A few miles east of upper Seneca Lake in New York is a very significant place. In the early 1800s, that area had already been settled and cultivated. It was interspersed with wide bands of thick forest. Peter and Mary Whitmer, friends of Joseph Smith and friends of the truth, lived and farmed there. If you "Google" the coordinates of latitude 42° 51'57.43" N and longitude 76° 52'11.86" W, you look down at that very spot, where a replica building now stands.
Upstairs in the Whitmer home, Joseph managed to get out of the public eye long enough to finish translating the plates. That alone makes the Peter Whitmer home significant for the human family.
But other events also give the Whitmer site its stunning importance. One of these has to do with yeast.
Jesus once spoke a parable about leaven. (The Greek word denotes a specific type of leaven — yeast.) This active ingredient was "hid in three measures of meal." The microscopic, one-celled yeast plant comes in contact with sugars in the dough and begins reproducing. The "rising" process has begun. Ply and punch it a bit, and the leaven spreads through a whole lump of dough in an hour or two. It alters everything, breathing as it goes, changing the flavor and enlarging the loaf. Wheat is for man, and wheat in the form of leavened bread has kept billions of mankind alive for thousands of years.
So, what did Jesus have in mind when he used this symbol? And what does it have to do with the Whitmer site? The Prophet Joseph explained: "The Church … has taken its rise from a little leaven that was put into three witnesses. … It is fast leavening the lump, and will soon leaven the whole" (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, p. 303).
The Book of Mormon is making its way through the nations. Everywhere it goes, there is that special page declaring the revelation bestowed on three men: Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris. In the trees not many yards from the Whitmer home, the heavens opened. At a physical, visitable place on this earth, the active ingredient began its journey, reproducing itself in the heart of every sincere reader.
Those men report not only that they saw the record, but also that its resurrected caretaker, Moroni, came in glory and displayed the plates leaf by leaf. While the power of the Holy Ghost stirred within them, they carefully inspected the engravings. And there was more: They heard almighty God bear testimony that the translation was done by his divine power. They conclude by testifying of the grace of Christ, which enables the faithful to become spotless and enter the presence of God.
We have inherited the legacy of the Three Witnesses — the legacy of knowing by an actual intervention from heaven. What they tasted on the Whitmer farm in June of 1829, we may taste today. Like leaven, the testimony improves everything in its path, spreads its sweet flavor, gives life, enlarges.
Some five and a half years after this experience, those same three men made another contribution to the spread of revelation through the world. In February 1835, they were commanded to search out, from among faithful men in the church, the first Quorum of the Twelve in this dispensation (Doctrine and Covenants 18:37). Those appointments in turn established the seniority of those 12 men. And that in turn determined the senior apostles and presidents of the church ever since.
A quiet leavening at the Whitmer farm is just beginning to fill the earth.
Wayne E. Brickey, who lives in Gallatin, Mo., is a retired Church Educational System teacher and curriculum writer and has been a tour guide to Holy Land and Mormon history sites. His novel "Before His Manger: The Long Wait for Christ's First Coming" is serialized in weekly segments Fridays on MormonTimes.com.