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The Story of the Mormons, from the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901

by William Alexander Linn · English · Gutenberg #2443 · 1,503,235 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Story of the Mormons, from the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901

Author: William Alexander Linn


        
Release date: December 1, 2000 [eBook #2443]
                Most recently updated: July 25, 2012

Language: English

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Credits: Produced by Several Anonymous Volunteers, Dianne Bean, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STORY OF THE MORMONS, FROM THE DATE OF THEIR ORIGIN TO THE YEAR 1901 ***




Produced by Several Anonymous Volunteers, Dianne Bean, and David Widger






THE STORY OF THE MORMONS

FROM THE DATE OF THEIR ORIGIN TO THE YEAR 1901

By William Alexander Linn




PREFACE

No chapter of American history has remained so long unwritten as that
which tells the story of the Mormons. There are many books on the
subject, histories written under the auspices of the Mormon church,
which are hopelessly biased as well as incomplete; more trustworthy
works which cover only certain periods; and books in the nature of
"exposures" by former members of the church, which the Mormons attack as
untruthful, and which rest, in the minds of the general reader, under
a suspicion of personal bias. Mormonism, therefore, to-day suggests to
most persons only one doctrine--polygamy--and only one leader--Brigham
Young, who made his name familiar to the present generations. Joseph
Smith, Jr., is known, where known at all, only in the most general
way as the founder of the sect, while the real originator of the whole
scheme for a new church and of its doctrines and government, Sidney
Rigdon, is known to few persons even by name.

The object of the present work is to present a consecutive history of
the Mormons, from the day of their origin to the present writing, and as
a secular, not as a religious, narrative. The search has been for facts,
not for moral deductions, except as these present themselves in the
course of the story. Since the usual weapon which the heads of
the Mormon church use to meet anything unfavorable regarding their
organization or leaders is a general denial, this narrative has been
made to rest largely on Mormon sources of information. It has been
possible to follow this plan a long way because many of the original
Mormons left sketches that have been preserved. Thus we have Mother
Smith's picture of her family and of the early days of the church; the
Prophet's own account of the revelation to him of the golden plates, of
his followers' early experiences, and of his own doings, almost day by
day, to the date of his death, written with an egotist's appreciation of
his own part in the play; other autobiographies, like Parley P. Pratt's
and Lorenzo Snow's; and, finally, the periodicals which the church
issued in Ohio, in Missouri, in Illinois, and in England, and the
official reports of the discourses preached in Utah,--all showing up, as
in a mirror, the character of the persons who gave this Church of Latter
Day Saints its being and its growth.

In regard to no period of Mormon history is there such a lack of
accurate information as concerning that which covers their moves to
Ohio, thence to Missouri, thence to Illinois, and thence to Utah. Their
own excuse for all these moves is covered by the one word "persecution"
(meaning persecution on account of their religious belief), and so
little has the non-Mormon world known about the subject that this
explanation has scarcely been challenged. Much space is given to these
early migrations, as in this way alone can a knowledge be acquired of
the real character of the constituency built up by Smith in Ohio, and
led by him from place to place until his death, and then to Utah by
Brigham Young.

Any study of the aims and objects of the Mormon leaders must rest on the
Mormon Bible ("Book of Mormon") and on the "Doctrine and Covenants," the
latter consisting principally of the "revelations" which directed the
organization of the church and its secular movements. In these alone
are spread out the original purpose of the migration to Missouri and the
instructions of Smith to his followers regarding their assumed rights
to the territory they were to occupy; and without a knowledge of these
"revelations" no fair judgment can be formed of the justness of
the objections of the people of Missouri and Illinois to their new
neighbors. If the fraudulent character of the alleged revelation to
Smith of golden plates can be established, the foundation of the
whole church scheme crumbles. If Rigdon's connection with Smith in the
preparation of the Bible by the use of the "Spaulding manuscript" can be
proved, the fraud itself is established. Considerable of the evidence on
this point herein brought together is presented at least in new shape,
and an adequate sketch of Sidney Rigdon is given for the first time. The
probable service of Joachim's "Everlasting Gospel," as suggesting the
story of the revelation of the plates, has been hitherto overlooked.

