When we left Niagara Falls, we made our way south and to our next destination: Palmyra, New York. Palmyra has historic significance to members of the LDS (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints aka – Mormon) church as this is where it all began. It’s where a young boy named Joseph Smith lived with his family in this log cabin in the early 1800s.
He was about 14 years old at the time and, along with his family, was deeply religious. It was a good place to be religious too, because there were several churches in the area. Sort of like Palmyra is today. In fact, if you drive down to Main St.,
you’ll find four churches just on one corner alone.
The problem for Joseph Smith is that he wasn’t sure which church to join. See, he and his family were humble people and lived modestly in their little log cabin.
They worked hard on their farm and they were a close family. They taught their children to read the Bible and to pray, so when Joseph read James 1:5 (which says: If any of ye lack wisdom, he should ask of God… and it shall be given to him) he figured he would ask God which church to join.
And that’s what he did. He went into the woods behind his house to pray and a remarkable thing happened, God and Jesus appeared to him. Among other things, they answered his question and told him that none of those churches were the right ones to join.
Today, this area is known as the Sacred Grove and has been preserved so that people can walk through and visit for as long as they’d like.
This event is a big part of our church’s history because shortly afterwards, Joseph Smith was given the golden plates after being visited by an angel named Moroni (much the same way angels appeared in the Bible.) These plates were a record of the ancient people who lived in the Americas, which was later translated into what is known today as the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ and we use it in addition to the Bible.
The place where this happened is called Hill Cumorah and is not far from the Smith family home.
Today there is a beautiful monument,
as well as a visitor center where people can learn more about why all of this is important to us.
Exhibits inside tell more about Jesus Christ and our belief in modern day prophets, beginning with Joseph Smith and leading up to our current prophet, Thomas Monson.
As you can see, Joseph Smith was a pivotal part of the church’s organization. And once he was given the gold plates, he had them for quite a while because it took a long time to translate. During this time, his family moved up the street to their new home which was quite a bit bigger from their small log cabin.
It was still humble by today’s standards, but was full of the more modern conveniences of the times.
It was really cool to see the home, which is 85% original and has been restored to show exactly how it may have looked when the Smith family lived there.
In fact, the whole area has been mostly left untouched and is just beautiful, very peaceful and serene.
Just up the street from this historic site is the new Palmyra Temple which was built in 2000.
On top of this temple, and most LDS temples in fact, is a statue of Moroni, the angel who appeared to Joseph Smith and gave him the gold plates.
Speaking of gold plates, once they were translated, the manuscript was taken to the Grandin Print Shop on Main St.
An order was placed for 3,000 books to be printed for the cost of $5,000. It was quite a process too.
Each word, each letter even, had to be manually added.
Only 16 pages could be printed at one time and even that was considered a big deal.
The press that was used was the newest version because before then, only eight pages could be printed.
Once the pages were made, they were hung up to dry.
It took seven months to make all 3,000 copies and then another year and a half to bind them in leather and emboss the labels with gold leaf. The final result looked like this, which is one of the first original copies of the Book of Mormon.
There’s a lot of our history in this area, this little town called Palmyra. It’s history that is unfamiliar to some people and may even sound fantastical or down right crazy. But it’s something that I believe in and have grown up learning about so to actually see it in person was a wonderful experience. It definitely made the long drive worth it.
Next stop on our trip: Cooperstown, NY, home of the infamous Baseball Hall of Fame. (Don’t worry, there won’t be a ton of baseball pictures as I didn’t actually go to the Hall of Fame, the CPA did. I went to the General Store instead, which was almost as cool.)
Have you ever been to upstate New York? Any desire to go?
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