Although Joseph Smith Jr. lived only a few years in his native state of Vermont, this state was the stage for important events in the lives of his family and his progenitors.

      The Prophet's roots in Vermont go back two generations and include overtones of religious persecution that later echoed in his own life. In Vermont, Joseph and Lucy Smith met and were married. And in Vermont they lost their financial means and were reduced to poverty.Joseph's paternal grandfather, Asael Smith, was among the first of the family to move to Vermont. The son of Samuel Smith, a Revolutionary War captain, Asael was also a Revolutionary War soldier, serving in the Army. When his father died in 1785, Asael returned to the family estate in Topsfield, Mass. There he voiced his opinions toward toleration of all religious sects.

      "He was a man of strong convictions in religion, courageous, outspoken, but tolerant withal; and held to the view, not so popular then as it afterwards became, that men should be free to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. These views brought upon him the displeasure of the severely orthodox," wrote Brigham H. Roberts in A Comprehensive History of the Church 1:5.

      Asael Smith added to the displeasure of these "severely orthodox" by sheltering in his home a persecuted Quaker. So much displeasure was vented upon Asael that he moved from Topsfield and eventually settled in Tunbridge, Vt. In Tunbridge, which is about 10 miles north of Sharon, Joseph Smith Sr. was born in 1771.

      The Prophet's maternal grandfather, Solomon Mack, served four years in the American Revolution with his sons Stephen and Jason, after which he settled in Gilsum, N.H. Solomon frequently visited his son Stephen, a well-to-do merchant with businesses in Tunbridge, Vt. According to tradition, it was at Stephen Mack's village store where Joseph Smith Sr. and Solomon's daughter, Lucy, first met. The couple was married in 1796.

      They cultivated a "handsome farm," as Lucy described it, in Tunbridge for six years. At that time, they prospered to the extent that Joseph Sr. ventured into merchandising. He invested everything he had, plus borrowing more, into exporting locally grown ginseng root to China. Ginseng was an aromatic herb highly prized at the time by Chinese. Had this venture been successful, the Smith family would have realized a significant increase on their investment, and likely remained a prosperous family in the Tunbridge area.

      But the fate of the family took another direction. A man they hired to oversee the project embezzled their funds, and absconded to Canada.

      To pay his debtors, Joseph Smith Sr. sold the "handsome" Tunbridge farm for $800, and Lucy gave up her dowry of $1,000. The family then moved to Sharon where they rented a farm of Lucy's father, Solomon. Joseph and Lucy redoubled their efforts to reestablish themselves as Joseph Sr. taught school in the winter and farmed in the summer. They prospered, and their efforts brought an interlude of relative comfort.

      In 1805 in the White River Valley, the Smith family lived comfortably. Here, on Dec. 23, Joseph Jr., their fourth child, was born and named after his father.

      The Smith family farmed in several locations in the next few years. However, serious illnesses from a typhoid plague left the family decimated. They then moved to Norwich, Vt., where they experienced three successive crop failures from early frosts that caused a near famine in the area. The twin disasters left the family destitute. They were homeless and nearly penniless when they moved to the Palmyra area in upstate New York, seeking better farming conditions.