Prologue

Palmyra: 1820

It was an extraordinary thing to happen in our little village; most unsettling and alarming. True, a religious revival of fierce proportions had been stirring the people for some time, and the contentions of sect against sect grew bold, even unscrupulous. But a boy—a mere fourteen-year-old boy? The Smith family had not been in Palmyra long, but they were considered respectable enough, were hardworking; landowners. What cause had a son of theirs to come out with so preposterous a story?

I remember it well. It was in the spring of 1820. I was twelve years old and my sister, Josie, fifteen. Joseph Smith’s age. I could not imagine Josephine thinking or caring that deeply about anything, least of all religion. What made Joseph say he had seen a vision and was marked of God to do great things? Really—here in Palmyra, upstate New York?

This was, however, a thriving, progressive village, and most of our citizens were proud of that fact. We sat square on the path of the most progressive invention in the country, the Erie Canal. People were drawn here by our prosperity and the beauty of our setting. We could boast five churches, three banks, three schools (with eleven teachers), and a printing office, as well as the customary businesses—manufactories, machine shops, mills, stores, and so forth—that make up a growing community. People called Palmyra “The Queen of the Erie.” I liked the sound of those words. I knew it was vain to nurture pride, but I heard Miller Reeves say to my father, “Is it pride merely to admit to the truth?”

So into the comfortable self-satisfaction of such an atmosphere Joseph Smith dropped his discomfiting announcement. How did he expect grown men to react? People who are strange always make those around them feel squeamish and ill at ease. But, perhaps because he was a mere boy, he did not anticipate that. I believe he truly expected those men who had courted his support, who had desired to act as his spiritual advisors, to rejoice with him at the rare and marvelous thing which had happened. But, of course, none of them did. What can be done with such a lad, anyway? Religion is well and good—in its place. But that sort of attention! Angels and visions? Not in modern-day Palmyra—not in a village as advanced as ours.

We girls felt sorry for Joseph. I believe in our hearts we admired him a little. By “we girls” I mean myself and my dearest friends. There were always the five of us, for as long as I can remember; we grew up that way. We were, perhaps, an unlikely group, now that I think upon it. My sister, Josephine, was the acknowledged leader, being two years older than the others and three years older than I, and by far the prettiest of all of us. However, as we all fully realized, that was the extent of her claims. Phoebe, though the plainest, was by far the best and kindest. Georgeanna was the brightest, the most clever and interesting of the lot. Theodora was a lady, refined in ways we never thought about. She was descended, after all, from the distinguished founder of Palmyra, Captain John Swift, who selected this bit of the Iroquois domain as his own in 1789. He cleared the land, assisted the new settlers who found their way here (most of them from Massachusetts), laid out the first roads, watched the establishment of schools and businesses, then got himself killed in the War of 1812. His body was brought back to Palmyra and placed in a hero’s grave.

Tillie, as we called her, never let us forget this one overriding fact of her noble roots, but we did not mind. Tillie was Tillie; we took her as she was, and were glad of it. We had decided to be friends, our mothers claimed, before we were out of nappies and fairly able to crawl toward one another across the long, tickly summer grass. Kindred spirits, despite our differences—despite the fact that there were five of us, not merely two or three. We never suffered a falling out—not a real one—and we seldom quarreled. Which surely means we were meant to be friends—ordained by some force within us, and some force above us, to be part of each other’s lives. We knew this with the simple, unspoken knowledge of children, and we never, through all the long years, questioned it.

So we, having our own concerns, by and large left our friend, Joseph, to his. We sensed his sin against propriety, his shame, only because our elders brought it to our attention by making a fuss about it, thus stirring our guileless curiosity. If anyone had asked me, I might have told them that Joseph was a gentle boy who was kind to girls and to animals, and he had the loveliest smile. I might have told them that he did not seem weird in a freakish or disgusting way, that he was not lazy nor dishonest, boastful nor proud.

All this I might have told them, if I had been encouraged to think about it. I do remember one summer night when I had gone to bed early and I lay stretched out in the evening coolness. I could still hear the song sparrows from their nests in the thickets along my father’s greening wheat fields. I smiled at their merry trill, remembering the phrase of their song, which my mother had taught me: “Maid, maid, maid, put-your-tea, kettle, kettle, kettle.” I remember being happy and closing my eyes in my happiness to offer a prayer of thanks unto God. He came into my mind then, this Joseph, and what I had heard of the vision he claimed had come to him. I let my mind try to fit around the idea, try to picture the spring grove, calm and still, and damp with the dews of morning. I could picture the young boy kneeling there. I could picture light and glory streaming through the newly leafed arms of the trees. I could imagine the flow of God’s love. I remember thinking, It could have happened, just as Joseph Smith said it did. He could be telling the truth, after all.