276. By the time Cooper published his novel, game was already harder to find, and Isaacs profession had largely become a romanticized occupation of the past. His eventual father-in-law, Nathaniel Lewis, also lived in the area and was drawn into one of these searches. I inquired of Joseph Smith Jr., who was to be the first who would be allowed to see the Book of Plates? I told them, that I considered the whole of it a delusion, and advised them to abandon it. The artifact scatter suggests a door in the log home faced east toward the work yard and toward a rock-lined well that still exists near the seasonal brook. Thomas Smith died 2 April 1885 aged 64 years. Harmony, February 22, 1826, Elial T. Foote Papers, 26:137; and Paul,History of Wells,119. The Lewis family arrived among the earliest settlers, and they would have spent most of their time clearing land to make it productive. Dubois and Pike,Centennial of Susquehanna County, 73. (Rutland, Vt.: Tuttle & Co., 1869), 33; and, Lewis Family files, Susquehanna County Historical Society Archives, Montrose, Pennsylvania. But the details of this courtship are not known. After his mother died and his father remarried, Hale joined his maternal grandparents Phebe and the enterprising Arah Ward, mill-builder and pioneer, in Waterbury, Connecticut. During trial testimony, Isaac Hale mentioned walking this specific site barefoot as he took a group of angry neighbors over to the Treadwell home east of his property to confront a member of the family, Trial Notes of Scribe B.. An unruly crowd gathered, delaying Emmas confirmation, and Joseph was arrested and imprisoned on charges of disorderly conduct. : N.p., 1955), 86. Hale also bought an additional 40 1/2 acres of land from Caleb and Sarah Carmalt for $101.00 but did not record the deed until he sold it years later to a son-in-law, Michael Morse.234The Carmalt addition was a section of land attached to the eastern edge of the Hale property above the land of Ezekiel and William Travis. Wife of Joseph Smith Jr. and Latter Day Saint leader (18041879), "Elect lady" and the early church, 18301839, The workers were searching for the supposed silver mine for. He claimed farmers in the valley typically produced twenty bushels of wheat per acre while many produced twenty-five bushels and some thirty bushels per acre.115 In reality wheat did not grow well in the valley. His father was the leader of a Methodist class in their home.78 Two of young Nathaniels brothersJohn and Levi Lewisjoined several years later and also became heavily involved in Methodism. It is said that he did not appear to be a man like Paul, brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, though, doubtless, he was a good man. Hale was not taxed for a barn in 1798. VIDEO: The Discovery of the Book of Mormon | Scripture Central . 257. It is not clear why only Alva and Emma are listed as Hale children in the records. Upon news of her fathers death, Emma seemed to feel she could now write her mother and siblings. Joseph III called upon his mother to help prepare a hymnal for the reorganization, just as she had for the early church. 124. Blackman,History of Susquehanna County,485, emphasis in original. Versaggi, personal communication to author, September 13, 2013; see also Gina Laczko,Irp;oquois Silverwork: from the collection of The Museum of the American Indian Heye Foundation,(Hamilton, NY: Gallery Association of New York State), 1980, 24; Arthur Woodward, Indian Use of the Silver Gorget,Indian Notes3 (Fall 1926): 23249. Isaac continued to be taxed on two homes from 1816 until 1819. Richard BEST died 2 May 1867 aged 48 years. Joseph Smith letter to Emma Smith, Nov.12, 1838, Community of Christ Archives, Independence, Missouri. 238. Peck,Life and Times,68; George Peck, Memorandums of Circuit Travels, 18161818; Peck,Early Methodism,256. See Sacred Music,The Centinel,1 (December 1, 1816): 3; Church Music,The Centinel2 (May 17, 1817): 3. George Edward Anderson, 1909. The Hale family used fine mochaware bowls and mugs that included eye dazzling swirls of green and brown mixed with vibrant oranges, blues, and other colors, as evidence the family could afford the best ceramics available on the market and not just local product. 164. [11] Emma first met her future husband, Joseph Smith, in 1825. 