A few words with regard to some of the sources of information quoted:

"Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith and his Progenitors for Many
Generations" ("Mother Smith's History," as this book has been generally
called) was first published in 1853 by the Mormon press in Liverpool,
with a preface by Orson Pratt recommending it; and the Millennial Star
(Vol. XV, p. 682) said of it: "Being written by Lucy Smith, the
mother of the Prophet, and mostly under his inspiration, will be ample
guarantee for the authenticity of the narrative.... Altogether the
work is one of the most interesting that has appeared in this latter
dispensation." Brigham Young, however, saw how many of its statements
told against the church, and in a letter to the Millennial Star (Vol.
XVII, p. 298), dated January 31, 1858, he declared that it contained
"many mistakes," and said that "should it ever be deemed best to publish
these sketches, it will not be done until after they are carefully
corrected." The preface to the edition of 1890, published by the
Reorganized Church at Plano, Illinois, says that Young ordered the
suppression of the first edition, and that under this order large
numbers were destroyed, few being preserved, some of which fell into the
hands of those now with the Reorganized Church. For this destruction
we see no adequate reason. James J. Strang, in a note to his pamphlet,
"Prophetic Controversy," says that Mrs. Corey (to whom the pamphlet
is addressed) "wrote the history of the Smiths called 'Mother Smith's
History.'" Mrs. Smith was herself quite incapable of putting her
recollections into literary shape.

The autobiography of Joseph Smith, Jr., under the title "History of
Joseph Smith," began as a supplement to Volume XIV of the Millennial
Star, and ran through successive volumes to Volume XXIV. The matter
in the supplement and in the earlier numbers was revised and largely
written by Rigdon. The preparation of the work began after he and Smith
settled in Nauvoo, Illinois. In his last years Smith rid himself almost
entirely of Rigdon's counsel, and the part of the autobiography then
written takes the form of a diary which unmasks Smith's character as
no one else could do. Most of the correspondence and official documents
relating to the troubles in Missouri and Illinois are incorporated in
this work.

Of the greatest value to the historian are the volumes of the Mormon
publications issued at Kirtland, Ohio; Independence, Missouri; Nauvoo,
Illinois; and Liverpool, England. The first of these, Evening and
Morning Star (a monthly, twenty-four numbers), started at Independence
and transferred to Kirtland, covers the period from June, 1832, to
September, 1834; its successor, the Latter Day Saints' Messenger and
Advocate, was issued at Kirtland from 1834 to 1837. This was followed
by the Elders' journal, which was transferred from Kirtland to Far West,
Missouri, and was discontinued when the Saints were compelled to leave
that state. Times and Seasons was published at Nauvoo from 1839 to 1845.
Files of these publications are very scarce, the volumes of the Times
and Seasons having been suppressed, so far as possible, by Brigham
Young's order. The publication of the Millennial Star was begun in
Liverpool in May, 1840, and is still continued. The early volumes
contain the official epistles of the heads of the church to their
followers, Smith's autobiography, correspondence describing the
early migrations and the experiences in Utah, and much other valuable
material, the authenticity of which cannot be disputed by the Mormons.
In the Journal of Discourses (issued primarily for circulation in
Europe) are found official reports of the principal discourses (or
sermons) delivered in Salt Lake City during Young's regime. Without
this official sponsor for the correctness of these reports, many of them
would doubtless be disputed by the Mormons of to-day.

The earliest non-Mormon source of original information quoted is
"Mormonism Unveiled," by E. D. Howe (Painesville, Ohio, 1834). Mr. Howe,
after a newspaper experience in New York State, founded the Cleveland
(Ohio) Herald in 1819, and later the Painesville (Ohio) Telegraph.
Living near the scene of the Mormon activity in Ohio when they moved to
that state, and desiring to ascertain the character of the men who were
proclaiming a new Bible and a new church, he sent agents to secure
such information among the Smiths' old acquaintances in New York
and Pennsylvania, and made inquiries on kindred subjects, like the
"Spaulding manuscript." His book was the first serious blow that Smith
and his associates encountered, and their wrath against it and its
author was fierce.

Pomeroy Tucker, the author of "Origin and Progress of the Mormons" (New
York, 1867), was personally acquainted with the Smiths and with Harris
and Cowdery before and after the appearance of the Mormon Bible. He read
a good deal of the proof of the original edition of that book as it was
going through the press, and was present during many of the negotiations
with Grandin about its publication. His testimony in regard to early
matters connected with the church is important.

Two non-Mormons who had an early view of the church in Utah and who
put their observations in book form were B. G. Ferris ("Utah and the
Mormons," New York, 1854 and 1856) and Lieutenant J. W. Gunnison of
the United States Topographical Engineers ("The Mormons," Philadelphia,
1856). Both of these works contain interesting pictures of life in Utah
in those early days.

