Church History 📜

Before there was a Book of Mormon to place on a shelf, there were handwritten pages to protect, a printer to persuade, and a bill that somebody had to pay. In Palmyra, New York, the bill came to $3,000. Martin Harris put his property behind it. Upstairs in Egbert B. Grandin’s shop, the work began one small piece of metal type at a time. The first edition looks wonderfully unfamiliar to a… Read more

The road stopped at a crack in the sandstone. The families still had to get their wagons down. In the winter of 1879–1880, a company of Latter-day Saint settlers confronted a problem that seems almost impossible to picture from a modern highway: how do you move a wagon train, children, supplies, and livestock through a steep passage above the Colorado River when no usable wagon road exists? Their answer took weeks of… Read more

He Lost His Leg—Then Walked 22 Miles Back to Help Build the Salt Lake Temple John Rowe Moyle had already crossed an ocean, pulled a handcart across the American plains, established a farm on the Utah frontier, and spent years helping raise one of the most ambitious buildings in the American West when an ordinary farm accident threatened to end his working life. A cow kicked him with enough force to cause… Read more

Into the Blizzard: Ephraim Hanks, the LDS Frontiersman Who Rode Into a Frozen Wilderness to Save the Handcart Pioneers The story of Ephraim Knowlton Hanks and the 1856 handcart rescue is one of those episodes in Latter-day Saint history that hardly needs embellishment. Hundreds of men, women, and children were stranded on the plains of what is now Wyoming as an early and devastating winter descended upon them. Food had dwindled to… Read more

The Hawn’s Mill Massacre: A Defining Tragedy The Hawn’s Mill Massacre stands as one of the most brutal and defining moments in early Latter-day Saint history, a violent eruption that left families shattered and a community forever changed. What happened in that small Missouri settlement was not just another clash in a growing conflict, it was a calculated act of terror that exposed how fragile life had become for the Saints during… Read more

Few figures in early Latter-day Saint history carry the weight, mystery, and raw intensity of Orrin Porter Rockwell. Depending on who is telling the story, he was either a fearless guardian of the Saints or a terrifying instrument of frontier justice. In truth, he was something far more complex, a man forged in persecution, shaped by loyalty, and remembered as both legend and lightning rod. If you want a broad historical overview… Read more

James E. Faust’s address Self-Esteem: A Great Human Need is a masterful example of how gospel doctrine can be applied to real and often deeply personal human struggles. Though delivered decades ago, the talk feels remarkably modern because it addresses questions that never fade with time: how we see ourselves, where our worth truly comes from, and how we can live with confidence without falling into pride. From a Latter-day Saint perspective,… Read more

The Hill Cumorah has always been a place of deep spiritual meaning for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On Sunday, September 21, 2025, that sacred landscape entered a new chapter of its history when Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles rededicated the newly refurbished Hill Cumorah historic site in Palmyra, New York. This event marked not only a renewal of the physical… Read more

How an LDS Family Helped Restore the Joseph Smith Homestead, Heal a Town, and Safeguard Sacred Ground Introduction Sacred history does not only live in scriptures. It clings to soil, to timber, and to walls that once rang with laughter and weeping. For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints, the small village of Palmyra in upstate New York carries the spiritual weight of beginnings. It was here… Read more