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Vermont may not be a very religious state but it is the birthplace of two very important Mormons. Today, the Mormons have more than 14 million members but they had exactly zero when it all started in Vermont.
Joseph Smith, the founder and first president of the Mormon Church, was born in 1805 in South Royalton/Sharon. The church owns the 350 acre site and a granite memorial honors his birth. Smith lived there until he was three years old, and lived nearby until he was 10. Then his family moved west.
The birthplace is open to the public free-of-charge at 357 LDS Lane, South Royalton, VT 05068 (802-763-7742). Choir music from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir is piped around the open air fields from hidden speakers making a visit a bit eerie. Thousands visit the site every year.
Joseph Smith reportedly had 40 wives and claimed an angel named Maroni visited him with revelations. He was killed by a mob in Carthage, Illinois.
Recently, David Hall, a wealthy, Utah-based Mormon, bought up 1,400 acres of land near Joseph Smith’s birthplace with the long term intent of building a “city for believers.” The city of 20,000, which will eventually span 5,000 acres and include 48 swimming pools. Needless to say, the locals are not big supporters of the plan. The city to be built is called “New Vista,” a rendering of which is shown at http://newvistafoundation.org/
Brigham Young took over from Joseph Smith as the second president and prophet of the Mormon Church. He was born in southern Vermont—the ninth of eleven children. He was born in 1801, just a few years before Joseph Smith, but they did not know each other. His family moved to upstate New York before he was three.
Not many people visit his birthplace – a few hundred a year, at most. A memorial stands in a field near the spot where he was born.
Young, who was also a polygamist, led 16,000 early followers from Illinois to the Salt Lake Valley after Smith’s murder. He founded Salt Lake City, as well as the state of Utah, and became its first governor.
His statue stands in the National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capital along with Philo Farnsworth, one of the inventors of television, and another Utah success story. (Each state gets two.)
A photo at left is of Joseph Smith appearing to Brigham Young in a vision (Photo from www.ids.org)
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