Kirtland Trip

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I've been meaning to write about our family trip for this summer, and now I'm finally doing it.

(When I'm supposed to be doing homework. My roommate and I have a deal that when we're both done with homework for the night, we're going to watch a movie...)

Anyway, Kirtland is a town in Ohio where the early Mormons settled and built their first temple (shown to the right). I have ancestors who lived there--one who only lived a couple of houses away from the Temple. It was neat to be able to be in places that I had learned so much about.

It was our first trip with the whole family since Susanna was born, and although she got to be very, very tired of the car (Kirtland is about 3.5 hours away from us), she seemed to really enjoy looking at everything there.

I don't have time to properly describe our trip, so I'll quote Mom's email about it. I hope I don't confuse you too much, Spencer... this really doesn't give you much background information, since it was written to the family.

The first week of August we took a trip to Kirtland.  We live about 3.5 hours away, and it was a nice drive.  We first went to the John Johnson Farm in Hiram, Ohio.  Hiram is actually a bit away from Kirtland, I always imagined it was closer.  That was a really neat place to see the house and hear the history of the area.  While in Hiram, we drove down the road to where Lorenzo and Eliza Snow lived.  That house is not owned by the church, but the man that lives there was in the yard, and we stopped to read the historical marker there.  The man was very friendly and took us on a tour of his home.  He even read to us from a book written by Eliza R. Snow that told about some things that had happened in their home.  We also were able to drive by an old red brick home where the mob were drinking and organized themselves to tar and feather Joseph Smith.  Other things we saw were a church where Sidney Rigdon had done some preaching and Symonds Ryder's gravestone.  (He was the man who quit the church because Joseph had misspelled Ryder.  There were other reasons as well, but it is interesting that there is a misspelled word, desciple, on his gravestone.)    We drove a bit further on and went to Nelson Ledges State Park.  It was a really beautiful area with neat places to hike around.  I wish we had had longer to stay there, and also I wish we brought extra shoes.  :)

The next day we went to Kirtland.  We had a fun drive going there through the little towns and some Amish country.  We loved seeing Kirtland.   The temple is so beautiful and the tour through the homes was really nice.  Susanna spit up on the floor of the upstairs room of the Johnson store where the School of the Prophets met.  That is where Emma had to clean up all of the tobacco that was spit there.  There is a computer there where you can type in names of ancestors who lived in Kirtland.  They give some information about them as well as where their property was in the area.  I had a few ancestors who had been in the Kirtland area.  We found out that Heman Hyde had property very close to the temple.  (Just a few houses away.)  We also found the area where Cyril Call had property.  Cyril Call also had some property a little further east.  We did not see it, but Nathaniel looked it up online, and we found that I-90 now runs through it.  Harriet and Isaac Decker had property south of Kirtland a ways.  We wish we knew where it was on the first of our trip, when we were closer to that area.  But we can save that for another trip.  We also saw the quarry that was used for the Kirtland Temple.  It is a pretty area.

All in all, it was a really good trip.  Nathaniel and Isaac will be studying Doctrine and Covenants and Church History this year in seminary, and I think more of the history will come alive for them.