This is a detailed chronology of the first five years of the Church of Christ. It begins with the selection of the twelve witnesses — the first disciples — who saw the plates that were the source of the Book of Mormon, and runs through the church’s 1834 name change. Tap any date to see what happened. Dot size marks weight: large dates are the backbone this site’s argument depends on; medium dates are supporting evidence; small dates are context. Detail beyond the project’s own documents is drawn only from the Joseph Smith Papers and comparable primary-source scholarship.
- 1829
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Feb–Apr 1829
Preparations begin
Joseph Smith Sr. visited his son in Harmony, Pennsylvania, in February, prompting a recorded revelation for him. In March, Martin Harris traveled to Harmony seeking proof of the plates and received a promise that three witnesses would eventually see them. Oliver Cowdery — a schoolteacher who had lodged with the Smith family in Manchester, New York — arrived in Harmony on April 5 with Samuel Smith, and by April 7 was serving as full-time scribe for the translation.
Preparations begin — read the full paper → -
May 1829
Priesthood restored
On May 15, while translating a passage on baptism, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery reported a visit from the resurrected John the Baptist, who conferred the Aaronic Priesthood and directed them to baptize each other. Weeks later, near the same stretch of the Susquehanna River, they reported a further visitation from Peter, James, and John, bestowing what the record calls the Melchizedek Priesthood and apostolic keys.
Priesthood restored — read the full paper → -
June 1829
Formation
Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery relocated to the Peter Whitmer Sr. farm in Fayette, New York, on June 1, after mounting local opposition made continued work in Harmony difficult; David Whitmer traveled to Harmony to provide transportation. That month the Three Witnesses (Cowdery, Whitmer, and Martin Harris) and, days later, the Eight Witnesses reported seeing — and, for the Eight, handling — the plates. A separate mid-June revelation directed Cowdery and Whitmer to eventually select twelve apostles, a command not fulfilled for nearly six years, until February 1835.
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Jun 11, 1829
Copyright secured
Joseph Smith secured the U.S. copyright for the Book of Mormon in the Northern District of New York, weeks before the translation itself was finished being dictated.
Copyright secured — read the full paper → - 1830
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Mar 26, 1830
Book of Mormon announced
The Wayne Sentinel announced the Book of Mormon complete and available for purchase, roughly nine months after the translation had wrapped up the previous June — the gap reflecting the time needed to typeset, print, and bind a book of more than five hundred pages, financed by a mortgage Martin Harris took out on his own farm.
Book of Mormon announced — read the full paper → -
Apr 6, 1830
Legal reorganization
Six men served as legal incorporators, as New York law required: Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Hyrum Smith, Samuel H. Smith, David Whitmer, and Peter Whitmer Jr. Roughly thirty people gathered at the Peter Whitmer Sr. home in Fayette, including Joseph Smith’s parents. The date itself had reportedly been specified in advance by revelation, ten days after the Book of Mormon first went on sale at the Grandin print shop.
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Apr 11, 1830
Cowdery’s first discourse
A branch was organized at Fayette, where ten members were added — including six of the Book of Mormon witnesses — and Oliver Cowdery delivered the church’s first public discourse. The church’s Articles and Covenants had been dictated the day before, on April 10.
View on Joseph Smith Papers ↗ -
Jun 9, 1830
First conference
At the church’s first general conference, held at the Whitmer farm, roughly twenty-seven members read and accepted the Articles and Covenants, and priesthood licenses were issued. Joseph Smith also delivered his first recorded conference address on revelation itself: that a given revelation might come from God, from human impulse, or from deception, and that discerning which was the individual member’s task, exercised through the Holy Ghost rather than assumed from any speaker’s office.
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Nov 1830
Sidney Rigdon baptized
Sidney Rigdon, a prominent Ohio preacher in Alexander Campbell’s Disciples of Christ movement, was baptized on November 14 in Mentor, Ohio, after reading the Book of Mormon in about two weeks and pronouncing it true.
Sidney Rigdon baptized — read the full paper → - 1831
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Feb 9, 1831
The Law
At Kirtland, Ohio, Joseph Smith dictated a revelation titled in its own manuscript “The Laws of the Church of Christ,” recorded in the handwriting of Symonds Ryder and copied that May under that title. It directed members to consecrate property under “a covenant and Deed which cannot be broken.” The wording was substantially revised before its 1835 compiled publication, which is why this site treats the original manuscript, not the later version, as authoritative for 1831.
