Kirtland Travel Guide

 mtncorg Says:  Mormonism is not a unitary movement but has seen schisms through much of its history. The major fault lines developed at the time of Joseph Smith’s murder near Nauvoo, Illinois in 1844. A leadership crisis and questions regarding the practice of polygamy led to the... 

 mtncorg Says:  Almost across the street from the Kirtland Temple stands the house that used to belong to Sidney Rigdon and his wife. Rigdon is a man that doesn’t get much play in today’s LDS church. It was mostly because of him that the Mormon movement relocated from New York to Ohio in... 

 mtncorg Says:  The Utah branch of Mormonism is by far the most numerous one today. For many years the Latter Day Saints were isolated in their Great Basin homelands centered around Salt Lake City. During the latter part of the 20th century, church authorities decided to reclaim those parts... 

 mtncorg Says:  On the north side of the Kirtland Temple you will find the local cemetery. Here you will find many several early Mormons buried within the grounds, including both John Johnson and his wife. They had left the Mormon church with many others as a result of the failure of the... 

 mtncorg Says:  This was the first brick building built in the Kirtland area, erected in 1813. Purchased by the Mormon church in 1833, the building also served in addition to a public house as a temporary printing house following the destruction of the church printing press in Independence,... 

 mtncorg Says:  In September 1832, Joseph Smith, Jr., and his wife, Emma, moved back from the John Johnson farm in Hiram, Ohio - following his tar and feather incident at the hands of a local mob - and the lived in an apartment above the store for the next year. In that time, the store also... 

 mtncorg Says:  Newell K. Whitney had been living in Kirtland - though he had been born in Vermont just a few miles from where Joseph Smith, Jr., started life in Sharon, Vermont - and had been religiously affiliated with Sidney Rigdon. He converted with many others in the congregation... 

 mtncorg Says:  In December 1832, Joseph Smith, Jr., revealed a commandment directing him to erect a temple in Kirtland. It was to be “a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God.” Construction was not able... 

 mtncorg Says:  John Johnson came from New Hampshire originally, though he and his newlywed wife, Elsa, lived for awhile in Pomfret, Vermont, a short distance away from Joseph Smith’s birthplace of Sharon. They came to Hiram, Ohio in 1818 establishing a prosperous farm and building this...