Their families all lived in Lanesville where the generally shallow river water filled the air with a constant roar and the creaking of several sawmills added the noise of industry and pious work to the setting. 179. A little over a month after Isaac Hale arranged to purchase his land, a change in county government gave the Hale family a larger political voice. The new Hale family frame home was not large enough to accomplish all of these tasks conveniently. Isaac's attitude towards Joseph Smith was one of disapproval and did not like him as a person. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 2:132. Annotated Record of Baptisms for the Dead, 18401845: Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois. Just like the property of his neighbors, most of the Hale land was rocky, steep mountainside that took major effort to make arable. 274. Mark H. Forscutt, Commemorative Discourse on the Death of Mrs. Emma Bidamon,The Saints Herald(July 15, 1879): 20917; see also, Paul V. Ludy, ed.,A Tribute To Emma(Bates City, Missouri: Paul V. Ludy and Associates, 2002), 5. Joseph Smith first arrived in the area of Harmony, Pennsylvania, in 1825. 62. When James Newman died and was buried in the cemetery west of the Hale home that now bears his name, John Comfort wrote he was taken a corps into the Chapel the first time he ever entered it. John Comfort, letter to Silas Comfort, February 29, 1848. Nathaniel and Esther Lewis became Wells Townships first converts to Methodism. Since he made his living hunting, there was little need to store a harvest of grain and animal feed. The words purported meaning of place of hulled-corn soup may have had reference to several pits containing charred corn Buck and Hale found near the ancient apple trees.44 No matter who named the mountain, that name permanently connected the Hale family and their mountain to the Onandaga people who lived there before. [23 December 180530 August 1834], Agreement with Isaac Hale, 6 April 264. Also available as A Study of the Origins of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the States of New York and Pennsylvania, 18161831, Dissertations in Latter-day Saint History (Provo, UT: Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History; BYU Studies, 2000). Along with their sons (and Hales uncles) David and John Ward, Arah and Phebe Ward took ten-year-old Isaac and set out on a 176-mile journey to establish a new life in Wells, Vermont, where Arah purchased a mill site in July 1773.19 The following summer the Wards donated ten acres for a Congregational church, and David Ward served as the Reverend.20 William Cowdery Sr. (whose grandson Oliver was born in Wells) became the deacon in their church.21, Isaac helped his grandfather build a gristmill in Wells and run it until the Revolutionary War transformed their community. Her mother, Elizabeth, was too ill to travel. For many years there were no denominations save Presbyterians [Congregationalists].170, This early religious awakening in the valley did not last long because of what became known as the Buck difficulty in 1799. John Comfort, a fellow Methodist and Isaacs close companion in community leadership, regularly wrote to his son Silas, after he left their valley to study for the ministry, and described the changes in their community as they occurred. He quickly found himself alone in the darkness surrounded by the cries of howling, ravening wolves, and greedy bears, in these regions of barreness. In that isolated country, Colbert found the occasional smoky cabin tucked back from the river hidden in the woods. This took place about the 17th of November, 1825; and one of the company gave me his note for $12.68 for his board, which is still unpaid. Isaac and Elizabeth Hales children all married, and each initially settled on or near the Hale farm. 103. However, overall it seems that Isaac was not happy with his daughter's relationship with Joseph. 3 Born in Waterbury, New Haven Co., Connecticut. 53. Isaac Hales son-in-law Michael B. Morse later lived on high, rocky ground at the north end of the Hale farm. 120. [11] The texts borrowed from Protestant groups were often changed slightly to reinforce the theology of the early church. Wilkinson,Annals of Binghamton,102. https://byustudies.byu.edu/PDFViewer.aspx?title=hidden&linkURL=53.3StakerJensen_Extended-5351ecc6-b7ef-451f-ad91-b4b78036d422.pdf. The younger Pickering, a Harvard graduate like his father, resigned his navy commission on May 2, 1801, left Massachusetts on the stagecoach one week later, and eventually walked from the end of the turnpike, through Pennsylvanias mountains into the Susquehanna Valley and to his fathers land. Bushman,Refinement of America,3060. 142. Wilkinson,Annals of Binghamton,108. 64. Anne SMITH daughter of Thomas Smith died 11 February 1880 aged 33 years 140b. On November 17, 1844, she gave birth to David Hyrum Smith, the last child that she and Joseph had together. About this same time, another local citizen, Nathaniel Wood, who lived a little north of the Lewis family, was excluded from the congregational church, apparently because he had gotten up a new system of religious doctrine.81 In the Wood families, and especially in Nathaniel Woods family, were some of the best minds the town ever had.82 And they put their thoughts toward theology. Larry C. Porter, Reverend George LaneGood Gifts, Much Grace, and Marked Usefulness,BYU Studies9 (Spring 1969): 327. But she did not need to offer them prominence in the community. Even decades later, the Hale men were hired by their neighbors to cut meat, soften it with saleratus, and smoke it for eating in later months. . 