What's cool about Kirtland?
Kirtland, OH was the headquarters for the Church from 1831-1838. Joseph Smith arrived in January of 1831. You may have heard the story about his arrival. He pulled into town for the first time in a sleigh and stopped in front of Newel K. Whitney's store, who was a recent convert. He walked into the shop and directly to him. Joseph put out his hand and said, "Newel K. Whitney! Thou art the man!" Newel was surprised and didn't know who he was. Joseph said, "I'm Joseph the Prophet. You prayed me here. Now what do you want of me?"
The Church has gone in recently to renovate some of those original buildings and to build replicas of buildings that have since come down. Those sites are manned by full-time senior missionaries who are called specifically to give tours of the Church history sites.
The Saints built the first temple of this dispensation in Kirtland, although not everything had been revealed yet that we now associate with temples. In that temple Jesus, Moses, Elijah and Elias each appeared to Joseph Smith and gave him keys. The temple is still standing. It's maintained now by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and they give tours of most of the building.
They have done a fantastic job of keeping the temple maintained. They have gone to lengths to retain as much original workmanship as possible while still bringing it up to code. It's evident that the temple means a lot to them, and it had a very reverent atmosphere. I was a little surprised at how apologetic they sounded when they talked about the temple and what happened there, especially when I compared them to the missionaries at the Church's visitor centers across the street.
The Saints were industrious. They built a sawmill that used the stream's water as power for a number of woodworking tools. That's right, the early Saints built power tools. And what was neat about it was that it was all running off of the same stream, and from what I could tell, the same water wheel. There was a transmission of sorts that would switch the power from one tool to another.
They also built an ashery. Don't know what an ashery is? Neither did I. Basically, the residents could sell their fireplace ashes to the Newel K. Whitney store. The store would take the ashes to the ashery and employ a bunch of people to process them into all kinds of useful things, like soap, lye and potash. Potash was then sold throughout the country and even to England. It was really valuable because it could be used to make fine china, among other things. It was amazing to me that when the people were confronted with poverty, they found a way to make use of even their ashes. Seems like we need more of that kind of entrepreneurial spirit these days....
