Holy Joe! ─ Prophet, Seer, and Revelator

It is 1822 in Upstate, New York where Mason Chase hires a crew of local farm hands to dig a well on his property. At the bottom of the well a stone is found and we quickly find young Joseph Smith using this stone to find treasures said to be hidden below the earth. His new found fame as a necromancer leads to a legal trial where he is charged with deceiving people through the use of the stone. As maturity sets in, visions of treasure are set aside for visions of heavenly messengers, and a new religion is born. Shortly after the publication of the Book of Mormon, elders are sent out to spread the word and the kingdom experiences rapid growth. From his early days as a money-digger to his final days as a martyred prophet, the life of Joseph Smith is a mixture of adoration and apostasy from his people, blended with the ever present friction brought on by suspicion and mistrust from those he called gentiles--non-believers.

Joseph Smith was a colorful and dramatic person, charismatic and easy to love, but like a double edged sword or a two-sided coin, the story also tells of a man with a talent for getting on other peoples' nerves. It was those others' who called him Holy Joe, but everyone who read the newspapers of the day, and those with him in the midst of the action, knew the prophet had this other name. Today, this other name grabs attention and speaks of a multifaceted personality: 'prophet, seer and revelator, yes; but he was also known as Holy Joe.