Did Joseph Use the Word Cumorah to describe the Hill in Western New York?

We receive, from time to time, inquiries about something claimed to have been said by Joseph Smith that was not actually said by him according to Church records, his history or his written documents. In this case it was a story retold in her book History of Joseph Smith by His Mother, Lucy Mack Smith, regarding an incident where Joseph was late coming home one night that gave his father some concern for his safety. When confronted about it upon his arrived, Joseph Smith recounted the event.
    The comment received by a Reader provides their point of view on sending this comment to us:
Reader: “I came across this point in an article recently in which Lucy Mack Smith recounted Joseph Smith’s story when he came home quite late one night: “Presently he [Joseph] smiled, and said in a very calm tone, “I have taken the severest chastisement, that I have ever had in my life.” My husband, supposing it was from some of the neighbors, was quite angry; and observed, “I would like to know what business anybody has to find fault with you.” “Stop, father, Stop,” said Joseph, “it was the angel of the Lord—as I passed by the hill of Cumorah, where the plates are, the angel of the Lord met me and said, that I had not been engaged enough in the work of the Lord; that the time had come for the record to be​brought forth; and, that I must be up and doing, and set myself about the things which God had commanded me to do.” Since you claim the hill near Joseph Smith’s farm was never called Cumorah by him, I was wondering if you had seen this?” Brad T.

Response: “Thanks for the reference. We have been over this before in more than one article in this blog, but will answer this once again since it has underlying importance, which is often used by Heartland, Great Lakes and North American theorists.
    Lucy Mack Smith's writing was in 1845, more than 15 years after the event of Joseph telling her this story, and long after the hill in New York had been called “Cumorah” by members of the early Church and used commonly in descriptions of it.
    There is no attempt here to suggest that Lucy Mack Smith misstated the information Joseph Smith said, she simply clarified the hill he was walking by as “the Hill Cumorah” which was well understood by the Church at the time she wrote this. It is not in the original statement since the name was not known then, but added later.
    It should be noted that about four years after the First Vision, the angel Moroni appeared to young Joseph several times, telling him about the book written on gold plates and preparing him for the work that lay ahead. Lucy Mack Smith tells how her 18-year-old prophet-son shared the wondrous news of the Book of Mormon and the Restoration with his family. As she described: “By sunset…we were all seated, and Joseph commenced telling us the great and glorious things which God had manifested to him…he proceeded to relate…particulars concerning the work which he was appointed to do, and we received them joyfully” (pp82-83, 324-328).

Joseph teaching his parents and family about the people of the American continent many an evening in the family home

Joseph’s mother continues, “From this time forth, Joseph continued to receive instructions from the Lord, and we continued to get the children together every evening for the purpose of listening while he gave us a relation of the same…During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of [the American] continent, their dress, mode of traveling, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life among them” (pp82-83).
    Yet, until Joseph and Oliver Cowdery began translating, and not until nearly the end of that period, i.e., following May 15, 1829 when they were translating 3 Nephi (D&C 13), did they encounter the name “Cumorah,” and that was only when translating Mormon’s writing of his own book, with 8 uses of the term “Cumorah” in verse 6 (4 for land of Cumorh, and 4 for hill Cumorah), and once in verse 8, when Moroni wrote the name, referring to Cumorah where the last battle took place. Moroni also refers to the hill (Cumorah) in Ether but not by name, saying it was the same hill the Jaredites called the hill Ramah.
    Since Joseph Smith was 18 in 1823, when Lucy Mack Smith describes Joseph telling them stories about the people who inhabited the American continent, that means Joseph would not have encountered the name “Cumorah” until about 6 years later, a year before the Church was organized. Consequently, there is no compelling evidence that Moroni, or even Joseph Smith, used the term “Cumorah” in 1823. In fact, even in 1838 the term “Hill Cumorah” is never used in Joseph Smith’s description of finding the plates, instead he merely states “hill” or “the hill.” In fact, Joseph described the hill in his written record simply as “the place,” though his scribe James Mulholland appended the paper to add, “a hill of considerable size, and the most elevated of any in the neighborhood.”
    So, it would seem self-evident that by the time Lucy Mack Smith wrote her book about Joseph and these events he told to the family, that she added the term “Cumorah” to “the hill” in order for clarification. Such would be like saying that Joseph Smith as a 14-year-old boy went into the Sacred Grove to pray, where he received the First Vision. In both cases, the term "Sacred Grove" and "First Vision" are accurately stated, however, at the time he went into the woods behind his father's house where they lived, it was not called the “Sacred Grove” nor was the prayer referred to as the “First Vision”—these are terms added later for clarification and well understood and used contemporary with the event for better understanding.

The Smith family home was surrounded by forest, some of it around the home itself and that area used for planting, had to be cleared by cutting down the trees; however, in Joseph’s time, there were forests on three sides of the farm (note the Farm house in the right image)

This happened a great deal in colonial writing, especially in writing to someone or a future group of people who might confuse events without such clarification. If Joseph went into the woods to pray, without all the knowledge known afterward of the event, it could be asked "which woods" since the home was surrounded by forest, woods, trees, etc. This is quite similar to the addition in Alma where Mormon inserted a description of the Land of Promise, using such terms as “small neck of land,” “land of Desolation,” “land northward,” “day and a half distance,” etc., at a time (around 90 BC) those terms would not have been known to the Nephites, since their entire emphasis was in the Land of Zarahemla and the Land of Nephi.
    Actually, there is no mention of anything taking place in the north, near the narrow neck of land until more than 20 years later, when the incident with Morianton takes place and the term “narrow passage” is mentioned (Alma 50:34; 52:9), and narrow neck 35 year later (Alma 63:5). In fact, we do not even know if the name Bountiful was known at this time, since Mormon later adds the name to the record he was abridging for clarification (Alma 50:34). In addition, the north is not mentioned with any regularity until we learn that the Nephites “did multiply and spread, and did go forth from the land southward to the land northward, and did spread insomuch that they began to cover the face of the whole earth, from the sea south to the sea north, from the sea west to the sea east” (Helaman 3:8). After that time, especially in Mormon’s time, we learn more about this area.
    The point being, the term “Cumorah” was never used by Joseph Smith according to any record of his writing except for one. In fact, in Joseph’s account in the Pearl of Great Price, he refers to the hill where the plates were buried, but never calls it by any name. The onlyh incident known where Joeph used the word Cumorah was in the Doctrine and Covenants the name 'Cumorah' only appears one time, in an 1842 epistle written by Joseph Smith: “And again, what do we hear? Glad tidings from Cumorah” (D&C 128:20). No other use of Cumorah have ever been found in any other of Joseph Smith's personal writings. When this name does appear it has been added by later editors or is being quoted from another individual (Rex C. Reeve, Jr., and Richard O. Cowan, “The Hill Called Cumorah,” in Regional Studies in Latter-day Saint History: New York and Pennsylvania, Department of Church History and Doctrine, BYU, Provo, 1992, pp73–74).
    Thus, it is highly unlikely that Joseph Smith used the term “hill Cumorah,” in discussions with his family, but that Lucy Mack Smith added the term for clarification as to what hill Joseph was describing after it had been given a name several years after the event she recounted.