Description

Joseph’s Sacred Grove

Sometime around the first week of May 1832, the Prophet Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and Newel K. Whitney were traveling by stagecoach from Independence, Missouri to Kirtland Ohio. Not far from Greenville, Indiana the horses stampeded “and while going at full speed, Bishop Whitney attempted to jump out of the coach, but having his coat fast, caught his foot in the wheel and had his leg and foot broken in several places.”

It was decided that Sidney would continue on to Kirtland while Joseph would stay with Newel in Greenville and take care of him. Joseph set Newel’s leg and ministered to him the four weeks they were there. It was on June 6, 1832 that Joseph penned the following in a letter to his wife Emma.

“My situation is a very unpleasant one, although I will endeavor to be contented– the Lord assisting me. I have visited a grove which is just back of the town almost every day, where I can be secluded from the eyes of any mortal and there give vent to all the feelings of my heart in meditation and prayer. I have called to mind all the past moments of my life and am left to mourn and shed tears of sorrow for my folly in suffering the adversary of my soul to have so much power over me as he has had in times past, but God is merciful and has forgiven my sins and I rejoice that he sendeth forth the Comforter unto as many as believe and humbleth themselves before him…. I will try to be contented with my lot knowing that God is my friend [and] in him I shall find comfort.
I have given my life into his hands. I am prepared to go at his call. I desire to be with Christ. I count not my life dear to me, only to do his will.”

Joseph later said,

“While at this place I frequently walked out in the woods, where I saw several fresh graves; and one day when I rose from the dinner table, I walked directly to the door and commenced vomiting most profusely; I raised large quantities of blood and poisonous matter, and so great were the muscular contortions of my system that my jaw was dislocated in a few moments; this I succeeded in replacing with my own hands, and made my way to Brother Whitney, (who was on the bed) as speedily as possible, he laid his hands on me and administered in the name of the Lord, and I was healed in an instant, although the effect of the poison had been so powerful, as to cause much of the hair to become loosened from my head. Thanks be to my heavenly father for his interference in my behalf at this critical moment, in the name of Jesus Christ; Amen. [HC 1:271]

Then, one day Joseph came in from his sacred grove and told Bishop Whitney that if he would agree to get off the bed the following morning, (from which he had not moved in four weeks) they would find a wagon waiting for them that would take them to the river where they would find a ferry waiting to take them across, where they would find a hack which would take them directly to the boat landing where they would find a boat in waiting to take them home, and all of this before ten in the morning. Joseph said, “He took courage and told me he would go. We started the next morning and found everything as I had told him, [and] we were passing rapidly up the river before 10 o clock.” [HC 1:272]