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Jun 1831
High Priest office introduced
At a June 1831 conference in Kirtland, several men were ordained to the newly introduced office of High Priest — a rank between elder and the church’s presidency, absent from both the 1829 founding documents and the Book of Mormon’s own description of church government.
High Priest office introduced — read the full paper → -
Jul 20, 1831
Missouri gathering place designated
A revelation received in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri, named the town the “center place” for the Saints’ gathering and a nearby lot, west of the courthouse, as a future temple site — almost two years before the 1833 Plat of Zion described twenty-four such buildings rather than one.
- 1832
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Mar 8, 1832
First Presidency formed
A three-man presidency — Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon as second counselor, and Jesse Gause — was organized despite the movement numbering only a few hundred members at the time.
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Dec 1832
Jesse Gause excommunicated
Jesse Gause, a former Baptist minister and one-third of the church’s first presidency, was excommunicated by December after growing openly critical of the movement — having lost his former congregation’s financial support upon joining and finding the struggling church unable to replace it.
Jesse Gause excommunicated — read the full paper → - 1833
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Mar 15, 1833
Frederick G. Williams called
Frederick G. Williams was called to the presidency, replacing Jesse Gause — a little over two months before he would be one of three men shown the vision behind the Kirtland Temple’s design.
Frederick G. Williams called — read the full paper → -
Apr–Jun 1833
The Plat & House revealed
Between April and late June, a connected sequence of revelations produced a plat for a city and a design for a house. The plat, drawn and inked by Frederick G. Williams on a roughly 16-by-13-inch sheet, lays out a square city of half-acre residential lots around three central blocks holding twenty-four public buildings, each individually named; a revised version made that August covered about one and a half square miles with some 2,600 half-acre lots. Companion revelations gave dimensions for one of the buildings — fifty-five by sixty-five feet, in two courts — and named the presidencies, councils, and quorums meant to administer the whole design.
This site dates the revelation known as D&C 94 to May 6, 1833 — earlier than the August 2, 1833 date currently used by the Joseph Smith Papers — because the revelation’s lot-specific building instructions presuppose a physical plat already in hand, which only fits a May reception. See the 1833 paper for the full argument.
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Jun 1833
Vision of the House; groundbreaking
According to a secondhand account from Frederick G. Williams, he, Joseph Smith, and Sidney Rigdon knelt together and reported seeing the future Kirtland Temple appear before them in three-dimensional detail. A groundbreaking ceremony, officiated by Hyrum Smith, followed within days on a cleared wheat field. Sources disagree on whether this happened June 3 or June 5 — this page presents the range rather than resolving it.
Vision & groundbreaking — read the full paper → -
Jun–Jul 1833
Plat sent to, received in Missouri
Williams recorded the plat’s text into Joseph Smith’s letterbook, and on June 25 a letter and drawings were dispatched to church leaders in Independence, Missouri. John Whitmer acknowledged receiving the plat on July 29 and added his own marginal notes to the drawing, relying on the accompanying letter to explain what the blank plat itself didn’t spell out.
View on Joseph Smith Papers ↗ -
Aug 1833
Documents hidden after mob violence
In early August, a mob destroyed the church’s press in Independence amid escalating persecution. Lydia Partridge, wife of Bishop Edward Partridge, hid the plat and house documents in the bottom of a chest to protect them — successfully, but also removing them from circulation for over three decades, long enough that the 1835 compiled Doctrine and Covenants was published without them. Work on the plat itself continued regardless: a revised version is dated to the same month.
Documents hidden — read the full paper → - 1834
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Feb 17, 1834
Kirtland high council organized
The church’s first stake was created in Kirtland, Ohio, with Joseph Smith as president, and its first high council was organized the same day, intended to settle disputes the church or a bishop’s council could not resolve to the parties’ satisfaction. A comparable body was organized in Missouri that July.
View on Joseph Smith Papers ↗ -
May 3, 1834
Name change
At a Kirtland conference of elders, Sidney Rigdon proposed changing the church’s name from Church of Christ to “The Church of the Latter Day Saints,” seconded by Newel K. Whitney and passed unanimously with Joseph Smith presiding. The name omitted “Christ” entirely; it was changed again by revelation in April 1838 to “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Beyond the standard explanation — distinguishing the church from Alexander Campbell’s similarly-named movement — at least one later historical review has floated a further, disputed possibility: that the timing also served to distance the church’s new name from creditors owed money by its Kirtland-era leadership. This site’s record ends at the May 3 vote.