The Hill Cumorah Legacy Project

The Hill Cumorah Legacy Project was the class project for HIST 326, "Digital History," at the Rochester Institute of Technology in spring 2022. Daniel Gorman Jr., a history PhD candidate at the University of Rochester, taught the course and directed the project. 31 students contributed to the project.

Western New York holds special importance to members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, popularly known as the Mormon Church. Joseph Smith Jr., the founder of the Church and translator of the Book of Mormon, grew up on a farm in Palmyra, NY, approximately twenty-five miles east of the city of Rochester. The hill where Smith is said to have found the golden plates containing the Book of Mormon is known as the Hill Cumorah. Members of the Church regard the Hill, the Smith Family Farm, the Sacred Grove, and several other sites in the region as holy places. 

From 1937 to 2019, with the exception of several years during World War II, the LDS Church staged an outdoor theatrical pageant at the Hill retelling key episodes from the Book of Mormon. In fall 2018, Church leadership announced that most of the Church's pageants would be discontinued. The Hill Cumorah Pageant was slated for a final performance in 2020, but it was postponed to 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Ultimately, the 2021 production was cancelled, making 2019 the final year that the Pageant ran.

Given RIT's proximity to the Hill Cumorah, a community-engaged history project documenting the Pageant was an exciting possibility. When Gorman was hired to teach "Digital History," he approached Henrietta, NY, LDS bishop Brian Surprenant, former Pageant President Neil Pitts, and former Pageant Presidency member Bentley Hutchings about a two-part project. First, students would photograph and catalogue artifacts and other records from the Pageant. Second, students would record new oral history interviews with Pageant alumni. The materials would be made publicly available on an Omeka website, and copies of everything would be given to the LDS Church History Department in Salt Lake City. President Pitts, Bishop Surprenant, and Mr. Hutchings put their support behind the project, and Mr. Hutchings gathered contact information for former Pageant participants. The Church representatives also put Gorman in touch with Church History librarian Elizabeth Heath. 

The students photographed items from the Pageant and recorded metadata about them on February 22, 2022. Oral history interviews were conducted in March and April 2022. Due to the Omicron wave of the pandemic, most interviews were conducted over Zoom, although a few were held in-person. One positive feature of Zoom interviews was that project researchers could talk to people who did not live in the greater Rochester area. 

Hundreds of people acted in and supported the Hill Cumorah Pageant every year for decades. This website preserves a sliver of their cultural record, capturing ephemera and stories that might otherwise have been lost to time. The oral history participants share their feelings of nostalgia, sadness over the Pageant's end, and gratitude for having been able to participate in the Pageant.

We anticipate that this project will be of particular interest to people studying the histories of American religion, American theater, and summer camps. Please explore!