South Bainbridge (Afton), New York
From The Encyclopedia of Mormonism
See this page in the original 1992 publication.
Author: Madsen, Gordon A.
In October 1825, Josiah Stowell (sometimes spelled Stoal) of Bainbridge Township (now Afton), Chenango County, New York, hired Joseph Smith and his father to assist in digging for Spanish treasure near the Susquehanna River in Harmony Township (now Oakland), Pennsylvania. The men lodged with Isaac Hale, where Joseph Smith met his future wife, Emma Hale, and began their courtship. The treasure hunters gave up excavating in mid-November 1825, but Joseph continued his employment at the Stowell farm.
Josiah Stowell's home was situated on the west side of the Susquehanna River about two miles southwest of the village of South Bainbridge (Afton since 1857), on the road to Nineveh, twenty-six miles northeast of the Hale home in Harmony. Joseph Smith worked as a farmhand, a laborer in the Stowell sawmill, and as a "wool carder." Josiah Stowell, Jr., remembered that Joseph "went to school with him one winter" and that "he was a fine likely young man" (letter of Josiah Stowell, Jr., to John S. Fullmer, Feb. 17, 1843, HDC).
Joseph Smith encountered difficulty when Peter G. Bridgman (Bridgeman), who was Stowell's nephew, swore out a complaint against him for being a "disorderly person." He appeared before Justice of the Peace Albert Neeley in South Bainbridge during March 1826 and was acquitted (Madsen, pp. 106-107; see Smith, Joseph: Legal Trials of Joseph Smith). That same year Joseph Smith found employment with Joseph Knight, Sr., in Colesville township, Broome County, a few miles south of the Stowells. He continued to call on Emma Hale in Harmony, and requested her hand in marriage. Isaac Hale strenuously objected and Joseph Smith found himself "under the necessity of taking her elsewhere" (HC 1:17). The couple were married in South Bainbridge on January 18, 1827, by Justice of the Peace Zachariah Tarbell. Joseph Smith was twenty-one and Emma Hale was twenty-two.
On June 28, 1830, while proselytizing at the home of Joseph Knight, Sr., in Colesville, Joseph Smith was arrested on a warrant from Chenango County, taken to South Bainbridge for trial before Justice of the Peace Joseph Chamberlain, and was again acquitted (Firmage, pp. 50-51). Despite strong sectarian opposition, Joseph and other LDS missionaries were successful in converting a number of individuals in the South Bainbridge area, including Josiah Stowell.
[edit] Bibliography
Firmage, Edwin B., and Richard C. Mangrum. Zion in the Courts. Urbana, Ill., 1988.
Hill, Marvin S. "Joseph Smith and the 1826 Trial: New Evidence and New Difficulties." BYU Studies 12 (Winter 1972):223-33.
Madsen, Gordon A. "Joseph Smith's 1826 Trial: The Legal Setting." BYU Studies 30 (Spring 1990):91-108.
Porter, Larry C. "A Study of the Origins of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the States of New York and Pennsylvania, 1816-1831." Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young University, 1971.
GORDON A. MADSEN
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