114. Anderson,Lucys Book,361; an unidentified interviewer who signed his notes as Abel, recorded aninterview with one of Emmas sons, David Hyrum Smith, and wrote down Davids description of his mother as, a little over medium highth . Blackman,History of Susquehanna County,103. "[14][15] In Harmony on June 15, 1828, Emma gave birth to her first childa son named Alvinwho lived only a few hours. 313. Walker, The Persisting Idea of American Treasure Hunting, 44950. Emma Hale was born on July 10, 1804, in Harmony Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania,[7] the seventh child of Isaac Hale and Elizabeth Lewis Hale. His information on Emmas early conversion appears to be part of what he learned directly from her. 211. The following publications provide further information about this topic. The only library in the region for many years was his personal collection he allowed others to use. Tax Assessment, Great Bend Township, 1823, Susquehanna County Courthouse. During the short time of his employ, Joseph and other workers boarded at the homestead of Isaac and Elizabeth Hale of Harmony. This continued the $10 assessment for the log home and $30 for the frame home. The early involvement of Elizabeth in Methodism is discussed below. Emma's continuing public denial of the practice seemed to lend strength to their cause, and opposition to polygamy became a tenet of the RLDS Church. 19. Augustus B. Easton, ed.,History of the Saint Croix Valley(Chicago: H. C. Cooper Jr. & Co., 1909), 2:1115; Commonwealth vs. Jason Treadwell, Susquehanna County Court of Oyer and Terminer, August 1824, Susquehanna County Courthouse, Montrose, Pennsylvania; Staker and Jensen, David Hales Store Ledger: New Details about Joseph and Emma Smith, the Hale Family, and the Book of Mormon; Byron Hale, Reuben Hales Obituary, March 21, 1887; John Travis to Jesse and Isaac W. Hale Deed, April 30, 1827, Susquehanna County Deed Books, 6:255. Latter Day Saints' Selection of Hymns was published in 1861. During that year, Buck was charged with teaching false doctrine, leading some members of his congregation to try removing him from his position. Done to destroy her husbands rod. 31. Did Emma Smith have children with her second husband? He pleaded not guilty. Letter from J. He asked the brethren who were gravely remonstrating with him: What do you suppose the Lord sent that deer into my field for? Well, I suppose it was to try you, one gravely answered. Emma had already assisted Joseph as a scribe during the early stages of the Book of Mormon translation. She may have waited for an ecstatic religious experience to bring her into the faith similarly to many others. In June 1844, the press of the Nauvoo Expositor, a newspaper published by disaffected former church members, was destroyed by the town marshal on orders from the town council (of which Joseph was a member). [3][4][5], After the killing of Joseph Smith Emma remained in Nauvoo rather than following Brigham Young and the mormon pioneers to the Utah Territory. Cornelius Wilson Larison, ed.,Sylvia Dubois: A Biografy of the Slav Who Whipt Her Mistres and Gand Her Fredom(New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 5657. Done a Methodist was because he convinced Mrs. He experienced some melancholy while he was away from his fianc, Jane Hodge, and he wrote her of his homesickness, Even the talisman around my neck, which I fondly thought would have defended me against all mischance, cannot shield me from this evil spirit . She later wrote in an interview with her son, Joseph Smith III: "In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us. Trial Notes Scribe A.. They introduced a variety of doctrinal innovations through revelation, and they discussed using their rods to find treasure to finance a New Jerusalem.83 While it is not clear if Woods followers identified themselves by a particular name, it may have been something akin to modern Israelites or Jews.84Outsiders called them Rodsmen. I have not been able to confirm this purchase in the land deed records. Both families were financially well placed and both played a significant role in community life. Isaac Hale's Low Opinion of Joseph Smith, Father-In-Law of Joseph Smith Hale was not taxed for a barn in 1798. Joseph boarded at the nearby home of Isaac Hale, where he met Emma, Isaac's twenty-year old daughter. John E. Goodrich,The State of Vermont Rolls of the Soldiers in the Revolutionary War, 17751783, (Rutland, Vermont: The Tuttle Company, 1904), 20809. agreed with Lucy Smiths account, arguing Joseph began courting while still at the Hale farm, stating a group of money diggers boarded at his [Isaacs] house [when]JS [Joseph Smith] began courting Hales daughter Emma. Michael Hubbard MacKay, Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, Grant Underwood, Robert J. Woodford, and William G. Hartley, eds.,The Joseph Smith Papers,Documents Volume 1: July 1828June 1831(Salt Lake City: Church Historians Press, 2013), 347. There must have been a good mill seat in addition to an emotional connection between the sacred site and Bucks Native American upbringing since Buck built a sawmill on the river there. ; The character development appearing in later volumes received mixed comments by Isaac Hale and Sam Kusek from the same site. 200. Elder Lewis is [in] good health for and old man. Emma Hale, the youngest daughter of Isaac Hale and Elizabeth Lewis, was born July 10th, 1804 in Harmony, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. 