Ohio- Day 3: Squires Castle, Historic Kirtland, Temple and Amish Country

After Kristin's submission to the Pillow Contest we headed out for the day.

First Stop was Squires Castle.

It was literally a castle randomly placed on the edge of the woods.

So, who was this guy?  Can you read that small?

It's crazy to think someone actually once lived here.

Inside the castle.  Do you like Kristin and my matching outfits?

Attempted artistic shot of Brian and Kristin looking through the window.

What a cute family.

This is about 10 steps behind the castle into the woods.  How would you like for that view to be your back yard?



Every part of the forest was so beautiful and Ohio is covered with trees and spectacular shades of green everywhere you look.

Look close- there is a spider on that leaf.

Next stop was Historic Kirtland

This is the Newel K. Whitney Store.  The story is that when Joseph Smith came to Kirtland he sought out Newel K. Whitney, introduced himself and said "You prayed me here, now what do you want?"  They became great friends and Newel made many sacrifices for the church, provided a lot of financial support, and eventually left everything to move West.

The door to the store is original to the building.  Here is Kristin through the same wooden frame that Joseph Smith did many times.

The inside of the store

The missionaries telling us all about the storage room in the store and how Newel K. Whitney would often give away things to people in need or barter and trade with them if they didn't have money.

Kristin and Karen in the storage room.  Joseph Smith spent a lot of time here as well and lived with the Whitney's in this house for a while.  In the left corner of the picture you can also see a desk where Newel tracked all of his inventory.  He was a very meticulous record keeper and the items represented in the store are pretty exact.

Upstairs in the dining room the family would eat and study.

Joseph Smith sat right here and organized his church business and met with other church leaders.

This table is original to the building.  It is the actual piece of furniture that Joesph Smith worked from.

Behind the dining room is this small room known as "The School of the Prophets" where the men would gather to learn the gospel, study and improve their grammar and etiquette, and prepare to eventually leave and become missionaries.  As the missionary giving the tour said, this was the first MTC :).

The kitchen was downstairs.  You can see how they used to dry the herbs they grew.

The Sister Missionary is demonstrating the "wife saver" which is a long arm that pulls food cooking in the hanging pot away from the fire and into the open for cooking and serving.  It's called the wife saver because the second leading cause of death for women at the time was infections from burns they got spending their days over these huge fireplaces wearing those long skirts. Sad.  By the way, the first leading cause of death was child birth.  It's truly amazing anyone survived at all.

It's amazing to think of these pioneers carrying such beatuiful things with them

Inside the Whitney red store.  The big tub was for laundry as well as a bathtub.

A "Feast of the poor" was held in this house where women would cook for days and serve meals to people who needed it most.

The pewter bulb in the crib is a baby bottle.

Bedroom off the dining area.

Same bedroom with amazing quilts and Newel K. Whitney's original chair.

The sitting room, (that is me artistically placed in the mirror).

The Visitor Center had some really amazing things...

...A bible that shows how Joseph Smith's translations were written right on top of the original pages,

 

2nd Addition Book of Moromon,



Handwritten Word of Wisdom,



1st edition D&C,

Images from Egyptian manuscripts translated by Joseph Smith

Beginins of the Pearl of Great Price

Model of the Kirtland Temple that we are going to visit later

Image of Christ appearing to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in the Kirtland Temple

This is a replica of the Ashery owned by N.K. Whitney

It had a saw mill and prepared wood to build the Kirtland Temple.  These are the pulpits in progress.

The people sold their fire ash to the Ashery where it was mixed and heated and prepared to be use for either gun poweder or turned into these white chucks that were sold to make porcelain.  The Ashery was a very profitable business and N.K. Whitney donated 100% of the money to the church.

Kristin standing by some pretty gardens.

Next Stop... The Kirtland Temple!

This was my artistic attempt at a photograph.  We took a tour of the inside, but photographs aren't allowed.  There are millions of pictures of the inside if you google it though.

Even though we had already done so much in one day, we decided to do more and headed to Amish Country for dinner.

The horse and buggies share lanes with the cars.

Here's a traffic sign you won't see in Salt Lake.

Kristin and I took a turn :).

Hey, watch where you park that thing!

We took the scenic route home to pass by this beautiful light house. (I had never seen one up close before).

Another view of the light house.

Beautiful view of Lake Eerie.  It looked like fun down there, but there just wasn't enough time, money, or energy to do it all... not to mention that with humidity factored in it was 105 degrees out there.

Pretty boats docked at the lake.



We got treated to a beautiful sunset on the drive back, but our day wasn't over yet.  After going back to Kirtland we got to attend opening night of "This is Kirtland" which is a musical production of the saints settling in Kirtland and told a lot of the stories that we learned about today.  It also had a bunch of Karen and Brian's institute kids performing in it.

The play was great and reminded me of when my mom used to drag us pagent hoping all around Utah to learn about church history... good memories :).