To continue my vacation posts, I'll write a little about our trip to Kirtland which came after we visited Nauvoo. Kirtland is near Cleveland, Ohio. Kirtland was the headquarters of the new LDS church in the 1830's. They were eventually driven out because of persecution. Here's the historical background to the sites: http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/summer-travel-series-historic-kirtland-ohio.
Our family last visited this site in June 2000 and things have changed! The church bought a fairly busy road that ran between the sites and re-routed it so that the whole area is a beautiful, walkable area and there are no worries about traffic. The main things I love about the church historical sites: plenty of parking, free admission to everything, and plenty of guides/missionaries to tell you about everything you may want to know. And air-conditioning!
I loved the details put into the Newel K. Whitney store:
I also loved the details in the Newel K. Whitney home. Newel K. Whitney was a prosperous storekeeper and had a nice home:
We saw the sawmill that was restored which is actually functional if desired:
We also saw the ashery where they produced potash, which is a fertilizer. I enjoyed learning about how people would bring their ashes from their fires and these would be turned into potash through a cooking/heating process. This was actually a very lucrative operation for Newell K. Whitney who owned the ashery. He very generously donated the ashery to the church and they were able to pay off the significant debts they accrued in building the Kirtland temple. Not long after that, the technology changed and the ashery became obsolete.
After visiting the LDS sites, we took a tour of the Kirtland temple which was built by the LDS church in the 1830's. However, it is now owned by the Community of Christ. They allow the local LDS congregations to hold a few meetings there during the year and have hosted the Tabernacle Choir there, I believe.
After the temple, we drove about 45 minutes to the John Johnson farm which has been restored. They were prosperous farmers and the house is quite large for that day. The woman of the house had some interesting colors painted on the walls which they discovered in the restoration process.
It took longer than we had planned so we were a little late getting into our next destination that night but I really enjoyed seeing all these sites and highly recommend them to anyone!
Our family last visited this site in June 2000 and things have changed! The church bought a fairly busy road that ran between the sites and re-routed it so that the whole area is a beautiful, walkable area and there are no worries about traffic. The main things I love about the church historical sites: plenty of parking, free admission to everything, and plenty of guides/missionaries to tell you about everything you may want to know. And air-conditioning!
I loved the details put into the Newel K. Whitney store:
I also loved the details in the Newel K. Whitney home. Newel K. Whitney was a prosperous storekeeper and had a nice home:
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| The sister missionary is showing my little girls the deep oven used for baking lots of loaves of bread at a time. |
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| This is a small bedroom where Joseph Smith slept for some months. |
We saw the sawmill that was restored which is actually functional if desired:
We also saw the ashery where they produced potash, which is a fertilizer. I enjoyed learning about how people would bring their ashes from their fires and these would be turned into potash through a cooking/heating process. This was actually a very lucrative operation for Newell K. Whitney who owned the ashery. He very generously donated the ashery to the church and they were able to pay off the significant debts they accrued in building the Kirtland temple. Not long after that, the technology changed and the ashery became obsolete.
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| I think my children were more interested than they look in this picture! |
After visiting the LDS sites, we took a tour of the Kirtland temple which was built by the LDS church in the 1830's. However, it is now owned by the Community of Christ. They allow the local LDS congregations to hold a few meetings there during the year and have hosted the Tabernacle Choir there, I believe.
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| This is a funny picture to me because it looks like the woman on the grass is coming to tell us to get off the fence but she's actually coming to tell us that we can take a tour sooner than we thought. We were not allowed to take pictures inside the temple. |
After the temple, we drove about 45 minutes to the John Johnson farm which has been restored. They were prosperous farmers and the house is quite large for that day. The woman of the house had some interesting colors painted on the walls which they discovered in the restoration process.
It took longer than we had planned so we were a little late getting into our next destination that night but I really enjoyed seeing all these sites and highly recommend them to anyone!
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