This site analyzes and indexes the organizational, legal, and architectural record left by the Church of Christ between its formation in 1829 and its 1834 name change: the councils, quorums, and presidencies it recorded; the Law of 1831; and the Plat and the House, both from 1833.
Every subject on this site branches from one of these six years, and the site covers nothing before or after this range. Tap a year for a summary, then read the full paper.
In June 1829 at Fayette, New York, twelve witnesses are named — priesthood restored twice, a translation completed, and a copyright secured, all before there was a church to organize.
Read the paper →On April 6, 1830, the church is organized at the Peter Whitmer Sr. home in Fayette. By September, Joseph Smith is already required to say, in writing, that the church recognizes only one channel of revelation for the body as a whole.
Read the paper →The Law is dictated at Kirtland, Ohio nine days into the year — one revelation among many, in a year that also names Independence, Missouri as the literal site of the New Jerusalem.
Read the paper →The office of church president is created, a mob nearly kills Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon at Hiram, and the Vision of the degrees of glory is received — all within the same twelve months.
Read the paper →A plat for a city and dimensions for a house are recorded — and by November, twelve hundred Saints are driven out of Jackson County, Missouri entirely.
Read the paper →In February 1834, Kirtland organizes the church's first standing high council; a week later comes the call to redeem Zion that becomes Zion's Camp. In May, a conference of elders votes to change the church's name, and this site's record ends at that vote.
Read the paper → The name change →Sections dated 1829–1834, indexed and analyzed, each linked to its source.
The witnesses and officers of the record, 1829–1834.
Locations named in the 1829–1834 record.
Where each source lives — we index and link out, we don't re-host.
A growing library of standalone scholarly papers reaching beyond the 1829–1834 chronology.