History Department. old Brother Hales, and he mentioned, Mr. The following year, most of these additional houses were removed from the tax record, and the number of pounds of sugar produced on each property was included instead, confirming sugar houses were the focus of the tax. Isaac Hale is reported to have expressed skepticism about Joseph Smith's religious claims and his story of discovering golden plates. Blackman,History of Susquehanna County,92. The young prophet was installed therein not exactly to the satisfaction of the other members of the family. During the earliest settlement period or before, the oldest and most commonly used name for the villagewhere Daniel Buck and Isaac Hale first met, Oquago, was attached to the mountain where Hale settled. Not surprisingly, Joseph Smith spent the winter of 18251826 attending school.305 This brief opportunity to improve his education apparently did not raise it to Isaac Hales standards. F. W. Beers and Company,Atlas of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania(New York: A. Pomeroy, 1872), 17; Blackman,History of Susquehanna County,105. [18] The revelation also says that Emma would "be ordained under [Joseph's] hand to expound scriptures, and to exhort the church", and authorizes Emma to "make a selection of sacred Hymns" for the church. It was too wet and humid for a crop more susceptible to fungi than other grains.116 Barley suffered from similar challenges. Emma Hale Smith Bidamon (July 10, 1804 - April 30, 1879) was an American homesteader, the first wife of Joseph Smith, and a prominent leader in the early days of the Latter Day Saint movement, both during Smith's lifetime and afterward as a member of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (RLDS Church). George Harper to David Hotchkiss, May 16, 1792, Hotchkiss Collection, Broome County Historical Society, Binghamton, New York. Selah Payne, who was a fellow Methodist of the Hale family, and who provided his home as the second meeting place along with the Hale family, began to build an African college on his property, but abandoned the project, Blackman,History of Susquehanna County,105. Joseph began his first efforts translating the Book of Mormon in the Hale home and found protection as he began his work. One day he was digging alone when Fry came on to one [treasure] box and he got it out [of the ground], but it was so heavy he could not lift it, so he went for someone to help, and when they returned the box was gone; he supposed the Spaniards [as ghosts] got it, Paul,History of Wells,81, 90. 167. Drawing by Ted. Isaac Hale noted the money-diggers boarded at my house while they were employed in digging for a mine.277 Hale could have meant by board either taking meals somewhere or regularly sleeping somewhere for an extended period.278 Both meanings were used in local contexts at the time.279 He could have meant by my house either his log home or his frame home. Franklin Bowditch Dexter, ed.,The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles(New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1901), 3:264, 266, 368, 488. The Hale log home never reappeared in the records and thus by the time Mumford left town in 1831 the building was no longer a residence and was repurposed to house animals or store supplies. He was also an avid reader and was better (self) educated than most. : Harvard University Press, 1986), 168, 173, 22932. Joseph Anderson, ed.,The Town and City of Waterbury, Connecticut, from the Aboriginal Period to the Year Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-Five(New Haven: The Price and Lee Company, 1896), 1:398, 581, and 712; and Mary Audentia Smith Anderson,Ancestry and Posterity of Joseph Smith and Emma Hale(Independence, Mo. She was baptized on 28 June 1830, shortly after the Church was organized. But it also aligned him culturally with the local Native Americans since they considered it shameful for a man to do agricultural work; men were expected to hunt and fish.126. He had disapproved of Joseph's past money-digging and he strongly disapproved of the marriage with Emma. Although Mr. Hale was remembered as a stiff old Methodist, and . Tax Assessement, December 31, 1823 for 1824 Season, Susquehanna County Courthouse, Montrose, Pennsylvania. See Returned as Elected, Quarter Sessions Docket, Susquehanna County, 3: 3637, 7071, 101, 120. What had been a small denomination ridiculed by members of the established Churches, a denomination that in Harmony included shouts of praise, falling to the floor in religious ecstasy, and above all direct and immediate answers to prayers, had become the largest denomination in America by 1820. If Blackman was counting from the date she wrote her account in 1872 it would put Elizabeths conversion to 1822, probably too late since most of her family joined much earlier. 