Joseph Smith, Sr., was born in Topsfield, Massachusetts, July 12, 1771, the third of eleven children born to Asael and Mary Duty Smith. As a young man, he moved with his parents to Tunbridge, Vermont, where he met Lucy Mack. They were married January 24, 1796, in Tunbridge. In the years after their marriage, Joseph Sr. and Lucy tried their hands at several different ventures which did not work out. They suffered financially, moving from place to place in Vermont and New Hampshire. The Smiths finally moved to Palmyra, New York, in 1816. The Smiths purchased a 100-acre farm in Manchester, New York, soon after their arrival, but lost it in 1825 when they were unable to make the final yearly payment of $100. After they lost their farm, the Smiths again became tenant farmers.