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. In 1785, Isaac Hale stepped into the headquarters of the Susquehanna Land Company. 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. The Hale farm began with Isaac Hale. 188. Lurena was born in October 1782 and married Timothy Pickering III in the Susquehanna Valley in 1801. Emma and Joseph met when he boarded at her fathers inn while working in the area. Her husband, Dennison Root, and their children stayed in the Susquehanna Valley where some of their descendants live today. Archaeologists, personal communications to author, July and August 2014. In early 1776 Nathaniel Lewis transferred his home with its sixteen acres of land by deed to his commanding officer, David Welch, and he took his family north to the Green Mountains.73 Although the family may have traveled with relatives, Elizabeth Lewis at only eight-years-old still held significant responsibility during the move, helping her expecting mother with her brothers and sisterseven-year-old Nathaniel Jr., five-year-old John, and two-year-old Esther. OnDecember 27, 1828, Jesse Hale assessed a tax on his fathers 130 1/2 acre farm (due to his rounding the figures, they totaled 131 acres). B. Buck to Emily Blackman as cited in Blackman,History of Susquehanna County, 495. [7] Her funeral was held May 2, 1879, in Nauvoo with RLDS Church minister Mark Hill Forscutt preaching the sermon. Grave of Alvin Smith is seen at the far left. . It is likely he drew his information from the notes of Vesta Pierce Crawford, who interviewed descendants of Emma Hale in the 1950s but likewise did not document her sources well. 6. Isaac Hale may have also gotten his interest elsewhere rather than in Wells since the practice was so widespread in America at the time. The next day at the Sunday meeting on July 12, more than two thousand people came from as far as several counties away for the worship service. 45. George B. Cone to Electa Jewett, letter, Fall 1824, Susquehanna County Historical Society. Four of Isaacs children were named after his Ward relatives, an additional three were named after Elizabeths Lewis family, and the youngest child, their son Reuben, was more likely named after Elizabeths brother Reuben Lewis than Isaacs brother Reuben Hale. 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. Since the Lewis family, as were many Methodists, had been early promoters of temperance, but did not condemn tobacco use, the artifact pattern more likely reflects their use of the site as a Methodist meeting house than a public house. Joseph Smiths 13 1/2 acres were rounded for tax purposes to 13 acres of improved land just south of the Morse property. As a middling mansion, the newly built frame home was full of enough comforts to impress Lucy Smith, but not large enough for the family to live in high style. Both options had their advantages but the Delaware was so popular for residents of the Susquehanna Valley that the village of Deposit eventually grew up nearby, and Hale Eddy, a spot on the river just below Deposit, became a staging area to prepare lumber for spring shipments. . While the Hales did not document Isaacs marriage intentions for his children, and there is no information on Emmas choice of local marriage prospects, James eventually married another young woman in their village, Mary Ann McKune, on September 7, 1830, within a few days of Joseph and Emma Smiths permanent departure from Harmony. A few visitors from Brigham Young's faction of the Latter-day Saints came from Utah Territory to visit Smith at this house. It appears that most of the residents were opposed to slavery but were not particularly sympathetic to abolitionists. He was defrocked shortly afterward. 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. The value listed for the Hales under house jumped from $20 to $98 when the additional structure was included in 1819 but the value only dropped to $40 in 1822. The drought and frost forced some local residents to walk for days trying to find enough food to feed their families.120 During the following summer of 1801, freezing temperatures and biting frosts again killed crops on July 26, August 5, August 25, and September 1213. The land was rocky without a good soil base and could not be farmed, its only resource available to Morse was the old growth forest growing on its steep slopes. Joseph began his first efforts translating the Book of Mormon in the Hale home and found protection as he began his work. While the missing tax records allow the second Hale home could have been built any time before October 2, 1812, it is not likely it was built too many years before that date. Tell us. Blackman,History of Susquehanna County,101, 103. Related Topics: Joseph and Emma Hale Smith Family, Hymns, Female Relief Society of Nauvoo. Some historians have speculated the Stowell work party stayed in Elizabeth Hales tavern when they arrived.270 While contemporary sources indicate the group of workmen stayed on the Hale property for an extended period, the Hale Family did not own a tavern, and archaeology suggests there was no room in their frame home for a number of guests for an extended period. Lorenzo Saunders, interview by William H. Kelly, September 17, 1884, E. L. Kelley Papers, Community of Christ Library and Archives, Independence, Missouri, hereafter CCA, cited in Dan Vogel, William D. Purple Reminiscence, April 28, 1877,Early Mormon Documents, 5 vols. 