Picture This: Early Morning on the Smith Farm

Some of the beautiful pictures from this article are taken from the new Come Follow Me Wall Calendar for 2025 which can be pre-ordered now by CLICKING HERE. 

The only farm in the world I have been to more often than Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith’s farm in Manchester Township, New York is my own boyhood home farm near Rolla, Missouri. The Smith Farm is full of wonder for me and is a place that provides texture, light and beauty for a photographer. My favorite time to film is early in the morning, starting just before sunrise until about 90 minutes after.

There is so much moisture in this area and the temperature changes so much from nighttime to morning, there is often a low-lying fog that settles around the farm. That makes for some really beautiful images. I love this one above. This is looking south at the morning sky. You can see the Smith Frame House there on the right and, of course, the stacked split rail fence leading to the home. The home for two to three generations looked very different than it does now. President Gordon B. Hinckley wanted the home to be taken back to as close to how the Smiths knew it as possible. Renovation experts carefully fine-tooth-combed the house for original interior structure, beams and paper, etc. and made the home very authentic. Most of the home is original to the time when Alvin Smith started to build it and when Hyrum and the others finished it.

This is the interior of the Smith Cabin, located not only at the north end of the original 100-acre purchase of land, but a little bit over the line. Such things often happened in the early 1800’s. At 20 feet x 24 feet, you can see why Lucy called this their “snug little cabin” with nine children living here, plus the parents! Nothing in this reconstruction is original to the Smith family, but the period Bible on the table is open to the Book of James, so one can see James 1:5 and read it in a similar way to how young Joseph would have seen it. We visited the site for many, many years when there was no cabin here. In 1982 the site of the log cabin was located during an archaeological excavation of this north end of the original property. The cabin was erected in 1997-98 and President Hinckley dedicated it on March 27, 1998.

Walking through the Sacred Grove on the Smith Farm, just as the sun is coming up, is a humbling and spiritual experience. The rays of the sun begin to pierce the thick forest and sometimes even send beams of light coming down from the canopy. The trees are tall and beautiful in every season.

Sometimes I like to just point my lens to the top of the canopy and see what I can see. The texture of the sugar maples and the shagbark hickories are especially attractive to me. In this area, during the Smith’s era, they tapped around 1,500 maple trees to produce an average of 1,000 pounds of sugar each season. The amount of work that involved was tremendous and would be a great training ground for all the Smith children.

According to Don Enders, former director of the Historic Sites Division of the Church History Department, this beautiful virgin forest in 1818, “was covered with a magnificent stand of hardwood forest. Many of the trees were from 200 to 350 years old. Maples, beech, hop hornbeam, and wild cherry dominated the landscape, interspersed with ash, oak, hickory, and elm. This forest supported as many as 110 trees per acre…the upper canopy of this forest reached heights of more than 100 feet, with a few enormous elms rising over 125 feet.”[i] William Smith, younger brother of the Prophet Joseph, reported that some of the elms had a diameter of ten to eleven feet. Lucy wrote that they cleared 30 acres of forest in their first year and a half! That is over 3,000 trees and extremely hard and labor-intensive work!

Artist Andrew Wyeth once said, “If one could only catch that true color of nature – the very thought of it drives me mad.” I feel that way on the Smith Farm. There is so much color everywhere you turn. Those reds in the foreground maple branches are so delicious to me, I could stare at them all day long and be filled with joy. Even the textures of the hawthorn bushes, the Queen Anne’s lace mixed with the rail fences just bring delight to the soul here.

Did the Prophet Joseph see all this in his youth? You bet he did—and so much more!

And now, you can picture this.

Some of the beautiful pictures from this article are taken from the new Come Follow Me Wall Calendar for 2025 which can be pre-ordered now by CLICKING HERE. 

[i] Enders, Don, The Sacred Grove, 20 February 2019 in history.churchofjesuschrist.org.

Who Would Hang a Calendar Featuring a Single Farm? It Depends on What Farm

I have been doing a new, beautiful photographic calendar every year for six years now. I’ve covered the Holy Land twice and some of the sacred lands of the Book of Mormon. I’ve shown you many beautiful sites in Church History. So, why only feature a small, 100-acre farm in upstate New York, for this year’s Come Follow Me calendar? It is certainly clear to me. And it’s my favorite calendar yet. Let me explain.

The Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith Farm, where the Prophet Joseph Smith’s First Vision took place, captured beautifully in the 2025 Come Follow Me calendar.

We remember this Smith family farm, where Joseph grew up, and the events that happened there so that we can keep legacy and heritage and testimony alive. The Prophet Joseph’s First Vision and story will never grow old or outdated. It will never become insignificant. And most importantly, it will always be true.

