[3] According to the 2014 Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life survey, less than 1% of New Yorkers self-identify themselves most closely with the LDS Church.
Joseph Smith stated that while praying in a wooded area near his home in Palmyra in 1820, God and Jesus Christ, in a vision, appeared to him and set in motion the eventual establishment of a new religion.
Soon after, on April 6, 1830, Smith and his followers formally organized the Church of Christ, and small branches were established in Palmyra, Fayette, and Colesville, New York.
[8] The Book of Mormon brought Smith regional notoriety and opposition from those who remembered the 1826 Chenango County trial.
Construction of the temple was to take place on a 24-acre site purchased by the LDS Church at the intersection of Interstate 287 and Hutchinson River Parkway.