10. An individual of David Hale's age range was listed in the Isaac Hale house - hold for the year but may have been living elsewhere on the property. Blackman,History of Susquehanna County,53. A grandson of Isaac and Elizabeth Hale, Lorenzo D. Wasson left the valley for Nauvoo, Illinois, perhaps to share news of Isaacs death, but also to learn more about his aunts unusual religion. Alva borrowed the epitaph on Isaacs headstone from Benjamin Franklin: And stript of its lettering and gilding. It is unlikely nineteen-year-old Joseph Smith was attuned to the Hale familys social position or that of other members of the community in November 1825. As Tim courted Lurena, and they may have already announced their planned wedding, Isaac worked on the larger, elaborate Pickering mansion. Hales brief tour of duty ended eight days after his enlistment when the younger soldiers returned home without seeing action and the seventeen-year-old private was released from service.23. The new Hale family frame home was not large enough to accomplish all of these tasks conveniently. Although Mr. Hale was remembered as a stiff old Methodist, and . This conclusion is supported by a shift in the tax record on December 31, 1823, when David was taxed for one house and his fathers assessment dropped from two houses to one.254 Davids financial ledger from the period also indicates his store was on or near his fathers property by 1824, and the log home is the only candidate for both a residence and store.255, George Peck wrote notes on each sermon he delivered at Isaac Hales, he recalled he preached at . One of these trained ministers had a position in the Methodist church in Lanesboro. Emmas patriarchal blessing, given on 9 December 1834 by her father-in-law, Joseph Smith, Sr., presents important information concerning Emmas contribution to the Restoration, how the Lord viewed Emma, and what he promised her. Jared Sparks,The Works of Benjamin Franklin(Boston: Hilliard, Gray, and Company, 1840), 1:59697. Richard L. Bushman,The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 115. Let come what will, youve got to bear ittaint no use to flinch. Emma first met Joseph Smith Jr. in 1825, while he boarded with her family. But an examination of overall land values suggests a modest drop in value between 18601861 from $600 to $575 which may indicate the removal of a rear kitchen or other modest structure on the property. Many other land owners in the valley were taxed on an additional home that same year. : Susquehanna Centennial, Aug. 1627, 1953), 15. The only child of theirs to be baptized after the controversy began was Isaac and Elizabeths daughter Emma, who was baptized by Buck not long after her birth in 1804, just before Methodism arrived in the valley.173, The slave Sylvia Dubois attended the same congregation where Emma was baptized and described it as the Calvinistic faith . For dinner, they carried milk in bottles, and mush. Photograph by. 21, 1763, at New Haven, CT. As a small boy his maternal grandfather, Arah Ward (who had a grist mill, and married to Phebe Towner 1717-1784) took Isaac to Vermont sometime after his mother, Diantha, passed away and his father, Reuben, after remarrying, removed to Hartland in 1771. One of the key elements of this style of preaching was a belief in direct answer to prayer. 259. But he may have also selected the site because of its sacred nature. "The Voice of Innocence from Nauvoo" in "Virtue Will Triumph", Learn how and when to remove this template message, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Harmony Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, marriages of Joseph Smith to plural wives, "Nauvoo Relief Society Minute Book, p. 7", "Joseph and Emma Share a Common Heritage", The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, "The Courtship and Marriage of Emma Hale and Joseph Smith", "Moroni Appeared to 17 Different People! The farm continued north of the road through a section of swampy ground known in local dialect as a swaily, and onto the mountainside with a large stand of ancient hardwood forest thinning at the top to provide a good view of the surrounding area at a spot known in local dialect as a keek from the Scottish for a peep or quick look.7. 