The Hill Cumorah is known to the LDS religion as a sacred place. It is located in the state of New York near a town called Palmyra. Palmyra is where Joseph Smith lived for most of his youth. Palmyra is also the place of another sacred place to the LDS faith, the sacred grove, where Joseph saw God the father and Jesus Christ in a vision now known as "The First Vision".
The Hill Cumorah is a historical and sacred place because it is where Mormon buried, among other things, the record of his people almost two thousand years ago. It is also the place where in 1823, the Angel Moroni told Joseph smith, in a vision, to find the record of his people, also known as The Golden Plates. The Golden Plates were found by Joseph under what was said to be a substantially sized rock. Under the rock was a stone box that was buried in the ground. In the stone box Joseph found the Golden plates, the Urum and Thumum, (tools to help Joseph translate the plates), and a breast plate, which is described as a small plate that the Urum and Thumum would attach to in order to be used. Joseph Smith visited the hill Cumorah once a year for four years as directed by the Angel Moroni before he was allowed to take the plates and other inhabitants of the box. The Golden plates are significant because they held the record of the Angel Moroni's people and is now known as The Book of Mormon which was translated by Joseph Smith.
The LDS church purchased the land on which the hill Cumorah is located in 1928. Then, in 1935, the church erected a granite monument topped with a nine foot statue of the Angel Moroni at the highest point on the hill. The LDS church also puts on a pageant every summer there, where many stories from the book of Mormon and the story of the first vision and the story of Joseph Smith finding, receiving, and translating the Golden Plates into the Book of Mormon are played out in celebration of the true and living gospel.
