“Does historical evidence support Joseph Smith’s description of religious excitement near Palmyra, New York, in 1820?,” First Vision Accounts (2022)
“Does historical evidence support Joseph Smith’s description of religious excitement near Palmyra, New York, in 1820?,” First Vision Accounts
Does historical evidence support Joseph Smith’s description of religious excitement near Palmyra, New York, in 1820?
As you study Church history, it is important to understand facts, events, and statements in their context. Learn more about this and other principles for seeking answers and helping others with their questions.
There is considerable evidence of religious excitement in the Palmyra area during Joseph’s youth. Joseph Smith said that his First Vision occurred in the spring of 1820. But he had clearly been pondering about his questions for some time. He wrote that he started considering the welfare of his soul when he was 12 years old, which would have been about 1818.1 Historical records make clear that religious excitement was sweeping the country at this time in western New York. Sometimes this enthusiasm led to revival meetings, such as one held by Methodists just outside of Palmyra in 1818. But Joseph Smith didn’t limit his description of “an unusual excitement on the subject of religion” to revival meetings.2 In fact, he never mentioned a revival. Instead, he focused on efforts to convert people in his area, including his family.
In the early 1800s, the region where Joseph lived became famous for its religious fervor. Historians often call it “the burned-over district” because preachers wore out the area holding outdoor meetings and seeking converts. In addition to the 1818 revival in Palmyra, Methodists gathered the next year in Vienna (now Phelps), New York, 15 miles from the Smith family farm. The journals of a Methodist preacher speak of intense religious excitement near Palmyra in 1819 and 1820. They report that Reverend George Lane, a Methodist minister, was in that region during both years speaking “on God’s method in bringing about Reformations.”3 There was a three-day Methodist camp meeting in Palmyra in the late spring of 1820, and revivals in the area continued for several years.
Questions about religion and individual salvation were therefore very much part of the atmosphere in which Joseph Smith grew up. Joseph’s prayer resulted both from external influences and his internal desires. Knowing that Joseph Smith’s 1820 vision came in answer to an extended period of pondering makes his story even more relevant to us as we strive to exercise faith and patiently seek answers to our own questions.