There are three comprehensive histories of Utah,--H. H. Bancroft's
"History of Utah" (p. 889), Tullidge's "History of Salt Lake City" (p.
886), and Orson F. Whitney's "History of Utah," in four volumes, three
of which, dated respectively March, 1892, April, 1893, and January,
1898, have been issued. The Reorganized Church has also published a
"History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints" in three
volumes. While Bancroft's work professes to be written from a secular
standpoint, it is really a church production, the preparation of the
text having been confided to Mormon hands. "We furnished Mr. Bancroft
with his material," said a prominent Mormon church officer to me. Its
plan is to give the Mormon view in the text, and to refer the reader for
the other side to a mass of undigested notes, and its principal value to
the student consists in its references to other authorities. Its general
tone may be seen in its declaration that those who have joined the
church to expose its secrets are "the most contemptible of all"; that
those who have joined it honestly and, discovering what company they
have got into, have given the information to the world, would far better
have gone their way and said nothing about it; and, as to polygamy, that
"those who waxed the hottest against" the practice "are not as a rule
the purest of our people" (p. 361); and that the Edmunds Law of 1882
"capped the climax of absurdity" (p. 683).

Tullidge wrote his history after he had taken part in the "New
Movement." In it he brought together a great deal of information,
including the text of important papers, which is necessary to an
understanding of the growth and struggles of the church. The work was
censored by a committee appointed by the Mormon authorities.

Bishop Whitney's history presents the pro-Mormon view of the church
throughout. It is therefore wholly untrustworthy as a guide to opinion
on the subjects treated, but, like Tullidge's, it supplies a good deal
of material which is useful to the student who is prepared to estimate
its statements at their true value.

The acquisition by the New York Public Library of the Berrian collection
of books, early newspapers, and pamphlets on Mormonism, with the
additions constantly made to this collection, places within the reach of
the student all the material that is necessary for the formation of the
fairest judgment on the subject.

W. A. L. HACKENSACK, N. J., 1901.




DETAILED CONTENTS

BOOK I. THE MORMON ORIGIN

I. FACILITY OF HUMAN BELIEF: The Real Miracle of Mormon
Success--Effrontery of the Leaders' Professions--Attractiveness of
Religious Beliefs to Man--Wherein the World does not make Progress--The
Anglo-Saxon Appetite for Religious Novelties

II. THE SMITH FAMILY: Solomon Mack and his Autobiography
--Religious Characteristics of the Prophet's Mother--The Family Life in
Vermont--Early Occupations in New York State--Pictures of the Prophet as
a Youth--Recollections of the Smiths by their New York Neighbors

III. HOW JOSEPH SMITH BECAME A MONEY-DIGGER: His Use of a
Divining Rod--His First Introduction to Crystal-gazing--Peeping after
Hidden Treasure--How Joseph obtained his own "Peek-stone"--Methods of
Midnight Money-digging

IV. FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE GOLDEN BIBLE: Variations in the
Early Descriptions--Joseph's Acquaintance with the Hales--His Elopement
and Marriage--What he told a Neighbor about the Origin of his Bible
Discovery--Early Anecdotes about the Book

V. THE DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS OF THE REVELATION OF THE BIBLE:
The Versions about the Spanish Guardian--Important Statement by the
Prophet's Father--The Later Account in the Prophet's Autobiography--The
Angel Visitor and the Acquisition of the Plates--Mother Smith's Version

VI. TRANSLATION AND PUBLICATION OF THE BIBLE: Martin Harris's
Connection with the Work--Smith's Removal to Pennsylvania--How the
Translation was carried on--Harris's Visit to Professor Anthon--The
Professor's Account of his Visit--The Lost Pages--The Prophet's
Predicament and his Method of Escape--Oliver Cowdery as an
Assistant Translator--Introduction of the Whitmers--The Printing and
Proof--reading of the New Bible--Recollections of Survivors

VII. THE SPAULDING MANUSCRIPT: Solomon Spaulding's
Career--History of "The Manuscript Found"--Statements by Members of
the Author's Family--Testimony of Spaulding's Ohio Neighbors about the
Resemblance of his Story to the Book of Mormon--The Manuscript found in
the Sandwich Islands

VIII. SIDNEY RIGDON: His Biography--Connection with the
Campbells--Efficient Church Work in Ohio--His Jealousy of his Church
Leaders--Disciples' Beliefs and Mormon Doctrines--Intimations about
a New Bible--Rigdon's First Connection with Smith--The Rigdon-Smith
Translation of the Scriptures--Rigdon's Conversion to Mormonism

