"Owing to the many reports which have been put in circulation by evil designing persons in relation to the rise and progress of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, all of which have been designed by the authors thereof to militate against its character as a Church, and its progress in the world, I have been induced to write this history, so as to disabuse the public mind, and put all inquirers after truth in possession of the facts as they have transpired in relation both to myself and the Church so far as I have such facts in possession. "In this history I will present the various events in relation to this Church, in truth and righteousness, as they have transpired, or as they at present exist, being now the eighth year since the organization of the said Church. "I was born in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and five, on the twenty-third day of December, in the town of Sharon, Windsor County, State of Vermont. My father, Joseph Smith, senior, left the State of Vermont, and moved to Palmyra, Ontario (now Wayne) County, in the State of New York, when I was in my tenth year. In about four years after my father's arrival at Palmyra, he moved with his family into Manchester, in the same County of Ontario. His family consisted of eleven souls, namely: my father, Joseph Smith, my mother, Lucy Smith (whose name previous to her marriage was Mack, daughter of Solomon Mack), my brothers Alvin (who is now dead), Hyrum, myself, Samuel Harrison, William, Don Carlos, and my sisters Sophronia, Catherine, and Lucy,