After learning of the significant increase in Church membership in Ohio during the winter of 1830–1831, many ask why the conversions were so numerous in that section of America. Why was the Western Reserve such a fruitful field ready to harvest at the beginning of the 1830s? An examination of the religious conditions in Kirtland and vicinity in 1830 provides one key describing the fertile conditions prevailing there then. Immediately prior to the introduction of Mormonism in the Western Reserve, four Christian societies worshipped in Kirtland—Congregationalists, Methodists, Regular Baptists, and a group sometimes called “reformers” who were not affiliated with any denomination but were seeking a return to New Testament Christianity. As clearly enunciated in many revelations recorded by the Prophet Joseph Smith, the field was white, all ready to harvest, and one of the most fruitful fields in the early nineteenth century was northeastern Ohio.
