348 M. PALMYRA, Pop. 2,480.
(Train 51 passes 3:38; No. 3, 4:57; No. 41, 9:30; No. 25, 9:56; No. 19, 1:42. Eastbound No. 6 passes 1:25; No. 26, 2:17; No. 16, 6:46; No. 22, 9:14.)
The town of Palmyra is intimately connected with the early history of the Mormons or "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." Joseph Smith (1805-1844), the founder, lived a few miles south of Palmyra at the village of Manchester near which, in the "hill of Cumorah," he said he found the plates of gold upon which was inscribed the book of Mormon. Smith had the book printed in 1830 in Palmyra.
Joseph Smith Preaching
(From an old Mormon print)
Joseph Smith (1805-1877) early began to gather his proselytes about him, and even succeeded in interesting a few bewildered Indians, but the new sect had great difficulties, aggravated, it is said, by the licentiousness of the founder. Persecuted in N.Y. State, Smith sought to found his New Jerusalem in Ohio, where, however, the natives objected with such definiteness to his way of salvation that he and one of his followers were tarred and feathered in Hiram, O. Missouri was chosen as the next place of refuge, but here, too, Smith's profligacy aroused the hostility of the Missourians, which was increased by propaganda among the Mormons for a "war of extermination against the Gentiles." In Illinois, whither many of the "Saints" now removed, Smith had a revelation approving polygamy, which pleased him very much, but which roused opposition among his followers as well as his persecutors. In 1844 he and his brother Hyrum were arrested on a charge of treason in the town of Nauvoo which they had founded and imprisoned at Carthage. On the night of June 27, a mob, with the collusion of the militia guard, broke into the jail and shot the two men dead. In the meantime there had arisen a leader of considerable genius, Brigham Young (1801-1877), who probably saved the sect from dissolution, and led them to Salt Lake City in 1844.
Joseph Smith was born at Sharon, Vt., Dec. 23, 1805, from which place in 1815 his parents removed to N.Y. State, settling first near Palmyra and later at Manchester. Both his parents and grandparents were superstitious, neurotic, seers of visions, and believers in miraculous cures, heavenly voices and direct revelation. The boy's father was a digger for hidden treasure, and used a divining rod to find the proper place to dig wells. He taught his son crystal gazing and the use of the "peepstone" to discover hidden treasure. Young Joseph was good-natured and lazy. Early in life he began to have visions which were accompanied by epileptic "seizures." One night in 1823, according to his story, the angel Moroni appeared to him three times, and told him that the Bible of the western continent, the supplement to the New Testament, was buried on a hill called Cumorah, now commonly known as Mormon Hill. It was not until 1827, however, that he discovered this new Bible. Smith's story was that on the 22nd of September of that year, he dug up on the hill near Manchester a stone box in which was a volume 6 inches thick made of thin gold plates, 8 inches by 8 inches, fastened together by three gold rings. The plates were covered with small writing in characters of the "reformed Egyptian tongue." With the golden book Smith claimed he found a breastplate of gold and a pair of supernatural spectacles, consisting of two crystals set in a silver bow, by the aid of which he could read the mystic characters. Being himself unable to read or write fluently, Smith dictated a translation of the book from behind a screen. Soon afterwards, according to Smith, the plates were taken away by the angel Moroni.