[5] In 1818 or 1819, the family built a log home near property owned by the estate of Nicholas Evertson of New York City, but did not enter a purchase agreement for the land until a land agent had been appointed in 1820.

[6] In 1825, the family moved into a larger and more comfortable frame home that they had built on the property but were unable to make payments on the land.

A carpenter who had completed the house sued the Smiths for his costs in February 1825.

A new agent for the Evertson estate also foreclosed on them, although a sympathetic Quaker, Lemuel Durfee, purchased the farm and permitted the family to rent the frame house until they returned to the log home in the spring of 1829.

The instigator of the purchase was LDS Church president Joseph F. Smith.