Going to Palmyra

I love church history. Even so, I have been to very few church history sites outside of Utah. Albany is about a 3 or so hour drive from Palmyra (the area where the Church was started), which is practically next door. I planned to go over there at some point during my visit, but got lucky. Turns out there was a multi-stake young single adult (YSA) activity near Seneca Lake this weekend (Friday night and Saturday), about 30 minutes from Palmyra. This meant that YSAs from several areas of New York would be there to socialize, dance, eat, and such things. The YSA group from Albany planned to carpool out, though intended to leave a bit early Saturday morning to see Palmyra. I was in favor of this. It also meant that I didn't have to rent a car to get out to Palmyra, or make the trip alone.

We left Friday night about 6:00pm arriving at the activity about 9:30. It was held at a camp owned by the church, that had some really nice cabins (which we used, since it was overnight), a nice mess hall, and access to the lake. (Though because of the weather, nothing on the lake was part of the schedule.) Attendance at the activity was a bit of a disappointment, but we did have fun in our cabin playing Nertz and Phase 10 until 4:00 in the morning. (It was like we were at girls camp again...) I'm very serious when it comes to Nertz...

The camp site was beautiful. And as you can see, the leaves are starting to turn.


We didn't stick around for much of the Saturday YSA festivities because we wanted to get over to Palmyra. Our first stop was the Hill Cumorah. The church has built a big visitors center at the base of the hill. Inside you can learn about the church history of the area, the other nearby sites, and they also show the Joseph Smith movie. (The same one they show in Salt Lake.) We saw that and then hiked to the top of the hill.

What a beautiful view from the top!


There's a monument on the top of the hill of the Angel Moroni.

And here's the hill from the bottom.


Next stop was the Smith Farm. The original farm house no longer stands, but they've built a replica.

More importantly, this is where the Sacred Grove is located. This is where we believe Joseph Smith received a vision of God the Father and Jesus Christ, which started the restoration of the Gospel.





I mentioned that the leaves are starting to turn right now. The path in the Sacred Grove had many fallen, colored leaves on it and it looked like a rainbow!

In 2000 the church dedicated a temple in Palmyra, which overlooks the Sacred Grove. We didn't stop there, but could see it.


From there we headed into town. We toured the E.B. Grandin print shop, which is where the first copies of the Book of Mormon were printed. In that printing, they had 5000 books printed. They had replicas of the press that was used (the original is in the Church museum in SLC), as well as things set up in the way they would have been at the time the Book of Mormon was being printed. It was neat.



Since we were in town and nearby, we also went looking for the site where Alvin Smith (Joseph's older brother that passed away while the family still lived in Palmyra) is buried. The original headstone was replaced with this one (and by the looks of it, rather recently), but the original is actually preserved in the back of the new stone. (It says the same thing.)


Next we saw the Martin Harris farm. Once Joseph Smith had finished translating the Book of Mormon, Martin Harris mortgaged his farm to pay for its printing. There's not much there today; his original house isn't there, and the one that is there now is a private residence.


Last stop on our Palmyra tour was the Peter Whitmer farm. (Though technically it's 20 or 30 miles from Palmyra, in Fayette, NY.) This was the location of the official organization of the church in 1830.

The church has built a nice chapel in 19th century style, and one of the wings is the visitors center. The missionaries that gave us the tour said that 1980 (the 150 anniversary of the organization of the church) General Conference was broadcast from this building, rather than the Tabernacle in SLC. (I think that's pretty cool, though want verify it or find out if it was all the sessions or just some, etc.)

The farm. Again, the beautiful fall is upon us.

This was the Whitmer home where the church was organized. (Well, a replica at any rate.) It's small. Though there were officially 6 people that joined the church that day, there were 50-70 actually in attendance. (Oh, and the door is open because the missionaries were locking up.)


From there, we drove the 3 hours back to Albany. I was very satisfied with the trip, as I made it to all the sites. Maybe there are a few ways I can think of to have made the day better, but since I don't see it likely that I can ever get Susan Easton Black on a church history tour with me (though you never know), I'm content with it as it was.