[Cronos]

where Joseph Smith's "First Vision" took place and the golden plates were reportedly found - is in a region which used to be called the "burned over district". Unitarianism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, Seventh-Day Adventism, Restorationism (the Cambellite "churches of Christ"), and a number of other movements (including Charles Finney's "Second Great Awakening" revivals) all sprang up or hit that area over and over again, all within a span of just a few decades. Finney himself coined the phrase "burned over districts",

Burned-over district ping

[metmom]

Welcome to Upstate NY.

Those of us from the area are aware of its ...um... spiritual heritage, shall we say.