305. After Nathaniel Lewis Sr.s brief war service, he built a two-story frame house in the mountains to accommodate his growing family. Glass looking was a common scam in which the glass looker claimed to have the ability to find buried treasure for a fee. Carol Cornwall Madsen, The Elect Lady Revelation (D&C25): Its Historical and Doctrinal Context, in CraigK. Manscill, ed., Sperry Symposium Classics: The Doctrine and Covenants (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2004), 19. Enoch Mudge,The American Camp-Meeting Hymn Book(Boston: Joseph Burdakin, 1818), vii; Adam Clarke, the theologian to which many Methodist clergymen, including Emmas uncle Nathaniel Lewis, looked for insight into the scriptures, interpreted the Elect Lady mentioned in the Second Epistle of John (2 John 15) as an eminent Christian matron . 145. Matthew Kirk and Corey McQuinn of Hartgen Archeological Associates, Inc. in Rensselaer, New York directed the excavation of portions of the Hale home site during 2004, and again from 2010-2012 for the Historic Sites Division of the LDS Church History Department. Mrs. George A. Perkins,Early Times on the Susquehanna,(Binghamton: Malette & Reid, 1870), 2021. Mary Bryant Alverson Mehling,Cowdrey-Cowdery-Cowdray Genealogy: William Cowdery of Lynn, Massachusetts, 1630, and His Descendants(n.p. B. Buck, one of Daniels grandsons, who was not there during the early years of occupation and appears to be reporting the memories of others, later suggested that what he described as the first diggings done in their area were at the Painted Rock site.106 He recalled his uncle found the foundation of a house on the island in the river at Painted Rock, where they targeted their initial digging. Isaac believed that Joseph was a treasure seeker and con artist. . The manner in which he pretended to read and interpret, was the same as when he looked for the money-diggers, with the stone in his hat, and his hat over his face, while the Book of Plates were at the same time hid in the woods! Ausburn Towner,Our County and Its People: A History of the Valley and County of Chemung, From the Closing Years of the Eighteenth Century(Syracuse, NY: D. Mason & Co., Publishers, 1892), 466; and Hamilton Child,Gazetteer and Business Directory of Chemung and Schuyler Counties, N.Y. for 18681869(Syracuse: Journal Office, 1868), 107. Included in this list but not in the original directive was malt houses. Such marriages were rare and a similar union of a white woman in Boston to a black man made national news,Painesville Telegraph, June 15, 1827, 3; June 4, 1823, 3; March 11, 1824, 3. Black and Black, Annotated Record of Baptisms for the Dead, 6:3355; Susquehanna Co, PA, Wills and Administrations, 18121921, vol. J. 65. [11] It was titled A Collection of Sacred Hymns, for the Church of the Latter Day Saints[13] and contained 90 hymn texts but no music. The Register of Pastors in the First Presbyterian Church of Hallstead, Susquehanna County Historical Society, lists him as continuing to serve until the installation of Oliver Hill as Pastor on August 13, 1814. As the Hale family and their relatives in the valley joined Methodism one or two at a time over a period of several years, the son of Timothy Pickering Jr. died and Nathaniel Lewis moved his family into the larger Pickering home.223 The Lewis family lived in the large home until Pickering sold it to John Comfort in 1808 and gave Lewis a years notice to move his family out.224 This happened just as land ownership in the valley shifted and the settlers were finally forced to resolve their land titles. Emma became a member of the RLDS Church without rebaptism, as her original 1830 baptism was still considered valid. Early settlers referred to the place where the river entered Pennsylvania as the east bend and where it returned into New York as the west bend, while the entire river as it passed through the valley was the great bend.41 Although the valley remains officially unnamed, early residents along this great bend called it the Susquehanna Valley.42 During the twentieth century that name has generally come to refer to a much larger region that includes the entire river drainage system through upper Pennsylvania. After this, I became dissatisfied, and informed him that if there was any thing in my house of that description, which I could not be allowed to see, he must take it away; if he did not, I was determined to see it. He then returned to Palmyra, and soon after, Alva, agreeable to the arrangement, went up and returned with Smith and his family. During the next weeks, Joseph was arrested, tried, and exonerated in South Bainbridge for "glass looking" based on the state's vagrancy law. Clarke suggest William Smith married Moses Comstocks daughter and settled in the valley in 1791, the year after he notes Hale and Lewis settled the valley. 