Lloyd D. Newell:
Looking out over the surrounding land of the Restoration’s infancy, from the crest of the Hill Cumorah a gold-gilded statue of the angel Moroni stands atop an enduring monument of bronze and granite. Calling the attention of the world to the marvelous work of God in latter days, the statue depicts Moroni holding the Book of Mormon plates in one hand and lifting his right arm to the heavens. More than fifteen hundred years ago, before he died, Moroni securely buried the Book of Mormon record in the Hill Cumorah. In 1823 Moroni revealed its location to the Prophet Joseph Smith. The hill lies about three miles southeast of the Smith farm, just off the Canandaigua Road leading from Manchester to Palmyra Village. This upstairs bedroom is representative of the room where Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith three times on the evening of September 21 and 22, 1823. At the time Joseph was 17 years old. He instructed Joseph that a record of the Lord’s people in ancient America was securely buried in a hill near the Smith home. The time had now arrived for their testimony of Jesus Christ and the fulness of His gospel, which was engraved on plates of gold, to come forth to the world. Moroni returned to repeat the same message twice more that night, each time adding instructions. Joseph’s mission was to translate the record by the gift and power of God.1Craig James Ostler: Near a fence on the Smith farm the angel Moroni chastened the young Joseph Smith for not fulfilling his instructions. The morning after the angel appeared to Joseph throughout the night of September 21st and 22nd, he found himself exhausted and unable to complete his usual chores. Joseph related that when his father sent him back to the house to rest, “I started with the intention of going to the house, but in attempting to cross the fence out of the field where we were my strength entirely failed me and I fell helpless to the ground… I looked up and beheld the same messenger standing over my head surrounded by light as before” (JS-H 1:48-49).2 The angel related the same instructions as the previous evening and once again commanded Joseph to return to tell his father of the vision and the instruction that he had received. In belated obedience Joseph spoke to his father, who told him to do according to the angel’s instructions. Soon after Joseph began his first journey to the nearby hill, that today is known as Cumorah.3
Lloyd D. Newell: For nearly 1400 years, the Hill Cumorah was the secure location of the Book of Mormon plates. The Prophet Joseph Smith described the Hill Cumorah as being of considerable size, and the most elevated of any place in the neighborhood. Joseph Smith indicated he was led to find the plates on the west side of the hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, deposited in a stone box.4
Craig James Ostler: The Prophet Joseph Smith’s first attempts to obtain the plates from the Hill Cumorah were met with frustration. When reaching into the box to retrieve them, he was jolted with an unexpected shock. After crying out to himself, asking why he could not obtain the plates, he heard a voice declare, “Because you have not kept the commandments of the Lord.” Next to him stood the angel Moroni. Oliver Cowdery later explained, “At that instant he looked to the Lord in prayer, and as he prayed darkness began to disperse from his mind and his soul was lit up as it was the evening before, and he was filled with the Holy Spirit; …the heavens were opened and the glory of the Lord shone round about and rested upon him. While he thus stood gazing and admiring, the angel said, ‘Look!’ and as he thus spake [Joseph] beheld the prince of darkness, surrounded by his innumerable train of associates. All this passed before him, and the heavenly messenger said, ‘All this is shown, the good and the evil, the holy and impure, the glory of God and the power of darkness, that you may know hereafter the two powers and never be influenced or overcome by that wicked one.”5
Lloyd D. Newell: Each year on September 22, from 1823 to 1827, the angel Moroni met with the Prophet Joseph Smith on the Hill Cumorah to instruct him further concerning the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and the establishment of God’s kingdom on earth. Moroni delivered the plates into Joseph’s care and keeping on his visit in 1827.6
Craig James Ostler: “When Joseph got the plates, the angel of the Lord stood by and said: ‘Now you have got the record into your own hands, and you are but a man, therefore you will have to be watchful and faithful to your trust, or you will be overpowered by wicked men, for they will lay every plan and scheme that is possible to get it away from you. And if you do not take heed continually, they will succeed. While they were in my hands I could keep it, and no man had power to take them away, but now I give it up to you. Beware, and look well to your ways, and you shall have power to retain it until the time for it to be translated.’”7
Lloyd D. Newell: Not long after the Smiths moved into the log home, situated a few hundred feet to the north, they contracted to purchase one hundred acres.8
Susan Easton Black: The frame house is on that same 100 acres that the Smiths had moved to. We know that the family moves into the house, probably by late 1825.9 From that home Joseph will leave to meet his annual meetings with Moroni. Into the home he will come with the plates and announce that he has them.