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. John Comfort, letter to Silas Comfort, January 17, 1840. Isaac Hale is a Guitarist, zodiac sign: Cancer. These prayers resulted in the "Word of Wisdom". . 300. In response to Emmas invitation, Isaac and Elizabeth Hales children who had already left the Susquehanna Valley settled farms within visiting distance of the city of Nauvoo, although they elected to not live within the Mormon community. After Nathaniel Lewis joined the Methodists, he preached at his house where he established a small class and became the class leader.77 His young son Nathaniel Jr. may have been his first convert. 39. During their early settlement, the family scattered their refuse about their yard, after they built their mansion the artifact scatter around their home was minimal. 230. Soon Alva prepared to go west and settle in Amboy, Illinois, within visiting distance of Nauvoo, as his brothers also gathered in the same area to live in close circumstances again. My Great-Great-Grandmother, Emma Hale Smith By Gracia N. Jones Ensign, Aug 1992, 30 Ever since the Prophet Joseph died as a martyr in Carthage, Illinois, some Latter-day Saints have felt disappointment that Joseph's wife Emma did not go with the Church in the westward exodus of the Saints in 1846-47. Copies can be purchased by visiting,http://mormonhistoricsites.org/subscribe-to-our-publications/. By referring or linking you to these resources, we do not endorse or guarantee the content or the views of the author. As the turnpike squeezed between the mountains, the rough road slumped into the Susquehanna Valley descending toward the river bend with its consistent early morning fog and faint smell of wet earth. She believed in direct answer to prayer, and spent much time at a throne of grace.III Score & X or Selections, Collections, Recollections of Seventy Busy Years(Harrisburg, Pa.: United Evangelical Publishing House, 1904), 30. Despite the difficulties of poverty, displacement, and persecution, Emma and Joseph maintained a deep love for and bond with each other. Plans for the Pickering home included directions for a drain pipe from the kitchen sink to the outside and a cloaths press or closet to hold clothing for each of the main upstairs bedrooms. It was an even more idealized distant memory when Isaacs son David wrote about his fathers profession in the early 1870s. It is said the first religious meetings in Harmony were those of the Friends, at the house of John Hilborn.176 Isaac Hale and his family may have attended these early meetings for a time since in 1825, when subpoenaed to testify at the murder trial of Jason Treadwell, Hale refused to swear an oath when placed in the witness chair, but his willingness to tell the truthan understanding of Christian duty held by Quakers.177. A traveling minister, who preached in the Hale home, remembered Isaac Hale as a shrewd, witty man; one of his neighbors identified him in court testimony the previous year as old Mr. Hale, but most of his neighbors would have recognized in him a devoted husband and father, a devout Christian, and a developed backwoodsman who preferred solitude and independence, even in his request to be buried apart from his neighbors.8 Isaacs wife, Elizabeth Lewis Hale, may have gone by Betsey.9 She could sign her own name in a careful, practiced hand, and her neighbors found her an intelligent, enjoyable conversationalist.10 But she remained firmly in the shadows of her husband. But his involvement in the search for the mine may not have been more than an economic relationship as he rented out living space. They went as far as the rift or rapids, where they left their canoes, and walked past the rapids, then took passage in a large canoe around by my fathers. If anyone was engaged in it [the Rodsmens treasure digging activities], it must have been the old gentleman, Oliver Cowderys father, she surmised. By implication the Presbyterian minister seemed to think praying for direct answers and prophesying would invite influence from the devil on him as well.184, Although Colbert left the region and never went into the Susquehanna Valley where the Hale family lived, his type of Methodism became widespread in the region as others did not seem to share the concerns of the Presbyterian minister. Captain Charles Williamson, who became general land agent selling Phelps and Gorham lands in western New York, was hired as the road contractor. 96. Nancy Mess, Historical Scraps from Susquehanna, unpublished manuscript in the authors possession and on file at the Lanesboro Town Hall, Susquehanna Depot, Pennsylvania. 1, p. 212, microfilm 1,287,076, U.S. and Canada Record Collection, FHL. This second home gave the Hale family more living space; it provided a place for David Hale to live with his new bride after his marriage; it served as the Methodist church for a period; and it may have been the residence of some of the money-diggers that stayed in the area. [4] 1810s & 1820s Member of Methodist church at Harmony. In a small area were the basement was not expanded, few artifacts were found, which suggests that the original log home had a wooden floor made of hewn timbers or hand sawn lumber.

Walnut Hills High School Directory, Articles I