(December 14, 1796 – March 14, 1860) was the sixth Governor of Missouri from 1836 to 1840. He is now most widely remembered for his interactions with Joseph Smith and Porter Rockwell, and Missouri Executive Order 44, known by Mormons as the «Extermination Order», issued in response to the ongoing conflict between members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and other settlers of Missouri. Boggs was also a key player in the Honey War of 1837.

Lilburn W. Boggs was born in Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky on December 14, 1796, to John McKinley Boggs and Martha Oliver. Boggs served for 18 months with the Kentucky troops during the War of 1812. He moved in 1816 from Lexington, Kentucky to Missouri, which was then part of the Louisiana Territory. In Greenup County, Kentucky, in 1817, Boggs married his first wife Julia Ann Bent (1801–1820), a sister of the Bent brothers of Bent’s Fort fame, and daughter of Silas Bent, then a judge in the Missouri Supreme Court. She died on September 21, 1820 in St Louis, Missouri. They had two children, Angus and Henry.

While governor of Missouri, Boggs issued Missouri Executive Order 44, a document known in Latter-day Saint history as the «Extermination Order.» A response to the escalating threats and violence in what came to be known as the Missouri 1838 Mormon War, this executive order was issued on October 27, 1838 and called for Latter Day Saints (Mormons) to be driven from the state.