The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has its roots in New England. Many of the early Church leaders were born here and numerous church members today can trace their ancestry to the region. Church founder Joseph Smith was born in Sharon, Vermont in 1805; his successor in Church leadership, Brigham Young, was born in Whitingham, Vermont four years earlier. In April of 1830, Joseph Smith officially established the Church in Fayette, New York.
Subsequently, the earliest Latter-day Saint growth and missionary activity was in New England. For instance, missionaries in Massachusetts arrived in Boston June 22, 1832 and experienced immediate success, the first converts joining the Church within a few days of their arrival. By the end of the year, they had organized two small congregations in the city.
Joseph Smith himself visited Massachusetts in 1836, preaching publicly for most of a month. In 1838, Brigham Young (later to become the Church's second president) preached in the area. By February 1843, some 14 branches had been organized in the Boston area. By 1845, the Boston area hosted what was likely the largest congregation of Church members in the eastern United States, with nearly 400.
In June of 1844, Joseph Smith was assassinated in Nauvoo, Illinois, where the Latter-day Saints were building a vibrant community on the banks of the Mississippi River. Brigham Young and Wilford Woodruff (who would years later become the Church's third president) were in the home of Salem, Massachusetts Church leader Nathaniel Felt when they received the news. That home still stands in central Salem.
Following the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, tens of thousands of Latter-day Saints around the world began a mass migration across the North American continent for refuge in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake.
Those Church members who had not previously left New England for the Midwest mostly departed now. Thousands of others immigrating from Europe disembarked in Boston and New York. One man's journal records the warm welcome the emigrants received:
"Landed at Boston Constitution Wharf. Ladies came to visit us and sent oranges for the children. [Gave] New Testament to all heads of families and many little cards and books to the children."
Thereafter, and for much of the remainder of the nineteenth century, Church membership in New England was minimal, with no organized Church presence.
The re-establishment of the church in the Boston area began in 1891, when a group of eight Latter-day Saint students came to Cambridge to study at Harvard, MIT and other prominent institutions.
Many of the early converts to the Church in New England eventually became prominent in the faith. The roster of those who either hailed from New England or have served there in prominent capacities reads like a Who's Who of Church leadership: Joseph Smith (1st President), Brigham Young (2nd President), John Taylor (3rd President), Wilford Woodruff (4th President), Thomas Marsh, Parley P. Pratt, Orson Pratt, Boyd K. Packer, L. Tom Perry, Robert D. Hales (Apostles), B.H. Roberts and Truman Madsen (eminent scholars).
Today there are more than 116,000
Latter-day Saints in New England. It was announced September 20, 1995 that a temple would be built in Boston. Following its dedication, it will be the 100th operating temple of the Church.