Craig James Ostler: He asked his mother to send Carlos; he wished to have him sent to Hyrum’s to tell him to bring the chest.10
Lloyd D. Newell: Soon after Joseph brought the plates to the Smith home, the bricks of the fireplace hearth were removed, the plates were safely hidden beneath them, and then the bricks were carefully replaced to avoid suspicion.11 A replica of Hyrum’s chest used to secure the Book of Mormon plates sits on the dresser on the northern wall.
Craig James Ostler: The angel Moroni promised the Prophet Joseph Smith that, if he would do all he could to care for the gold plates, they would be protected.12 On the Smith farm there was a barn and a cooper shop, where Joseph Smith, Sr. earned part of his living as a cooper, making and repairing barrels, buckets, kegs, and tubs. The restored cooper shop represents one of the places Joseph hid the plates not long after receiving them from Moroni. After securing the plates under the hearthstone of the fireplace in the frame house, Joseph then hid them in a chest under the wooden floor of the cooper shop. Afterward, he felt prompted to move them from that location. He removed them from the chest, reburied the box, wrapped the plates in cloth, and concealed them under a quantity of flax that was being stored in the loft of the shop. The decoy worked. That night, a group of men tore up the floor of the cooper shop and smashed the empty wooden chest, but did not find the plates in the loft.13
Lloyd D. Newell: It may have been to this same grove that Joseph led members of the Smith and Whitmer families to receive a tangible witness of the Book of Mormon plates. Here, under divine direction, Joseph showed the Book of Mormon plates to his father, Joseph Smith, Sr., his brothers, Hyrum and Samuel, as well as Christian, Jacob, Peter Jr., and John Whitmer, along with their brother-in-law, Hiram Page—making a total of eight witnesses. These men had handled the plates, turned the pages, saw the ancient engravings and testified to the world of what they had seen. (Introductory pages of the Book of Mormon).14 The Prophet Joseph Smith referred to the message of the Book of Mormon as “Glad Tidings from Cumorah” (D&C 128:20). Another testament of Jesus Christ, the Book of Mormon testifies of the truthfulness of the Bible and the resurrection of the Son of God, convincing all that Jesus is the Christ, and contains the fulness of His gospel as taught among early inhabitants of the Americas. It has been translated into more than 100 languages and its message is taught in more than 160 nations.15 A monument at the base of the hill, in the shape of an open book, commemorates that millions upon millions of individuals have tested its promise: “And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost” (Moroni 10:4).
These are for copying so that you don’t need to change all the numbers.
1 Joseph Smith–History 1:27-47.
2 The Prophet Joseph Smith indicated that he fell next to a fence, while his mother in her account writes about him resting in “a beautiful green, under an apple-tree” [Lucy’s Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith’s Family Memoirs, ed. Lavina Fielding Anderson, (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001), 339-340].
3 Joseph Smith–History, 1:48-51.
4 Joseph Smith–History, 1:51-52.
5 Messenger & Advocate, 2:197-198 or Times & Seasons, 2:393.
6 Joseph Smith–History, 1:54, 59.
7 Lucy’s Book, 388.
8 Lucy’s Book, 318-319.
9 Lucy’s Book, 349.
10 Lucy’s Book, 386-387.
11 Lucy Mack Smith reported that both the plates and the breastplate were hidden under the hearth; Lucy’s Book, 391.
12 Lucy’s Book, 388.
13 Lucy’s Book, 392.
14 Lucy’s Book, 455-456; Introductory pages of the Book of Mormon; also see HC 1:57-58.
15 http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/book-of-mormon-reaches-140-million-milestone#continued.
