Palmyra New York Temple

Dedication of the Palmyra New York Temple

“This is where the First Vision occurred, and I think it appropriate that we build a house of the Lord on this ground,” said President Gordon B. Hinckley, 15th President of the Church of Jesus Christ, at the groundbreaking ceremony of the Palmyra New York Temple. “I regard this temple as perhaps the most significant, in one respect, in the entire Church. It was right here in the Sacred Grove where it all began.”

President Hinckley continued, “I marvel at what has happened here. From the First Vision this work has spread over the earth to more than 160 nations with more than 10 million people who are members of this Church. Who could ever have imagined it when that boy [Joseph Smith] walked into the grove, that the consequences of that event would become what we see today?”

President Thomas S. Monson, first counselor in the First Presidency, also spoke at the groundbreaking ceremony. Quoting John Ruskin, an English essayist, he said, “‘Wherefore, when we build, let us think that we build forever. ... Let it be such work as our descendants will thank us for, and let us think as we lay stone that a time will come when those stones will be held sacred, and wrought substances of them: See this our fathers did for us.’”

One year after the groundbreaking ceremony, President Hinckley dedicated the Palmyra New York Temple on April 6, 2000. “To me, it’s a miracle,” the Prophet said when the rain and the clouds from the morning parted right as the dedication began. And in the dedicatory prayer, President Hinckley said of the First Vision, “This wondrous event parted the curtain that had been closed for centuries.”

Those at the dedication saw the parting of the rain and clouds that day as a symbolic reminder of how the First Vision had parted the curtain of spiritual darkness from the earth.

President Hinckley was accompanied by his wife, Marjorie Pay Hinckley; President Boyd K. Packer, acting president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles; and Elder W. Craig Zwick of the Seventy.

Dedicatory prayer excerpt: “Dear Father, we acknowledge that it all began here. We marvel, and we gather today in these precincts, which were sanctified by Thy presence and the presence of Thy Son, to dedicate unto Thee and unto Him this, the Palmyra New York Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

Read the dedicatory prayer of the Palmyra New York Temple here.

The Palmyra New York Temple was announced on Feb. 9, 1999. Ground was broken almost four months later, and on April 6, 2000, President Gordon B. Hinckley dedicated the completed temple.

Architecture and Design of the Palmyra New York Temple

Overlooking the Smith Family Farm, the Palmyra New York Temple sits on a gently sloping hilltop of five acres. Below the hill, toward the north, is a replica of the Smiths’ first log home. Toward the south is a white frame home — the Smiths’ second home, begun by Alvin Smith. To the west is the Sacred Grove, and three miles south of the temple is the Hill Cumorah.

The exterior finish of the Palmyra temple was made from Bethel White granite, the exterior windows all made of stained-glass depictions of the Sacred Grove. A gold-colored statue of the angel Moroni sits on the steeple of the structure.

Inside the temple hangs a backlit mural of the First Vision. A lobby was created with special windows of clear glass to overlook the Sacred Grove. Throughout the temple’s rooms and hallways are cherrywood moldings. The structure includes a celestial room, a baptistry, two ordinance rooms and two sealing rooms.