The Joseph Smith Sr.
family moved to this 100-acre property in western New York
around 1818. Joseph Smith Jr. labored with his father and
brothers to remove trees and prepare this heavily forested
land for farming.
"On the morning of a
beautiful, clear day, early in the spring" of 1820, young Joseph went into
these woods to pray, to a place where he "had previously
designed to go." Here, God the Father and His
resurrected Son, Jesus Christ, appeared to Joseph Smith to
commence the Restoration of the gospel in the latter days.
Joseph Smith's family
moved away from this farm in 1830. The Church acquired the
land in the early 1900s. The exact location of Joseph
Smith's First Vision is unknown, but it occurred somewhere
within a 10-acre forest on the western boundaries of the
farm. This forest has been referred to as the Sacred Grove
since 1906.
