I feel bad picking on poor Harold Camping. So just to keep him company, here’s an excerpt from an early Mormon regarding Joseph Smith’s prophecy a century or so earlier.

On the 14th of Feb. 1835, Joseph Smith said that God had revealed to him that the coming of Christ would be within 56 years, which being added to 1835 shows that before 1891 and the 14th of Feb. the Savior of the world would make his appearance again upon the earth and the winding up scene take place. In connection with this event, was related by my brother Dimick Huntington, the fact that when Joseph and Hyrum Smith submitted in their feelings to consent to give themselves up to the state mob at Nauvoo Illinois, after they had passed the Mississippi River. Joseph said “if they shed my blood it shall shorten this work 10 years”. That taken from 1891 would reduce the time to 1881 which if the true time within which the Savior should come much must be crowded into 6 years.

This is from a transcript of the Journal of Oliver Broadman Huntington, vol 2, p129. A little farther down the page, he adds:

I testify that every word that Joseph Smith spoke, will be fulfilled that has not been fulfilled.

Um, well, he’d better hurry if he wants to make it by 1881.