Millions of people over the years have made the sacred pilgrimage to this farm. The vast majority felt something wonderful when they came here and their testimonies were strengthened. It is my desire that as you spend about 30 days seeing each beautiful photograph in this calendar throughout the year, your spirits will be enlivened, your minds will be expanded, your love for the Prophet Joseph and his family will increase and your testimonies will be strengthened.

Here on this farm is where:

• The First Vision took place in the early spring of 1820.
  •Joseph’s baby sister, Lucy, was born.
  •The Angel Moroni visited and tutored and trained the young boy Joseph Smith no less than four times.
• The gold plates came right after they were removed from their 14-centuries-old repository.
  •Alvin Smith died.
  •Joseph and Emma Hale Smith came and lived right after they got married.
• The Eight Witnesses saw the plates.
• The first words were translated from the ancient record with Emma as scribe.
• Mobs gathered to try to steal the plates.
  •The plates were hidden (in various locations) to conceal them from the mobs.
• Hyrum and Jerusha Barden Smith lived and started their family.
• Five revelations of the Doctrine and Covenants were received.

This farm is not only extremely significant, it is sacred and holy ground.

Can you begin to see why having this photographic wall calendar in your home or office or in the rooms of your children or grandchildren could have such a positive effect in your life and theirs? The presence of a beautiful picture of a sacred place can have direct and indirect spiritual influence on a person.

Come and Order the 2025 Come Follow Me Calendar Here

This farm is really an important foundation stone of our Church History. In those earliest days of the Church, there were but three branches or organized congregations, centered around families: The Colesville Branch (mainly the Joseph and Polly Knight extended family and friends), the Fayette Branch (mainly the Peter and Mary Whitmer extended family and friends) and the Manchester Branch (mainly the Joseph and Lucy Mack Smith extended family and friends). These farms were productive both for crops and for the harvest of souls. Many people took their first steps into the Kingdom of God on one of these farms.

Come and Order the 2025 Come Follow Me Calendar Here

Besides all these wonderful facts, the Smith Farm is just downright beautiful. In the early 1800’s it was covered with old-growth forest with majestic maples, beech, hop hornbeam and wild cherry dominating the canopy and an interspersing of ash, oak, hickory and very large elm trees.

In those days there were as many as 110 trees per acre and in the first 18 months the Smiths cleared 30 acres! That’s a very large number of enormous trees. Since so much water flows through the farm (Crooked or Hathaway Brook and a low-lying water table in the Sacred Grove), there is often fog to greet the visitors in the early mornings of spring, summer and fall. That makes for some great photographs. All of the pictures for this calendar were shot on just one of those magical days.

Lots of people are curious about what kind of camera I use and what I started with way back when. I had a very generous and kind Dad. He was a geologist and had to use a good camera for his work, and he made it clear that I was welcome to borrow it any time. I don’t know if he knew what he was doing (shaping my career), but I loved it. So, I started in those early days by using his Leica Rangefinder, a remarkable German camera. Over the years I made my way through Nikon, Canon, Pentax and now, amazingly, I shoot with a Sony A7R mirrorless.

The day we shot this beautiful Smith Farm was magical. Every photograph that day, of which these twelve were all a part, was a miracle and a gift from the Lord. And when you get down to it, that’s the way photography is anyway—it’s all from Him and your part as a photographer is very small. This calendar could just be a series of pictures of gratitude. I never forget Who paints the pictures.

For the last half a century I have been photo documenting the Church historical sites. I never get enough of them. I love the mornings on the Smith Farm (as noted in this calendar), the evenings in Nauvoo, every angle of Kirtland, the stunning site of Adam-ondi-Ahman and the Priesthood Restoration site in Harmony, Pennsylvania—especially right down by the banks of the Susquehanna River. I can’t photograph them enough. It’s just who I am.

Come and Order the 2025 Come Follow Me Calendar Here

A beautiful picture of a Church historical site mesmerizes me (like a campfire), whether from me or another contemporary photographer or even from early 20th century photographer, George Edward Anderson.

I love these sacred sites, our incredible history and the stories that happened within the confines of a photograph. It is fascinating to me beyond words that we have the technology to freeze the light and colors and objects and people with a photograph. To me, photography is one of the great miracles of life and I’m so grateful that I live in a time period when it is ubiquitous throughout the world. My fascination with this science will never cease.

I hope you will think of this calendar as the perfect gift for family members, each grandchild, young men and young women (who are just getting to know Church History), ministering families, ministering brothers and sisters, neighborhood gifts, friends and colleagues.

You can order your 2025 Church History Come Follow Me calendars HERE https://latterdaysaintmag.com/2025 Calendars ordered by December 20, depending on geographic location, may still arrive in time for Christmas. Packages are sent First Class or UPS and are trackable.