Restoration of Mormon historic site progressing

BY BORYS KRAWCZENIUK
Times-Shamrock Writer

The Mormon Church’s project to restore the Susquehanna County site where its founder translated much of the Book of Mormon and was baptized is headed for completion late next summer or early next fall, church officials say.

The multimillion-dollar project in Oakland Twp. will include replicas of the homes where Joseph Smith lived with his wife, Emma, and where she grew up near the Susquehanna River, in which Smith and Oliver Cowdery baptized each other. Cowdery is known as the principal scribe who helped Smith transcribe about three-quarters of the Book of Mormon at the site in the late 1820s. Church members also believe the men received the Aaronic Priesthood from the angel John the Baptist there.

The Aaronic Priesthood is the lesser of two orders of priesthood in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon Church’s formal name.

The church bought about 10 acres of former junkyard land for $2.1 million in January 2011 and added that to land the church already owned there. Church officials marked the land with a monument in 1960 but never got around to building something more formal, perhaps because of its remoteness and skepticism about whether people would visit it, said Ken Cooper, a local spokesman for the church.

But a local official has said he’s seen busloads of Mormons visit during the summer every year for years to be baptized in the river.

“This is literally the last piece of our church’s historical progression in the restoration, as we call it, of the gospel to be told,” Cooper said. “The church’s startup in Palmyra (New York) where Joseph had that first vision, that all has been told. The Kirtland (Ohio) area has been told, but the restoration of the priesthood has yet to be told. … It’s a big deal.”

Kirtland is where Smith moved after the translation’s completion and where he received divine revelations that helped form the church’s doctrine. The church’s headquarters was there.

Construction of the homes and a Pennsylvania bluestone visitor’s center that will include a chapel are well underway, Mr. Cooper said.

The bucolic land is along Route 171, 7 or 8 miles off Interstate 81 and 2 or 3 miles away from Susquehanna Depot, Cooper said. The project includes realigning the road so both homes are on the same side.