Mary A Savage’s Personal Account of Her Parents’ Conversion to Mormonism

I, Mary Abagail White Savage, am the daughter of John Griggs White and Lucy Bailey who were born in Connecticut.

I was born in the State of New York, town of Parishville, Lawrence Co., March 30th, 1832. When I was about 12 years old my father moved to Ohio and settled at Fairport in Geauga Co., fifteen miles from Kirtland. My father said to mother one day, “They say the Smiths live at Kirtland and are Mormons.” They had been acquainted with the Smiths before the Book of Mormon was found and lived neighbors to John and Silas Smith, Joseph Smith’s uncles. Father said, “I’m going to see them and if honest John Smith tells me the Book of Mormon is true I will believe it for I don’t believe he has ever told a lie in his life.”

I mention this to show how well they were liked for honesty before they were Mormons. He went and brought a Book of Mormon and read it in a short time. Then he took mother and went to Kirtland and they were both baptized…[by] Joseph Smith, Senior.