As the windowsill theory gained traction over the next 15 years, some museum staff became uncomfortable presenting it as the only possibility.

In 2020, the leadership of the Church History Department decided that we should conduct a full examination of the evidence to determine how the watch was damaged.

The interview reveals fascinating details about the investigation, which involved forensic ballistics experts, antique watch specialists, and even the purchase of 20 vintage watches for destructive testing.

One of the most compelling points Warburton raises is the comparison between John Taylor’s watch and Hyrum Smith’s watch. Hyrum’s watch was also struck during the attack, but it sustained catastrophic damage, leading many to doubt that Taylor’s watch—which is largely intact—could have been hit by a similar projectile. Warburton offers a crucial, often overlooked material difference:

John Taylor’s watch was quite different than Hyrum’s. In fact, our antique watch expert quickly told us that Taylor’s watch was of much better quality and would have been more expensive than Hyrum’s. He told us that Hyrum’s watch was of significantly cheaper quality.

He added additional insight about the scenario:

We also must remember that the scenarios were different. We don’t know for sure exactly which gun fired each ball that hit the watches, whether they had the same powder loads, whether they travelled a similar distance, and so many other variables.

These differences in build quality and scenario complicate simple comparisons. Furthermore, the forensic teams concluded that while a direct, full-velocity hit is unlikely, a bullet strike is still a very real possibility. Warburton notes that the damage could have been caused by “a ball fragment, a ball significantly slowed by a ricochet, a ball passing through an object, or even a very small powder charge.”

Ultimately, the investigation yielded an “inconclusive” result—science cannot definitively prove whether it was a bullet or the windowsill. But Warburton argues that this ambiguity doesn’t diminish the miracle of Taylor’s survival.

I think it is important to remember that, based on our research, we don’t yet know exactly how the watch was damaged… [But] I believe that John Taylor’s life was preserved that day in Carthage Jail. He said he felt himself falling out the window and then some force pushed him back inside.

To me, this information does not take away from the narrative that the Lord preserved John Taylor. It simply indicates that the story might not have happened precisely as we thought.

To read the full account of the investigation and see the detailed findings, head over to the Latter-day Saint history blog, From the Desk, to read the full interview about John Taylor’s pocket watch in Carthage Jail with Brian Warburton.