224. Hale and Lewis also built two houses for him, a log one in 1801 and a large, frame, three-story structure in 1805.149 Colonel Pickering drew detailed plans for the home and for a large barn that included specific instructions as to how each space should be arranged and used.150 Hale and Lewis became the poor neighbors whom he has employed [who] view him with the respect and affection of children to a father.151, As Isaac Hale reviewed Pickerings instructions and learned to build the Pickering home, he likely gained experience and ideas he later used in building his own home. Isaac and Elizabeth Hale had few expenses during their early years. 282. Isaac Hale had initially welcomed Smith when he came to Harmony, Pennsylvania where Emma grew up, looking for a place to stay and continue his translation of the Golden Plates from which the Book of Mormon would be translated from. He was a member of the Army. When Joseph asked for Emmas hand in marriage, Isaac and Elizabeth Hale refused to allow the marriage because they disapproved of Joseph's employment in treasure digging. Alvin, their first child, was born and died in this home. Frisbie,History of Middletown,5556. The pinkish purple blossoms of Jo Pye weed along the road had long since faded, and now the bright yellows of the towering chestnuts in the river floodplain, the muted browns of the oaks leaning over the road, the brilliant reds of the maples in groves on the higher, south-facing mountain slopes, and the deep greens of the six hundred year old hemlocks on the north facing mountainsides all began to rise and fall in a pattern familiar to Vermont emigrants. She became a physical witness of the plates, reporting that she felt them through a cloth, traced the pages through the cloth with her fingers, heard the metallic sound they made as she moved them, and felt their weight. After the Hale family built their own mansion during the time of the Comfort conversions, the two families had a great deal in common. Joseph courted Emma Hale while she lived in her parents home, and he hoped to marry her in its parlor, as was custom in the valley. Many faithful saints soon followed. Emma first met Joseph Smith Jr. in 1825, while he boarded with her family. 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. Francis Asbury, Journal July 11, 1807, cited in George Peck,Early Methodism,154. 278. 106. But he is never mentioned in later accounts of Rodsmen activity. 68. Joseph and Isaac Hale, Emma's father, had a tumultuous relationship due to Emma and Joseph eloping, Joseph's treasure digging, and Isaac's frustration with Joseph constantly borrowing. Mormon prophet Joseph Smith met his father-in-law, Isaac Hale, while using his peep stone in a hat to hunt for buried treasure. But as part of what then existed of an American aristocracy, he immediately gave status to the Lewis and Hale families, a relationship the family still referenced a half-century later. 135. Mary S. and John W. Park, present owners. Frisbie,History of Middletown,58. Spots not far from the back doors of kitchens were considered prime dumping grounds back then, George Washingtons Incredible Garbage Dump,Popular Archaeology,11 (June 2013): 1,http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/june-2013/article/george-washington-s-incredible-garbage-dump. It was at a very Low ebb with us, he complained.283 The whole nature of Methodism changed during the years he and the Hales were members, and many of the first generation converts in Harmony did not comfortably change with it. 104. Wendy Schnur, Collections Access and Research, Mystic Seaport, The Museum of America and the Sea, Mystic, Connecticut, Personal communication to author, February 7, 2008. Anderson, Ancestry and Posterity of Joseph Smith, 300. 229. Elizabeth spent her early years in the midst of revolutionary sentiment. In 1842, when the Ladies' Relief Society of Nauvoo was formed as a . Blackman,History of Susquehanna County,433. Joseph Smith left no record of what he thought of the Isaac and Elizabeth Hale farm and recently expanded home when he first encountered them at nineteen. : Frank Allaben Genealogical, 1911), 79. Farmers, ministers, and school masters were exempt from a tax on their trade. 244. These trees can change over time as users edit, remove, or otherwise modify the data in their trees. Grave of Alvin Smith is seen at the far left. From Mormonism Unvailed, reformatted for the web here, my emphasis below: [Isaac Hale, March 20, 1834] I first became acquainted with Joseph Smith, Jr. in November,1825. Smith and Bidamon bought and renovated a portion of the unfinished Nauvoo House in 1869. Isaac Hales assessment was not crossed out and lowered with the others, perhaps because his was considered a larger commercial like operation. 