Map: Forced Migrations

The "Burned-Over District"
Palmyra, New York
1830-1831

"In the 1820s and 1830s, upstate New York is in fact the American frontier. It is on the edge of civilization."
-- Ken Verdoia, journalist

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About this Place
Shortly after the Erie Canal opens in 1825, upstate New York is still a sparsely populated, rugged frontier. The area will later be called the "Burned-Over District" -- burned over by endless religious revivals during this era of spiritual seeking.

Mormon Developments
On March 26, 1830, Joseph Smith publishes the first edition of The Book of Mormon. The book is a translation of golden plates that Smith reports to have dug up in surrounding hills. Smith says he was led to the plates and instructed by an angel, Moroni, in a series of visions. An early review in the Rochester Daily Advertiser declares The Book of Mormon to be "an evidence of fraud, blasphemy, and credulity, shocking both to Christians and moralists." Within weeks, however, Smith's new church has attracted forty members.

Why They Left
As Smith's Church of Christ grows, he finds himself under greater scrutiny from local authorities and residents. Sidney Rigdon, an Ohio preacher who learns of Smith's religion through missionaries, embraces Smith as a new prophet and urges the New York group to migrate to Ohio. In January 1831, Smith leads his family and about seventy-five followers west to Kirtland, Ohio.