The Sacred Grove

In July, 2018, my family and I took a trip to visit church history sites. The Sacred Grove in Palmyra, New York, the location of Joseph Smith’s First Visition, was the first place we visited.

Palmyra, New York

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints maintains many historic sites in Palmyra.¹ These sites are free for visitors. We spent two days in Palmyra, visiting the Palmyra New York Temple,² the Sacred Grove and the Smith Family Farm,³ the Grandin Building,⁴ the Martin Harris Farm,⁵ the Hill Cumorah,⁶ and other sites.

The Sacred Grove

The Church operates dozens of historic sites,⁷ and it provides a significant amount of information on its website to give background information and to help plan visits. Of all the historic sites, the Sacred Grove is the most visited, receiving more than 100,000 visitors every year.⁸

The grove is near the Smith Family Farm. It appears as a wall of trees on the border of the family farm. The many visitors at the farm made the various sites there (such as a couple of different homes and a barn) feel a bit more touristy, but the grove had a significantly different feel. There are several different paths with benches, so although there were quite a few people in the grove, they were dispersed on the different paths so it didn’t feel crowded.

Our visit was a special experience for my family. Because of the sacred nature of the site, all visitors respected the quiet and reverence throughout the grove. We were able to spend quite a bit of time just walking around and quietly talking. There were several families with very young children, and it was amazing to see even those small children talking quietly and not running through the paths. We loved our visit.