The Restoration by the Numbers: 74 Days, 11 Witnesses and 138 Revelations

Some of the most important events in Church history are also some of the most countable. How many times did Joseph Smith describe the First Vision? How many days did the translation take? How many people saw the plates? The Restoration by the Numbers walks from 1820 to 1847 in those small, exact numbers, and every figure links to its source.

Four in his own words, five from those who heard him

Joseph Smith described his First Vision several times between 1832 and 1844. Four accounts were written or dictated by Joseph, and five were written by people who heard him tell it. Each was written for a different audience, so each stresses something different. Together they tell one experience from several angles.

Five Septembers on a hillside

The angel Moroni first visited on the night of September 21, 1823, three times in one night and a fourth the next day. Joseph returned to the hill each September for four years before he received the plates on September 22, 1827.

About 74 days for 588 pages

With Oliver Cowdery as his main scribe, Joseph translated almost the entire Book of Mormon between April 7 and June 30, 1829. That's 85 calendar days, with at most about 74 days of translating: up to 53 in Harmony, Pennsylvania, a few days on the road to Fayette, New York, and about 21 more in the Whitmer home. That's about eight printed pages a day. Historians call 74 a maximum. The real number could be lower.

Three, then eight

In June 1829, three witnesses said an angel showed them the plates. Eight more said Joseph showed them the plates and let them handle them. Together the eleven were five Whitmer brothers, three Smiths (Joseph's father and two brothers), a Whitmer son-in-law named Hiram Page, and Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris. Their two statements have been printed in almost every edition of the Book of Mormon since 1830.

Six names, about fifty in the room

The Church was organized on April 6, 1830, in Peter Whitmer Sr.'s log home in Fayette, with six official members and about 50 people present. Eleven days earlier, the first copies of the Book of Mormon had gone on sale in Palmyra: 5,000 copies printed by E. B. Grandin for $3,000, secured by Martin Harris's farm, at $1.75 a copy.

The revelation river

1831 alone brought 37 sections. Kirtland, Ohio, received 46, more than anywhere else. 137 sections fall between 1823 and 1847. Section 138 came in 1918, and the two Official Declarations in 1890 and 1978.

Three gathering places, then the West

• Kirtland, Ohio (1831–1838): 46 revelations, twelve apostles called on February 14, 1835, and a temple dedicated March 27, 1836.
• Missouri (1831–1839): 20 revelations, the Saints driven from Jackson County in 1833 and expelled from the state in 1838. Joseph was held in Liberty Jail for four months.
• Nauvoo, Illinois (1839–1846): 20 women at the first Relief Society meeting on March 17, 1842, and 1,341 Relief Society members by 1844.
• The trek: the first wagons crossed the Mississippi on February 4, 1846. The first pioneer company, 148 people in 72 wagons, spent 111 days on the trail, and Brigham Young entered the valley on July 24, 1847.

Questions

What happens when sources disagree?

The page shows the range and says which number it used, with every figure linked to its source in “How we counted.”

Is this an official Church resource?

No. By the Numbers is an independent Weak Things project. The figures come from official Church reports and other published sources, listed on the page.

Keep exploring

• Book of Mormon by the Numbers: the book the translation became
• Church Growth by the Numbers: from 280 members in 1830 to more than 17 million
• Temples by the Numbers: from the Kirtland Temple to today

See all the projects on the By the Numbers page.

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