“Is Joseph Smith’s history wrong about when his mother and brother joined the Presbyterian church?,” First Vision Accounts (2022)
“Is Joseph Smith’s history wrong about when his mother and brother joined the Presbyterian church?,” First Vision Accounts
Is Joseph Smith’s history wrong about when his mother and brother joined the Presbyterian church?
As you seek answers, it is important to remember that our present knowledge about some things is limited. Learn more about this and other principles for seeking answers and helping others with their questions.
Joseph Smith’s 1838 account of the First Vision speaks of members of his family converting to Presbyterianism at about the time of the First Vision. When Lucy Mack Smith worked on her own memoir after Joseph Smith died, she described how after her son Alvin died in 1823, the message of an unidentified Presbyterian preacher had resonated with her. The final draft of her history says she “felt much inclined to join in with them” and that “most of the family appeared quite disposed to unite with the rest in the general union.”1 Joseph, she continued, was not interested.
The precise dates that Lucy, Hyrum, and Samuel Smith joined the Palmyra Presbyterian Church are currently unknown. Palmyra was indeed the location of extensive revivals in 1824. Many understand this to mean that members of the Smith family joined the Presbyterian church then and not at the time of the First Vision.
It is unclear whether Joseph Smith in his later account misremembered the period when his family members joined the Presbyterian church, whether Lucy Smith misremembered the date, or whether she described a separate series of events. This discrepancy doesn’t undermine the basic message of Joseph’s First Vision accounts.