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Early Missionary Journeys

Susan Easton Black

Before the Book of Mormon was fully printed and bound, missionaries carried excerpts hundreds of miles and shared them with relatives and friends. Thomas B. Marsh carried 16 of these loose pages to Charlestown, Massachusetts, to read with his family. Solomon Chamberlain took 64 pages to Canada. After traveling 800 miles through the Canadian wilderness, he stated, "I exhorted all people to prepare for the great work of God that was now about to come forth" (Chamberlain, 362). Such enthusiasm for the Book of Mormon led one historian to pen, "It was not uncommon, in the earliest days of the movement, for a man to hear Mormonism preached one day, be baptized the next, be ordained an elder on the following day and the day after that to be out preaching Mormonism" (Williams, 10).

Samuel Harrison Smith was the first missionary set apart by the Prophet Joseph Smith, his brother. On June 30, 1830, he left on his mission with copies of the Book of Mormon filling his knapsack. After traveling 30 miles the first day he slept under an apple tree, having "been turned out of doors that day" for the fifth time (Smith, 169). The next day he journeyed eight miles to Bloomington, New York, where he met John P. Greene, a Methodist preacher. Although Greene did not initially accept the Book of Mormon, he consented to take a book on his next preaching tour. Later Smith returned to the home of Reverend Greene. His persistence eventually led to the baptisms of John P. Greene, Brigham Young, and Heber C. Kimball.

During the following 15 months Smith traveled over 4,000 miles, preaching from Maine to Missouri. He journeyed with Orson Pratt from New York to Kirtland, Ohio, a distance of 250 miles. By spring of 1831 he was preaching 50 miles west of Kirtland in Amherst. From June 1831 through August he preached with Reynolds Cahoon from Ohio to Missouri. The remainder of 1831 he served missions in eastern Ohio. He and Orson Hyde were called to the northern states on January 25, 1832. They journeyed from Salem, Ohio, to Springfield, Pennsylvania. They then walked to Erie, Pennsylvania, and continued north until they reached western New York. The missionaries also traveled to Boston and Providence, Rhode Island. Continuing north, they journeyed through New Hampshire to York County, Maine. During this 11-month mission Samuel Smith helped organize four branches of the Church.

While Samuel was the first and foremost missionary in the Smith family, other family members also served missions. Joseph Smith, Sr., and Joseph Jr.'s brother Don Carlos Smith traveled to St. Lawrence County, New York, in August 1830 to share the Book of Mormon with relatives. Another of Joseph Jr.'s brothers, Hyrum Smith, strengthened and exhorted the Saints in Palmyra, Colesville, and Fayette, New York.