IX. "THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL": Probable Origin of the Idea of
a Bible on Plates--Cyril's Gift from an Angel and Joachim's Use
of it--Where Rigdon could have obtained the Idea Prominence of the
"Everlasting Gospel" in Mormon Writings

X. THE WITNESSES TO THE PLATES: Text of the Two
"Testimonies"--The Prophet's Explanation of the First--Early Reputation
and Subsequent History of the Signers--The Truth about the Kinderhook
Plates and Rafinesque's Glyphs

XI. THE MORMON BIBLE: Some of its Errors and
Absurdities--Facsimile of the First Edition Title-page--The Historical
Narrative of the Book--Its Lack of Literary Style--Appropriated Chapters
of the Scriptures--Specimen Anachronisms

XII. ORGANIZATION OF THE CHURCH: Smith's Ordination by John
the Baptist--The First Baptisms--Early Branches of the Church--The
Revelation about Church Officers--Cowdery's Ambition and How it was
Repressed--Smith's Title as Seer, Translator, and Prophet--His Arrest
and Release--Arrival of Parley P. Platt and Rigdon in Palmyra--The
Command to remove to Ohio

XIII. THE MORMONS' BELIEFS AND DOCTRINES--CHURCH GOVERNMENT:
Long Years of Apostasy--Origin of the Name "Mormon"--Original Titles of
the Church--Belief in a Speedy Millennium--The Future Possession of
the Earth--Smith's Revelations and how they were obtained--The
First Published Editions--Counterfeit Revealers--What is Taught of
God--Brigham Young's Adam Sermon--Baptism for the Dead--The Church
Officers

BOOK II. IN OHIO

I. THE FIRST CONVERTS AT KIRTLAND: Original Missionaries sent
out to the Lamanites--Organization of a Church in Ohio--Effect of
Rigdon's Conversion--General Interest in the New Bible and Prophet--How
Men of Education came to believe in Mormonism--Result of the Upturning
of Religious Belief

II. WILD VAGARIES OF THE CONVERTS: Convulsions and
Commissions--Common Religious Excitements of those Days--Description of
the "Jerks"--Smith's Repressing Influence

III. GROWTH OF THE CHURCH: The Appointment of Elders--Beginning
of the Proselyting System--Smith's Power Entrenched--His Temporal
Provision--Repression of Rigdon--The Tarring and Feathering of Smith
and Rigdon--Treatment of the Mormons and of Other New Denominations
compared--Rigdon's Punishment

IV. GIFTS OF TONGUES AND MIRACLES: How Persons "Spoke in
Tongues"--Seeing the Lord Face to Face--Early Use of Miracles--The
Story of the "Book of Abraham"--The Prophet as a Translator of Greek and
Egyptian.

V. SMITH'S OHIO BUSINESS ENTERPRISES: Young's Picture of the
Prophet's Experience as a Retail Merchant--The Land Speculation--Laying
out of the City--Building of the Temple--Consecration of Property--How
the Leaders looked out for themselves--Amusing Explanation of Section
III of the "Doctrine and Covenants"--The Story of the Kirtland Bank--The
Church View of its Responsibility for the Currency--The Business Crash
and Smith's Flight to Missouri

VI. LAST DAYS AT KIRTLAND: Pictures of the Prophet--Accusations
against Church Leaders in Missouri--Serious Charge against the
Prophet--W. W, Phelps's Rebellion--Smith's Description of Leading Lights
of the Church--Charges concerning Smith's Morality--The Church accused
of practising Polygamy--A Lively Fight at a Church Service--Smith's and
Rigdon's Defence of their Conduct--The Later History of Kirtland

BOOK III. IN MISSOURI

I. THE DIRECTIONS TO THE SAINTS ABOUT THEIR ZION: Western
Missouri in the Early Days--Pioneer Farming and Home-making--The Trip
of the Four Mormon Missionaries--Direction about the Gathering of the
Elect--How they were to possess the Land of Promise--Their Appropriation
of the Good Things purchased of their Enemies

II. SMITH'S FIRST VISITS TO MISSOURI: Founding the City of Zion
and the Temple--Marvellous Stories that were told--Dissatisfaction of
Some of the Prophet's Companions

III. THE EXPULSION FROM JACKSON COUNTY: Rapid Influx of
Mormons--Result of the Publication of the Revelations--First
Friction with their Non-Mormon Neighbors--Manifesto of the Mormons'
Opponents--Their Big Mass Meeting--Demands on the Mormons--Destruction
of the Star Printing-office--The Mormons' Agreement to leave--Smith's
Advice to his Flock--Repudiation of the Mormon Agreement and Renewal of
Hostilities--The Battle at Big Blue--Evacuation of the County--March of
the Army of Zion--An Inglorious Finale

