“Palmyra—Cradle of the Restoration,” Ensign, Jan. 1989, 38
Doctrine and Covenants
Palmyra—
Cradle of the Restoration
Research provided by Donald L. Enders and Larry C. Porter.
The following photographs show Palmyra and Manchester townships, where the Joseph Smith, Sr., family lived from 1816 to 1830. Here Joseph Smith, Jr., his family, and other believers experienced many great events of the Restoration. The numbered sites are places of interest.
(Photography by Craig Dimond.)
(Photography by Craig Dimond.)
(Photography by Craig Dimond.)
1. Martin Harris homesite, 1.5 miles from Palmyra Village.
2. Harris farm buildings.
3. Maple Avenue, the main road north out of Palmyra.
4. Burial place of Calvin Stoddard, husband to Sophronia Smith.
5. Supposed location of the Smith family residence, 1816–18.
6. Home of Gain Robinson, the Smiths’ physician.
7. Stafford Road, which ran through the Smith farm.
8. Hyrum Smith farm.
9. Smith family farm.
10. Sacred Grove.
11. Russell Stoddard farm. Stoddard completed the Smith’s frame home.
12. Stoddard millpond, site of early baptisms.
13. William Stafford family lands. Orrin Porter Rockwell’s family rented part of it.
14. Stafford Street School, where Oliver Cowdery taught.
15. Manchester Village, six miles from the Smith home.
16. Hill Cumorah.
17. Willard Chase farm. On occasion, the Chases employed the Smiths.
18. Enoch Saunders farm. The family were friends of the Smiths.
19. Present-day LDS chapel.
20. Canandaigua Road.
21. Alvin Smith’s burial place and site of the Western Presbyterian Church, which some Smiths attended.
22. Exchange Row, location of the Grandin Bookstore.
23. The Erie Canal, which transported members to Ohio in 1831.
24. Approximate site of Seymour Scovill store, where the Smiths bartered.
25. Main Street.
26. Palmyra Cemetery, where E. B. Grandin and John Gilbert are buried.
27. Vienna Road, along which camp meetings were held.
1. Frame home on the Smith farm. Joseph Smith, Jr., received the gold plates while living here.
2. Log home. The Smiths lived here twice, during the time of the First Vision and Moroni’s visits, and later when the Book of Mormon was published.
3. Hathaway Brook (Crooked Brook), where some early converts were baptized.
4. Site of barn that the Smiths built.
5. Probable site of Father Smith’s cooper shop. The Book of Mormon plates were hidden here for a time.
6. Sacred Grove. Some trees predate the Smiths.
7. Apple orchard, where Moroni may have appeared to Joseph Smith in 1823.
8. Stafford Road. It was a rutted wagon trail in the 1820s.
9. Hyrum Smith purportedly bought eighty acres here. He and Jerusha lived in the Smith log home from 1826 to 1830.
10. Part of sixty acres the Smiths cleared for farmland (forty were left for wood crop and sugar maple harvest).
11. West boundary of the Smith farm—also the boundary between Macedon and Manchester townships.
12. The Smith farm’s north boundary—also the boundary between Palmyra and Manchester townships and Wayne and Ontario counties.
1. Hill Cumorah, three miles southeast from the Smith farm.
2. Highway 21, or Canandaigua Road.
3. Armington Road, on the way from the Smith farm to Cumorah.
4. Enoch Saunders farm, bordering the Smith farm on the north.
5. Willard Chase farm, bordering the Smith farm on the east.
6. Joseph Smith, Sr., farm, where the family lived from 1818 or 1819 to 1830.
7. Sacred Grove.
8. Stafford Road.
9. George Crane farm, where Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery read from the Book of Mormon manuscript to interested people.
10. Lemuel Durfee farm. Durfee bought the Smith property.
11. Lake Ontario.
12. Martin Harris farm.
13. Palmyra Village, 1.7 miles from the Smith farm.
14. Erie Canal.