Accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision

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Primary sources: First Vision accounts

Primary sources related to Joseph Smith's First Vision

Summary: Original text of Joseph's accounts of the First Vision

1832 account

Summary: This is the earliest known account of the First Vision written by Joseph Smith. Source: Joseph Smith Letterbook 1, pp. 1-6. Published in: Dean Jessee, Personal Writings of Joseph Smith.

1835 account

Summary: This account was written by Joseph Smith in his diary. Joseph described his vision to Robert Matthias, also known as "Joshua the Jewish minister". Joseph Smith Diary (1835–1836), original in Joseph Smith Collection, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah. Published in: Dean Jessee, Personal Writings of Joseph Smith.

1835 (Erastus Holmes account)

Summary: Erastus Holmes account Deseret News 2.15 (May 29, 1852); also in Millennial Star 15. 27 (July 2, 1853): 424; Jessee, The Papers of Joseph Smith, 2: 79-80; cf. Dan Vogel (editor), Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City, Signature Books, 1996–2003), 5 vols, 1:207.; DHC 2. 312.

1842 (Joseph Smith History of the Church)

Summary: "Joseph Smith’s History of the Church," Times and Seasons 3. 10 (15 Mar. 1842): 726-28

1842 (Wentworth letter account)

Summary: Wentworth letter. (Times and Seasons, 3.9 (1 Mar. 1842), p. 706-710

1843 (The Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette)

Summary: “The Prairies, Nauvoo, Joe Smith, the Temple, the Mormons, etc.,” editor, David Nye White, The Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette 58 (September 15, 1843): 3

1843 (Levi Richards account)

Summary: Levi Richards’s diary about Joseph Smith preaching in the summer of 1843 and repeating the Lord’s first message to him that no church was His (see Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of Joseph Smith, 2nd Edition, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1996), 215.

1844 (Daniel Rupp account)

Summary: : “Latter Day Saints, by Joseph Smith, Nauvoo, Illinois,” in I. Daniel Rupp, HE PASA EKKLESIA: An Original History of the Religious Denominations at Present Existing in the United States (Philadelphia: J. Y. Humphreys, 1844), pp. 404; The account for Rupp was published in the original history of the Church published in “History of Joseph Smith,” Millennial Star 22. 7 (February 18, 1860): 102-3; also in Dean Jesse, Papers of Joseph Smith, 1:448.

1844 (Alexander Neibaur account)

Summary: Alexander Neibaur Journal, 24 May 1844

1893 (Charles L. Walker account)

Summary: As told by John Alger