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Pennsylvania

Richard Neitzel Holzapfel

Joseph Smith arrived in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, for the first time in November 1825. He boarded with Isaac Hale in Harmony Township while employed by Josiah Stowell, who was at that time attempting to find a lost Spanish gold mine. Smith's brief stay had considerable influence on him and on the beginnings of Mormonism.

Four important events occurred in or near Harmony. Smith met his future wife, Emma Hale (Isaac's daughter); he completed much of the Book of Mormon translation; he received several divine Revelation and visitations; and he had early associations with individuals in the area that would prove important for the infant Church.

After Joseph Smith and Emma Hale were married in January 1827, they moved to his father's farm in Manchester, New York. Smith obtained the gold plates from a hill nearby in September 1827. Joseph and Emma Smith were forced to find safe refuge from the storm of opposition mounting against his effort to translate the plates. Though not entirely happy about the reason for their return, Isaac Hale welcomed the young couple back to Harmony.

The translation process then commenced in earnest, but with several major interruptions. Eventually, in May 1829, Smith and his scribe, Oliver Cowdery, reached a section in the Book of Mormon that discussed baptism. As they prayed for guidance on the subject, an angel (John the Baptist) appeared and gave them the authority to baptize.

Prejudice in the area increased, and Smith sought another place to finish translating. With Cowdery, the Smiths moved to the Peter Whitmer farm in Fayette, New York, in June 1829 to complete the work. The Smiths returned temporarily to Harmony in October 1829, but in the early spring of 1830 returned to New York. Soon thereafter they gathered at the Whitmer farm and organized the Church of Christ on April 6. In 1831, they and the other faithful Saints removed themselves entirely from the region to the Western Reserve and established a Church center in Kirtland, Ohio, and another in Jackson County, Missouri.