7 By February they had arranged to buy the house from Jesse and the 13 1/2 acres of farmland from Emma's father, Isaac Hale. Matt Kirk and Corey McQuinn, Hartgen and Associates, Inc. : Herald Publishing House, 1929), 1:580, 711. These added kitchens were typically known as work kitchens until the 1840s. Robert Quary, a new customs collector for Pennsylvania, captured two of Captain Kidds seadogs inland in Pennsylvanias interior and spread the alarm that Kidds ship had been near the Pennsylvania coast. Staker and Jensen, David Hales Store Ledger: New Details about Joseph and Emma Smith, the Hale Family, and the Book of Mormon.. He then went out of the house pretty soon about the middle of the day., Joshua McKunethink the first time I saw Treadwell after he returned from down the river was on Thursday early in the day after he had been talking at Mr. Hales around the log houseI had seen Treadwell before but had no particular conversationafter he went from Hales house I went in company with him I entered into conversation with him respecting the murder of Oliver Harper.. Joseph SmithIII, Last Testimony of Sister Emma, Saints Herald, vol.26, no.19 (Oct.1, 1879),289. Not included in this list but included in the original act were fulling mills, slitting mills, and rolling mills. Isaac Hale, and perhaps his family, likely attended these meetings during the early settlement period. [20], On November 6, 1832, Emma gave birth to Joseph Smith III in the upper room of Whitney's store in Kirtland. Arthur B. Deming, ed., W. There were also other features in the home that could have impressed Lucy. Charles Pickering became Americas leading polygenist, a scientist who believed that different races had been created separatelyeventually publishing his book Races of Man and Their Geographical Distribution.158. 101. Blackman,History of Susquehanna County,9091. Ancestors. A gaping hole grew in his neck, and he became emaciated until he looked like a living skeleton.159 The Lewis family moved into the Pickering log home to better care for him. This suggests David rented land over the next decade from Levi Westfall who farmed with his father James two farms east of Isaac and Elizabeth Hales farm.251, Jesse and Alva Hale were both listed in the1820 census as heads of household while twenty-six-year-old David was included in his fathers household as an unnamed individual listed in his age category. Brother of Reuben Hale. But in her draft history she also suggests Isaac Hale was briefly involved in treasure digging activities as well. 107. She became a physical witness of the plates, reporting that she felt them through a cloth, traced the pages through the cloth with her fingers, heard the metallic sound they made as she moved them, and felt their weight. Buck closed his labors,apparently,as pastor over the church in 1799(? Blackman,History of Susquehanna County,102. Robert H. Rose to Isaac Hale, Deeds, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, 11:444. But in her sons eyes she managed to die a good Christian death as was expected at the time. : Frank Allaben Genealogical, 1911), 79. Soon after this happened, Martin Harris informed me that he must have a greater witness, and said that he had talked with Joseph about it -- Joseph informed him that he could not, or durst not show him the plates, but that he (Joseph) would go into the woods where the Book of Plates was, and that after he came back, Harris should follow his track in the snow, and find the Book, and examine it for himself. As Nathaniel Lewis matured, he grew up in a Connecticut full of these stories. Anderson,Ancestry and Posterity of Joseph Smith and Emma Hale, 303. 18 (October 27, 1821): 141. Part of this letter is written in Emma Smiths hand and part in Joseph Smiths hand. I am grateful to Betty Smith, Director of the Susquehanna County Historical Society, for her generous help throughout this research; Jean Green, Head of Special Collections, at University Binghamton University Libraries and Nicolette Dobrowolski, Head of Public Services, Special Collections Research Center, Syracuse University Libraries, and numerous other staff members of their institutions for providing access to significant collections. 