86. Here in part is his opinion; 83. July 3, 2022 . But when Catlins neighbor turned up a brass kettle with his plow, he thought that might have been the one he heard about and returned it to the Indians.266 Blackman observed of the Westfall property, On the draft of a survey made by a Pennsylvania agent in 1785, six small wigwams are marked . Just another site. Blackman,History of Susquehanna County,103. Blackman,History of Susquehanna County, 469. 71. If correct, this places the Hale land payments at somewhere around $35.00 a year for a decade. The Lewis family arrived among the earliest settlers, and they would have spent most of their time clearing land to make it productive. Hamilton divided her land into affordable lots and sold them to new settlers which increased the population of the valley. While Hale and Lewis worked on the Pickering property, they associated with Colonel Pickerings son, Tim Pickering. Blackman,History of Susquehanna County, 429, 469. 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 . 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 valley was essentially a hunting preserve, but there was a small settlement on the east end near where three apple trees stood that formed the rallying point and headquarters of all the Indians in the neighborhood. During the French and Indian War, he enlisted in New Haven, Connecticut, on March 22, 1762, in the 2nd Regiment 9th Company to fight under Captain Archibald McNeil who took part of his regiment to Havana, Cuba, to avenge Spanish involvement in the conflict. Andrew Tracys 17991801 diary as cited in Blackman,History of Susquehanna County,11516. The detailed reports of this excavation are available in the unpublished documents: Hartgen Archaeological Associates, Inc., Report, Historic Sites, Church Historians Office, 2005; Hartgen Archeological Associates, Inc., Archeological Field Investigations and Addenda 1 and 2, Joseph Smith Jr. House Site, Town of Oakland (Formerly Harmony), Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, May 2005. 303. boonie bears monster plan; lowest temperature in pensacola, fl; glencoe high school basketball Shortly before the Hale family moved from Harmony, provisions were also enacted to tax pleasure carriages and watches, of which they had none. Major Buck still lived in the village July 13, 1787, when William Macclure wrote General James Clinton about a survey of the area and the desire of local men to purchase land nearby, Hinman and Hitt,The Letters and Diaries of William Macclure, 1112. Her mother Elizabeth Lewis Hale died in 1842. Timothy Pickering Jr., Drawings and Instructions for a House in the Country, The Timothy Pickering Papers, 17451820, 45:4955, Massachusetts Historical Society. If the Hale home included wallpaper it would have impressed.246 The Hale home became a civic center and a church as it was used for a variety of meetings.247 The Hale family left remnants of a high quality tea pot made of fine Jakefield pottery, a style of ceramics used by English royalty roughly during the second half of the eighteenth-century (17401790). Call us at (425) 485-6059. [11] The texts borrowed from Protestant groups were often changed slightly to reinforce the theology of the early church. The younger Pickering, a man wont to speak little and to write less, grew lonesome in the valley, and he began courting Lurena Cole, a sister of Nathaniel Lewiss wife, Sarah Cole Lewis.153 The well-educated Tim Pickering must have felt out of place within the frontier family of Nathaniel Lewis. 5 Member of Methodist church. Settlers from Harford, Bridgewater, Great Bend, Windsor, Ararat, and other villages ensconced in the mountains rode on horseback to Hilborns to read his books, leaving home early in the morning, and returning late in the evening.178 While Nathaniel Lewis owned at least one book, and Isaac Hale left a box of books at his death valued at a modest $3.50, for many years what few books were generally available for reading in the narrow valley were available only through Hilborn.179 Eventually, in 1809, Henry Drinker renamed the eastern portion of the valley Harmony Township, reminding settlers of his Quaker ideals.180 By then, Methodism had transformed the entire valley, and the Society of Friends disappeared from the community. : N.p., 1955), 86. The home and farm then passed on to others.296 Alva moved west to Amboy, Illinois in the general area where the Hale family had gathered again.