Smith Farm & Sacred Grove

Next it was off to see the Smith Farm. Remember I had been here before 15 years ago. I knew that even though it's a very special, sacred place there wasn't a lot there. I remembered well that it was a small white house on the right side of the road (that you just went in one room of), then you crossed the street and followed a path into the Sacred Grove. To be honest I kept wondering why everyone kept referring to it as the "Smith Farm" when there wasn't really any "farm" there. As we drove up I figured I must not have remembered right. There was a TON to see & it really was the whole farm. There is now a visitor's center where missionaries begin a tour of the farm. From there they take you to the Log Home, which is not the original, but was recreated using time period appropriate tools and detailed descriptions from Lucy Smith's journals. It was so cool. Then they took us down a gravel path to the Frame Home. Turns out the gravel path is the old road that I had remembered driving down. The church had worked with both county & town officials to have the road moved around the back of the house even though it was both a county and town border. Then we saw a recreation of the Cooper Shop (a cooper makes anything that is water tight - that was new to me), as well as a reconstructed barn that had been Brigham Young's Father's barn. After that we toured the Frame Home (which is where the missionary explained that I had remembered right & told me about all the changes. She even showed me a picture of the Frame Home & that was exactly what I remembered. After finishing up there we went into the Sacred Grove, which has a path that leads all the way through it back to the visitor's center. It was such a great experience. I was so happy to see all the work they had put into it, and felt blessed that I had been able to know the difference. I kept saying "My Mom would love this. I wish they were here." I took a serious overload of pics (mostly to show my parents & fam). It was such a great place.

The Smith Farm.

The Log Home w/ the visitor's center in the background. All the kids trying to sit quietly, without touching things, to listen.
Inside the Log Home. This is the main room, the bottom floor also had a bedroom for the parents and a birthing room on the back, up the stairs was a loft where all the kids slept. Here is the loft where the kids slept. This is where the Angel Moroni appeared to Joseph. Something really cool that one missionary said was that we know Angel Moroni's feet never touched the floor when he appeared to Joseph, so even though it we weren't standing on the exact same floor it didn't matter because we were still in the same space. I thought that was a neat thought.

They've cut out a part of the trees so you can see the temple (which is also on the same land the Smith family originally owned) as you walk down the path (the old street) to the other buildings. Here we are on the Smith Farm with the Temple in the background.

The kids running down the road between the Log Home & the Frame Home.

The view from the Frame home. The Young Barn on the left & the Cooper Shop recreation on the right.

The reconstructed Young Barn. I thought it was cool that you could see the difference between the old parts and the new ones they made to fill in.

This is what the Frame Home looks like now and how it originally looked with the Smiths built it.Inside the Frame Home.

This is the Smith girls' bedroom. Once, when mobs came looking for the plates, Joseph hid the plates between the girls & told them to pretend to be asleep. He told the mob they could search the house as long as they didn't wake the girls & they did, but never woke the girls so they didn't get the plates. Also, the whitewash on the walls is original. We all liked the little potty since we're currently potty-training This shows the original foundation & whitewash on the wall too. This is the original hearth which is cool because it's the one that the Prophet hid the gold plates under at one point. The missionary asked our family to sing I'm a Child of God when she was done with the tour. It was really cool, especially because every person sang every word, down to the three 2 year olds we had. Here we are singing.

Jameson wanted me to take this pic of him outside the Smith's frame Home to "show Grammy & Papa".

Alex enjoyed the fall leaves everywhere.

Then we headed into the Sacred Grove. (Klint, TJ, Drew & Jameson)

The Sacred Grove.Our family in the Sacred Grove. It was a great time for me to be there with my own little family.