269. Isaac and Elizabeth Hale were opposed to the relationship, disapproving of Josephs religious pursuits and his work for Josiah Stowell, who had hired Joseph to help him dig for purported lost Spanish silver in the area. Two months after the Pickering death Asbury stopped in the dark at Taylors Tavern a half mile west of the Hale home on Emma Hales third birthday, July 10, 1807. Ch.2) This quote is not from The History of the Church, Volume 1, Chapter 2, as claimed. Lorenzo D. Wasson, letter to David Hale (Independence, P. O., Washington Co., Pennsylvania), February 1841, Nauvoo, Illinois, CHL. If it was twelve years before his Rodsmen were organized into a congregation then he was excluded about 1788 or a little earlier. 1, p. 212, microfilm 1,287,076, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL. Lucy Mack Smith, Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1845, 190, josephsmithpapers.org. This is the same Oliver Cowdery, whose name may be found in the Book of Mormon. In 1860, Emma affiliated with the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (later renamed Community of Christ). A Study of the Origins of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the States of New York and Pennsylvania, 18161831. The Hale farm began with Isaac Hale. Silas Comfort, a boy who grew up with Emma and who attended church with his parents in her familys home, preached in the late 1820s and early 1830s. A final report of the excavation is forthcoming and will be placed in the same files. [13] A Methodist minister performed the ceremony. Tim Pickering grew increasingly ill after his marriage to Lurena and the birth of his son. Even the elite where Isaac lived as a boy put resources into discovering precious metal. Catlin,Life among the Indians,4548. 312. These roads would open trade to the Genesee Valley where men like Joseph Knight Sr. and Josiah Stowell could purchase large supplies of grain inexpensively and take their loads down to the river destined for the higher priced urban markets in Pennsylvania. Stanley and Betty Coryell,Skinner Family History,11; Roehm, Letters of George Catlin and His Family,11; and, Blackman,History of Susquehanna County,130. 59. 160. Elizabeth Wasson moved with her husband to nearby Colesville in late 1829. Food remains found on the Hale property include bones from turkey, mammals (such as squirrels), and small birds (such as passenger pigeons).129 A local historian recalled how in some years there were millions of wild pigeons available for food in the valley.130 The Hale family also made money by working leather into products and processing meat for other families in the valley.131 They left behind remains of antlers and animal bones made into handles and other implements to sell in the area.132 The Hale family did well enough relying on hunting that by the opening of the nineteenth century they began to assemble many comforts. Emma Hale Smith Bidamon (July 10, 1804 April 30, 1879) was an American homesteader, the first wife of Joseph Smith, and a prominent leader in the early days of the Latter Day Saint movement, both during Smith's lifetime and afterward as a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church). Introduction, Blessing from Joseph Mumford owned a large lumbering company elsewhere in the county and along with the four residences in the Susquehanna Valley, the company also paid taxes on a sawmill. 150. . Born on July10, 1804, in Willingsborough (later Harmony), Pennsylvania, Emma Hale was the seventh of nine children of Isaac and Elizabeth Lewis Hale. His sons all had good educations and apparently attended one of the local advanced Seminaries in the county, perhaps the one that opened in nearby Great Bend in 1811.309 Silas Comfort went to New York to earn his doctorate in theology and later became a leading Methodist scholar producing an impressive list of books. Smith, and his father, with several other "money-diggers" boarded at my house while they were employed in digging for a mine that they supposed had been opened and worked by the Spaniards, many years since. Since Whaley wrote several decades before Blackman and drew directly from letters and personal conversations with the individuals discussed, his dating was likely more accurate. George Peck,Wyoming: Its History, Stirring Incidents, and Romantic Adventures(New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1858), 193. Versaggi, personal communication to author, September 13, 2013. He had exceptional spelling and wrote letters in a refined, practiced hand. For additional background see Francis Whiting Halsey,The Old New York Frontier(New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1901), 28. 