Church History Sites

Thursday was another day with no rehearsals, just activities to keep us busy and enjoying ourselves. Folks who did service projects on Tuesday or Wednesday did Church History tours today (and vice versa). For Laurie and Clark, that meant the former. We rode on an ever-so-pleasant school bus to see the Joseph Smith farm, the Sacred Grove and the Grandin Print Shop sites.
This is the old log home that the Smith Family lived in during their early and late years in Manchester. It is a rebuilt replica, but located precisely where the old one stood.

A great new statue depicting the First Vision in the Visitors Center at the Joseph Smith Farm/Sacred Grove.

Inside the log home. Not much head room if you are tall.

This is upstairs in the log home. This is where, in September of 1823, Moroni appeared to Joseph to introduce him to the idea of starting a new Church and translating an ancient book of scripture.

This is more or less what the fence would have looked like between their farm land and the old log home. In his history, Joseph describes collapsing while trying to climb over the fence the day after the night of Moroni visits. Laurie loved the haystack in the field. Very rustic.


This is the frame home a few hundred feet South of the log home. Joseph's brother Alvin started the construction and planned to use it for his own family and to support their parents in their old age. Alvin died early in its construction, and the rest of the family finished it. The family was eventually swindled out of the farm, and had to essentially rent the home back for several years. They eventually had to move all 11 family members back into the log home before moving on.


This is the front living room of the frame home.

The Palmyra temple is just East of the Sacred Grove. They have arranged the treeline so that you can see the Temple from the Grove and the other way around. If you view the full image and look closely, you can see some plain glass windows that allow a view of the Grove from within the temple. As far as I am aware, this is the only temple that uses any plain glass in external windows.

Laurie and Clark in the Sacred Grove. No pictures of Ethan were found because he got lost and his bus left him.

This is Jacob in the Grandin Print Shop.


Look how big it is... Man, I love being in the Pageant!