Early life and first marriage, 1804–1829 Emma was born July 10, 1804, in Harmony Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania , the seventh child of Isaac Hale and Elizabeth Lewis Hale. Emma first met her future husband, Joseph Smith, Jr., in 1825. Smith lived near Palmyra, New York, but boarded with the Hales in Harmony while he was employed in a company of men hoping to unearth buried treasure (specifically a silver mine for Josiah Stowell, a farmer whose home still stands on the north side of the Susquehanna River on New York State Route 7 in Nineveh, New York, just west of Afton). Although the company found no treasure, Smith returned to Harmony several times to court Emma. Isaac Hale refused to allow the marriage because he considered Smiths occupation disreputable. Finally, on January 17, 1827, Smith and Emma eloped across the state line to South Bainbridge (Afton), New York, where they were married the following day. The marriage site is now the Afton Fairgrounds, located on New York State Route 41 on the east side of the Susquehanna River; and a New York State Historical Marker commemorates the location. The couple moved to the home of Smiths parents on the edge of Manchester Township near Palmyra. On September 22, 1827, Joseph and Emma took a horse and carriage belonging to Joseph Knight, Sr., and went to a hill now known as the Hill Cumorah where Joseph said he received a set of Golden Plates. This created a great deal of excitement in the area. In December 1827, the couple decided to move to Harmony, where they reconciled—to some extent— with Isaac and Elizabeth Hale. Emmas parents helped her and Joseph obtain a house and a small farm. Once they settled in, Joseph began work on the Book of Mormon with Emma acting as a scribe. 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. She later wrote in an interview with her son, Joseph Smith III: In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.[4] While in Harmony on June 15, 1828, Emma gave birth to her first child—a son named Alvin —who lived only a few hours.
Posted on: Thu, 17 Oct 2013 04:29:56 +0000
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