Hill Cumorah

The site includes trails to the Angel Moroni Monument at the top of the hill and a visitors’ center featuring exhibits, historical artifacts, and a film about the founding of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The events that took place at Hill Cumorah were foundational to the establishment of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Directed by the angel Moroni, Joseph Smith found the gold plates deposited in the hill on September 22, 1823, approximately three miles from his home. Joseph met the angel there on the same date for the next four years until he was finally allowed to obtain the plates. From those plates, he later translated the Book of Mormon by the gift and power of God.

In the 1820s, the hill did not have a name. It later became known as Hill Cumorah because Moroni, the Book of Mormon’s final author and the angel who met with Joseph Smith, wrote that he had hidden the gold plates in a hill called Cumorah (see the introduction to the Book of Mormon). The Angel Moroni Monument, designed by Torleif S. Knaphus, was placed on the hill in 1935.