What human environment created this exceptional man, Joseph Smith, the Prophet? This question is squarely faced in this treatise, Joseph Smith's New England Heritage, written by one of the foremost scholars of the Church. Every informed student of Mormonism has confronted this question, but answers have not come easily. Now Dr. Anderson brings to light answers from newly discovered Mormon manuscripts, as well as from church and town records of New England. Shining the light of research into public and private sources of the Colonial period, Dr. Anderson recovers vital new information to make the immediate ancestors of Joseph Smith come alive. For the first time detailed biographies of the Prophet's grandparents are available, and their personal writings are now published together. These adventurous lives form an exciting historical era and recapture family ideals of honesty and sincere devotion to God that shaped a modern American Prophet.