Comments on: Joseph Smith Monument -1905 and 2005

By: Kari Bragdon

Kari Bragdon — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 13:52:31 +0000

Thanks Justin, I do have that information. I was just wondering just how long they stayed, if it was until their deaths. I have a plaque typewritten on a piece of white burch bark off the farm written to my great granparents thanking them for having the farm, and letting the church buy it. It is dated 1911. I will always treasure it. Kari

By: Justin

Justin — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 21:26:00 +0000

Kari, I don’t know what information you currently have, but I found an entry for the Robinsons (Cassius, Hannah, and five children) in the 1900 Census. That’s all I could locate.

By: Kari

Kari — Thu, 26 Jan 2006 15:03:57 +0000

My great grandparents, Cassius and Hannah Robinson owned the farm that Joseph Smith was born on. They sold it to the church and he helped build the Joseph Smith Memorial. When I go to get genealogy on them, I can’t find anything. My Grandmother, Claudia, played the piano for the missionaries. They stayed on as caretakers. I have old black and white negatives of the Memorial and of the farm. My mother has newspaper clippings of the monument but does not know where she has put them as she moved a few months ago, and has not undone all boxes. I am trying to find any information on Cassius and Hannah Robinson that I can get my hands on. If you have any information at all, I would greatly appreciate it.

By: John Mansfield

John Mansfield — Thu, 22 Dec 2005 15:35:43 +0000

Thanks, JB.

By: Justin Butterfield

Justin Butterfield — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 18:53:17 +0000

Your question about that hymn raises a good point.

I understand that Manwaring’s hymn was popular when it first appeared and has enjoyed popularity over the years (it was sung several times during December 1905 centennial activities). Michael Hicks, author of Mormonism and Music, calls it the most popular of the sacred ballads published in the Juvenile Instructor in the 1870s. (It was written around 1878–inspired by a C.C.A. Christensen painting of the First Vision–and published in 1878 after being rewritten by Ebenezer Beesley.)

I don’t believe that Flake mentions the hymn in her book, but I think her thesis accounts for it. Her argument is that the First Vision really came into its own around 1905 and ensuing years. She doesn’t really dispute James Allen’s findings (“The Significance of Joseph Smith’s First Vision in Mormon Thought,” Dialogue 1.3 [Autumn 1966]: 29-45) that it enjoyed (growing) importance as a missionary tool and source of doctrine in the decades leading up to the early twentieth century (e.g., several published accounts in the 1840s, inclusion in the Pearl of Great Price in 1851, placement in the scriptures in 1880, sermons using it to teach the doctrine of deity in the early 1880s).

Flake argues that appreciation for the First Vision continued to grow in the 1890s, but it was not until the early twentieth century that it “move[d] to the fore of Latter-day Saint self-representation.” She suggests that Allen’s research shows that the turning point in the First Vision’s status occurred during President Joseph F. Smith’s administration (i.e., contemporaneous with the Smoot hearing and afterward). As she points out, the story was first used in Sunday School texts in 1905, priesthood manuals in 1909, in a separate missionary tract in 1910, and in histories of the church in 1912. The Smith family farm in Palmyra was purchased in 1907 by church members and passed on to the church in 1916. The grove of trees thought to be the site of the First Vision became a popular site for visitors during those years and hosted a centennial celebration in 1920 (118).

The man in the back on the left side is Patriarch John Smith (1832-1911), half-brother of Joseph F. Smith. (The Church website features a good photograph of them taken in 1895.)

By: John Mansfield

John Mansfield — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 15:25:46 +0000

With the idea the Joseph F. Smith organized a new focus on Joseph Smith’s first vision, I have a curiousity about the hymn now called Joseph Smith’s First Vision. I don’t know when George Manwaring (1854-1889) wrote the lyrics, but obviously it was before 1890. Was this an obscure, peripheral hymn until Joseph F. Smith gave it relevance?

Also, who is the slighly separate figure in the back row on the left?