The First Vision of the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ Nine recorded accounts

The First Vision
of the Restoration of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ 1820
Nine recorded accounts
by
Joseph Smith Jr. & others who knew him
Spelling and grammar is from the original documents.

Samples  of the nine accounts are provided in The Story

All Prints Come Rolled without a Frame

The Story

Account 1
1832 Handwritten by Joseph Smith Jr. & Frederick G. Williams

[T]herefore I cried unto the Lord for mercy for there was none else to whom I could go and to obtain mercy and the Lord heard my cry in the wilderness and....

Account 2

1835 Joseph Smith’s Recital to Matthias (A visitor to Kirtland, Ohio)

Journal 1835-36, handwritten by Warren A. Parrish

I knew not who was right or who was wrong and concidering it of the first importance that I should be right, in matters that involved eternal consequences; being thus perplexed in mind....

Account 3
1838 Account in Joseph Smith - History 1: 10-20
History, circa June 1838-39 to 1841, draft handwritten by James Mulholland

While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading the Epistle of James, First Chapter and fifth verse which reads, “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him.[”] Never did any passage....

Account 4
1842 Wentworth Letter
Joseph Smith Jr., at the request of John Wentworth,
wrote to the Chicago Democrat editor outlining the Church’s basic beliefs,
including an account of the First Vision....

I retired to a secret place in a grove and began to call upon the Lord, while fervently engaged in supplication my mind was taken away from the objects....

Account 5
1840 Orson Pratt’s Pamphlet Published in Scotland

He, therefore, ... began to call upon the Lord. At first, he was severely tempted by the powers of darkness, which
endeavoured to overcome him; but he continued to seek for deliverance,...

Account 6
1842 Orson Hyde’s Account Translated into German
“A Cry out of the Wilderness”

[H]e went to a small grove of trees near his father’s home and knelt down before God in solemn prayer....

Account 7
1843 Levi Richards’ Personal Journal

Pres. J. Smith bore testimony to the same— saying that when he was a youth he began to think about these these things but could not find out which of all the sects were right—....

Account 8
1843 David Nye White’s Account in a New York Newspaper

He revealed himself to me first when I was about fourteen years old, a mere boy. I will tell you about it. There was a reformation among the different religious denominations in the neighborhood where....

Account 9

1832 Alexander Neibaur’s Journal

[He] went into the Wood to pray kneelt himself down his tongue was closet cleavet to his roof— could utter not a word, felt easier after a while= saw a fire towards heaven came near & nearer saw a personage....