Early Life of Joseph Smith

Early Life Of Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith, Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement whose current followers include Mormons and members of the Community of Christ. The early life of Joseph Smith covers his life from his birth to the end of 1827.

Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont, the fifth of eleven children born to Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith. By 1817, Smith's family had moved to the "burned-over district" of western New York, an area repeatedly swept by religious revivals during the Second Great Awakening. Smith family members held divergent views about organized religion, but they believed in visions and prophecies and engaged in folk religious practices typical of the era. Smith briefly investigated Methodism, but he was generally disillusioned with the churches of his day.

In the early 1820s, along with other male members of his family, Smith began using a seer stone to search for buried treasure. Also during this period, Smith said he had a series of visions, the first of which he later said was a theophany. In 1823, Smith said angel directed him to a nearby hill where he said was buried a book of golden plates containing a Christian history of ancient American civilizations. According to Smith, the angel prevented him from taking the plates in 1823, but the angel told him to come back in exactly a year with the "right person," perhaps his brother Alvin, who died before the 1824 visit. Nevertheless, Smith continued to return to Cumorah over the next three years, reporting to his family that he had not yet been allowed to take the plates.

Meanwhile, during one of Smith's treasure hunting expeditions, he fell in love with Emma Smith from Harmony Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, and eloped with her in 1827. Returning with Emma to the hill in 1827, Smith said the angel allowed him to take the plates but forbade him from showing them to anyone except those to whom the angel directed. As news of the plates spread, Smith's former treasure hunting associates sought to share in the proceeds. Intending to translate the plates himself, and hoping to avoid interference from his Palmyra associates, Smith moved to Harmony Township to live with his in-laws.