Joyous Celebration for Joseph’s Birthday
By Maurine Jensen Proctor; Photographs by Scot Facer Proctor

A bigger birthday party may have never been held than the one celebrating 200 years since the birth of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Twenty-one thousand people gathered in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, and untold numbers joined via satellite at stake centers and in television broadcasts across the globe. 

click on photos to enlarge

The setting for this historic broadcast was next to the hearthstone from the small home where Joseph Smith was born.

What is better than cake and candles and shouting hurrah to celebrate a birthday?  Certainly having tribute paid by all the members of the First Presidency and great-great-great-grand-nephew Elder Russell M. Ballard, broadcasting both from Vermont and the Conference Center.  Add to that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet,” “Praise to the Man,” “The Spirit of God,” and “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief” — all songs widely associated with Joseph’s life — and you have a grand party, indeed.

President Gordon B. Hinckley said that Joseph Smith would have been not only pleased, but amazed.

Marking this 200^th anniversary was in the same spirit of those who made such an immense effort to celebrate the 100^th anniversary in 1905.  President Hinckley said, “Only once before has a President of the Church stood where I stand today to memorialize a centennial of the birth of Joseph Smith Jr.  That President was Joseph F. Smith, who came here December 23, 1905.  A comparable event cannot happen for another full century.

A Sense of History

“A sense of history overwhelms me.  I feel as if I am straddling the centuries…

President Hinckley stops at the monument for a moment to reflect upon the life of the Prophet Joseph.

“A century ago President Smith dedicated the monument which marks the Prophet’s birthplace.  Today while the sun was shining, we walked about this magnificent polished granite shaft, thinking not only of the man it memorializes, but also of the providence of the Lord in bringing it into place… It is a miraculous story all by itself.

“Junius F. Wells is responsible for its presence.  He was the son of Daniel H. Wells, who was associated with the prophet in Nauvoo, and who served for twenty years as a counselor to President Brigham Young.  In 1905, Junius Wells suggested to the First Presidency that the Church acquire the old Solomon Mack farm, which straddled the line that separates South Royalton and Sharon, Vermont.  He further suggested that a fitting monument be erected here.

View of the Solomon Mack Farm in 1905, when the Church purchased it.

“The Presidency accepted his suggestion and authorized him to proceed.  He came here and was able to check the titles to the old Mack holdings and was able to acquire the property.  This spot where we stand was known as Dairy Hill.

“Brother Wells then set out to find a suitable piece of granite.  Where could there be a large enough piece from which could be shaped a dressed pillar thirty-eight and a half feet tall, one foot for each year of the prophet’s life?  He searched through the quarries of Vermont and finally found a suitable piece in the quarry of Barre.  The rough stone was laboriously taken from the quarry to the mill where it was shaped and polished.  More stone was required to provide a suitable base.

Quarry in Barre, Vermont from whence the granite was taken to form the beautiful shaft that was placed at the birthplace in 1905. 

This quarry was closed in 1989.  This picture was taken December 23, 2005.

“Eventually, the granite was ready, but there remained the almost insurmountable task of moving it, first by rail and then by wagon to the place where it was to be erected.

“A bridge over the White River had to be greatly strengthened.  A special wagon was found with steel tires twenty inches wide and axles eight inches thick. Twenty-two horses were required to haul this load of some forty tons from the railroad terminal up the hill.  Slowly, day after day, the great, ponderous load was moved.  It was now the middle of December, and the monument was to be in place and ready for dedication on December 23.

Enormous rough stone to be cut and polished measured approximately 4’ x 4’ x 40’ long.  It weighed more than 40 tons.

“It was necessary to cross through a meadow, and there a swamp lay directly where the wagon had to go.  Rocks were dumped into the swamp.  They sank out of sight.  Hardwood planking was tried, but that did not help.  The onlookers asked Brother Wells what he was going to do.  He said, ‘I’m going to pray.’

“The weather was relatively warm for December.  Before retiring for the night he opened his heart pleading with the Lord to help him find a way to get the monument in place.

The task of getting the polished shaft to the top of Dairy Hill was nearly impossible.

“That night when he was in such desperate need and offered such a moving prayer, the temperature miraculously dropped 30 degrees in a very short time.  In the morning when Junius examined the swamp it was frozen solid. The horse-drawn wagon was able to pass over it without difficulty.

“A proper foundation base was prepared at the site of erection, and by means of a great block and tackle the polished granite shaft was raised without injuring it in any way.

Using a hand-built block and tackle system the shaft was put in place.

“It was a miracle.  At that time, it was probably the largest single polished shaft anywhere in America, if not in the entire world.  It may still be so. 

“Its creation and erection were almost like Joseph’s description of his own life when he said:

It was truly a time of celebration to erect such a monument as this to the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1905.

“’I am like a huge, rough stone rolling down… a high mountain; and the only polishing I get is when some corner gets rubbed off by… striking with accelerated force against… mobs, blasphemers, licentious and corrupt men and women — all hell knocking off a corner here and a corner there.  Thus I will become a polished shaft in the quiver of the Almighty.’” (HC 5:401).

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