176. On December23, 1847, Emma married LewisC. Bidamon, a non-Mormon resident of Nauvoo. 300. He in turn hired Isaac Hale the following summer of 1793 to make sure the road on this last segment was properly constructed from Colesville south through the eastern edge of Willingborough Township.109 The segment of road Hale supervised construction on became the Harmony Turnpike as it passed along the eastern edge of Oquago Mountain.110 But the side roads remained barely passable for years afterward. Thomas Houghton,Royal Institutions: Being Proposals for Articles to Establish and Confirm Laws, Liberties, and Customs of Silver and Gold Mines to All the Kings Subjects(London: Daniel Poplar, 1694), A23,68. See relevant entries throughout Staker and Jensen, David Hales Store Ledger: New Details about Joseph and Emma Smith, the Hale Family, and the Book of Mormon., 132. 4 Son of Reuben Hale and Diantha Ward. isaac hale father of emma smith . Timothy Pickering Jr., Drawings and Instructions for a House in the Country, The Timothy Pickering Papers, 17451820, 45:4955, Massachusetts Historical Society. After offering him a ride, the man declined, saying that he was headed to Cumorah, and then disappeared suddenly. The Lord will have respect to thy cries, and by his judgments he will cause some of them to see their folly and repent of their sins; but it will be by affliction that they will be saved. 247. On January 17, 1827, Joseph and Emma left the Stowell house and traveled to the house of Zachariah Tarbill[12] in South Bainbridge, New York, where they were married the following day. Spots not far from the back doors of kitchens were considered prime dumping grounds back then, George Washingtons Incredible Garbage Dump,Popular Archaeology,11 (June 2013): 1,http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/june-2013/article/george-washington-s-incredible-garbage-dump. 215. 110. If this account is accurate, it places members of the Stowell family living in a home in the valley as well. Collections of the Connecticut Historical Society,Rolls of Connecticut Men in the French and Indian War, 17551762, 344345. 208. Charles Hatchs 18281829 tavern was evidently a log structure and likely related to the log tavern Sylvanus Hatch in neighboring Great Bend Township. Emma was baptized into the Church of Christ by Oliver Cowdery in Colesville, New York, on June28, 1830, shortly after the Church was organized. Mary S. and John W. Parks, present owners. Frank M. Eastman,The Law of Taxation in Pennsylvania(Newark, N.J.: Soney & Sage, 1909), 4552. Lewis had some exposure to the use of divining rods in the search for treasure while living in Wells, Vermont, and the scant evidence suggests he had rejected these efforts early. The first sermons heard in Jackson [which was also part of Willingborough Township in the early settlement period] were those of Elder Nathaniel Lewis, a Methodist. Timothy Pickering to Rebecca White Pickering, February 21, 1808; Rebecca Pickering to Timothy Pickering Jr. March 27, 1808. When their daughter Emma was less than ten years old, the Hales built a new, two-story frame home 14 by 34 feet and expanded it during 1820-1822 to include a single level kitchen addition 12 by 24 feet, almost doubling the size of the ground level to make a comfortable but modest middling mansion. This is where Emma lived when Joseph Smith first met her. On September 22, 1827, Joseph and Emma took a horse and carriage belonging to Joseph Knight, Sr., and went to a hill, now known as Hill Cumorah, where Joseph said he received a set of golden plates. Peck,Early Methodism,306. It was there that he met Emma Hale, daughter of . Isaac Hale hereby Covenants and agrees to sell and convey to the said Joseph Smith J un. See Dubois and Pike,Centennial of Susquehanna County, 72. He was taxed that year as a single man, while he courted thirteen-year-old Mary (Polly) McKune who lived next door.250 In preparation for marriage, Jesse began building his own house on the southeastern edge of his fathers farm between his parents home and that of the McKunes (on what became the Joseph and Emma Smith property).
