Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial is a granite

Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite usually has a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally some individual crystals are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic...

 obelisk

Obelisk

An obelisk is a tall, four-sided, narrow tapering monument which ends in a pyramid-like shape at the top, and is said to resemble a petrified ray of the sun-disk. A pair of obelisks usually stood in front of a pylon...

 on a hill in the White River Valley

White River (Vermont)

The White River is a river in the U.S. state of Vermont. It is a tributary of the Connecticut River.The White River rises at Skylight Pond south of Bread Loaf Mountain near the crest of the Green Mountains. The river flows east to the town of Granville, where it receives the outflow from the...

 near Sharon

Sharon, Vermont

Sharon is a town in Windsor County, Vermont, United States. It had a population of 1,411 at the 2000 census. The town is home to The Sharon Academy.-History:...

 and South Royalton, Vermont

Vermont

Vermont is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state ranks 43rd in land area, , and 45th in total area. Its population according to the 2010 census, 630,337, is the second smallest in the country, larger only than Wyoming. It is the only New England...

 that marks the spot where Joseph Smith, Jr. was born on 23 December 1805. The monument was erected by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), which recognizes Smith as its first president and founding prophet

Prophet, seer, and revelator

Prophet, seer, and revelator is an ecclesiastical title used in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that is currently applied to the members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles...

. The LDS Church continues to own and operate the site as a tourist attraction.

History

In 1884, LDS Church leader Junius F. Wells

Junius F. Wells

Junius Free Wells was the first head of the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association, an organization which is today the Young Men organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...

 visited Smith's birthplace and conceived a plan to build a monument to the Mormon

Mormon

The term Mormon most commonly denotes an adherent, practitioner, follower, or constituent of Mormonism, which is the largest branch of the Latter Day Saint movement in restorationist Christianity...

 prophet. Under the direction of church president Joseph F. Smith

Joseph F. Smith

Joseph Fielding Smith, Sr. was the sixth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...

, Wells oversaw the construction of the monument in 1905. The Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial was dedicated by Joseph F. Smith on the 100th anniversary of Joseph Smith, Jr.'s birth, on December 23, 1905.

Description

The monument stands 50 feet tall and weighs approximately 100 ton

Ton

The ton is a unit of measure. It has a long history and has acquired a number of meanings and uses over the years. It is used principally as a unit of weight, and as a unit of volume. It can also be used as a measure of energy, for truck classification, or as a colloquial term.It is derived from...

s. The 40-ton shaft of the obelisk is 38½ feet long: one for each year of Smith's life. The obelisk was quarried in Barre, Vermont, and is often cited as a "remarkable engineering feat" and "one of the largest polished shafts in the world".

A visitors' center and an LDS Church meetinghouse sit on the same property as the memorial. Admission to the visitor's center and tours of the memorial site are free.

External links

• Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial : official website
• Joseph Smith, Jr. Monument, South Royalton, Vermont, USA : Mormon Historic Sites Registry