Adam-ondi-Ahman
Originally called Spring Hill, Adam-ondi-Ahman was a short-lived Latter-day Saint settlement in Daviess County.
Early in 1838, a small group of Latter-day Saints moved to Daviess County, Missouri. They named the area Spring Hill after the freshwater springs they found on the bluffs. Here, Church members like Lyman and Harriet Benton Wight built new homes and restarted their lives after being persecuted and driven out of other Missouri counties. When the prophet Joseph Smith visited the area later that May, he was struck by the beauty and abundance of the land.
InJoseph’s Journal , he speaks about the 1838 visit to the area saying:
“We passed this day a beautiful country of land, ... prairie thickly covered with grass. Ther[e] is a plenty of wild game in this land, such as deer, turkey, hens, elk, etc. ... We next kept up the river mostly in the timber for ten miles, until we came to Colonel Lyman Wight’s, who lives at the foot of Tower Hill.”
The Church was growing in Missouri as people continued to move from Ohio and surrounding states. Joseph Smith and other Church leaders hoped to find a safe and inexpensive place for Church members to continue gathering. The Missouri government had not yet surveyed Daviess County, so Saints could settle there and work on improving the land without owning it. This would give them preemptive rights to purchase the land from the state once it had been surveyed. When Joseph visited Daviess County and the small group of Saints there, he felt it was an ideal location where members could establish another stake of Zion on affordable and productive land.
While counseling about these plans, Joseph received a revelation from the Lord, which identified the area as Adam-ondi-Ahman (Doctrine and Covenants 116 ). An earlier 1835 revelation identified the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman as the place where Adam gave his posterity a final blessing (Doctrine and Covenants 107:53-56 ). Now the Lord taught that Adam would again visit this place in the future (Doctrine and Covenants 116 ).
The Adam-ondi-Ahman settlement quickly expanded into a city with over 520 surveyed blocks, covering a total of four square miles. Just weeks after the city survey, Joseph organized the church’s third stake of Zion here on June 28, 1838. Over 200 homes went up through the summer and fall. The planned city, nicknamed “Diahman” by its residents, could accommodate more than 10,000 people, though it never reached that size. In early November, Missouri militiamen ordered all Latter-day Saints to leave the county in accordance with the governor’s extermination order.
For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this is holy ground. Today, guests can visit Adam-ondi-Ahman, walk the trails, observe the beautiful prairie landscape, and contemplate the site’s sacred significance. Interpretive signs offer more of the history of the church in the area. Picnic tables and restrooms are available.
Read more about Adam-ondi-Ahman inSaints Volume 1, Chapter 26, 28-29 .
In
“We passed this day a beautiful country of land, ... prairie thickly covered with grass. Ther[e] is a plenty of wild game in this land, such as deer, turkey, hens, elk, etc. ... We next kept up the river mostly in the timber for ten miles, until we came to Colonel Lyman Wight’s, who lives at the foot of Tower Hill.”
The Church was growing in Missouri as people continued to move from Ohio and surrounding states. Joseph Smith and other Church leaders hoped to find a safe and inexpensive place for Church members to continue gathering. The Missouri government had not yet surveyed Daviess County, so Saints could settle there and work on improving the land without owning it. This would give them preemptive rights to purchase the land from the state once it had been surveyed. When Joseph visited Daviess County and the small group of Saints there, he felt it was an ideal location where members could establish another stake of Zion on affordable and productive land.
While counseling about these plans, Joseph received a revelation from the Lord, which identified the area as Adam-ondi-Ahman (
The Adam-ondi-Ahman settlement quickly expanded into a city with over 520 surveyed blocks, covering a total of four square miles. Just weeks after the city survey, Joseph organized the church’s third stake of Zion here on June 28, 1838. Over 200 homes went up through the summer and fall. The planned city, nicknamed “Diahman” by its residents, could accommodate more than 10,000 people, though it never reached that size. In early November, Missouri militiamen ordered all Latter-day Saints to leave the county in accordance with the governor’s extermination order.
For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this is holy ground. Today, guests can visit Adam-ondi-Ahman, walk the trails, observe the beautiful prairie landscape, and contemplate the site’s sacred significance. Interpretive signs offer more of the history of the church in the area. Picnic tables and restrooms are available.
Read more about Adam-ondi-Ahman in