IV. FRUITLESS NEGOTIATIONS WITH THE JACKSON COUNTY PEOPLE: A
Fair Offer Rejected--The Mormon Counter Propositions--Governor Dunklin
on the Situation

V. IN CLAY, CALDWELL, AND DAVIESS COUNTIES: Welcome of the
Mormons by New Neighbors--Effect of their Claims about Possessing the
Land--Ordered out of Clay County--Founding of Far West--A Welcome to
Smith and Rigdon

VI. RADICAL DISSENSIONS IN THE CHURCH: Trial of Phelps and
Whitmer--Conviction of Oliver Cowdery on Serious Charges--Expulsion
of Leading Members--Origin of the Danites--Suggested by the Prophet at
Kirtland--The Danite Constitution and Oath--Origin of the Tithing System

VII. BEGINNING OF ACTIVE HOSTILITIES: Result of Smith's
Domineering Course--Jealousy caused by the Scattering of the
Saints--Founding of Adam-ondi-Ahman--Rigdon's Famous Salt Sermon--Open
Defiance of the Non-Mormons--The Mormons in Politics--An Election Day
Row--Arrests and Threats

VIII. A STATE OF CIVIL WAR: Calling out of the Militia--Proposed
Expulsion of the Mormons from Carroll County--The Siege of De Witt--The
Prophet's Defiance--Work of his "Fur Company"--Gentile Retaliation--The
Battle of Crooked River--The Massacre at Hawn's Mills--Governor Boggs's
"Order of Extermination"

IX. THE FINAL EXPULSION FROM THE STATE: General Lucas's Terms to
the Mormons--Surrender of Far West and Arrest of Mormon Leaders--General
Clark's Address to the Mormons--His Report to the Governor--General
Wilson's Picture of Adam-ondi-Ahman--Fate of the Mormon
Prisoners--Testimony at their Trial--Smith's Escape--Migration to
Illinois

BOOK IV. IN ILLINOIS

I. THE RECEPTION OF THE MORMONS: Incidents in the Early History
of the State--Defiant Lawlessness--Politicians the First to Welcome the
Newcomers--Landowners Among their First Friends

II. THE SETTLEMENT OF NAUVOO: Smith's Leadership
Illustrated--The Land Purchases--A Reconciliation of Conflicting
Revelations--Smith's Financiering--Shameful Misrepresentation to
Immigrants

III. THE BUILDING UP OF THE CITY: Unhealthfulness of its
Site--Rapid Growth of the Place--Early Pictures of it--Foreign
Proselyting--Why England was a Good Field--Method of Work there--The
Employment of Miracles--How the Converts were Sent Over

IV. THE NAUVOO CITY GOVERNMENT: Dr. Galland's Suggestions--An
Important Revelation--Church Buildings Ordered--Subserviency of the
Legislature--Dr. John C. Bennett's Efficient Aid--Authority granted to
the City Government--The Nauvoo Legion--Bennett's Welcome--The Temple
and How it was Constructed

V. THE MORMONS IN POLITICS: Smith's Decree against Van
Buren--How the Prophet swung the Mormon Vote back to the Democrats--The
Attempted Assassination of Governor Boggs--Smith's Arrest and What
Resulted from it--Defeat of a Whig Candidate by a Revelation

VI. SMITH A CANDIDATE FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: His
Letter to Clay and Calhoun--Their Replies and Smith's Abusive
Wrath--The Prophet's Views on National Politics--Reform Measures that
He Proposed--His Nomination by the Church Paper--Experiences of
Missionaries sent out to Work Up his Campaign

VII. SOCIAL CONDITIONS IN NAUVOO: Character of its
Population--Treatment of Immigrant Converts--Some Disreputable
Gentile Neighbors--The Complaints of Mormon Stealings--Significant
Admissions--Mormon Protection against Outsiders--The Whittlers

VIII. SMITH'S PICTURE OF HIMSELF AS AUTOCRAT: Glances at his
Autobiography--Difficulties Connected with the Building Enterprises--A
Plain Warning to Discontented Workmen--Trouble with Rigdon--Pressed by
his Creditors--Transaction with Remick--Currency Law passed by his City
Council--How Smith regarded himself as a Prophet--His Latest Prophecies

IX. SMITH'S FALLING OUT WITH BENNETT AND HIGBEE: Bennett's
Expulsion and the Explanations concerning it--His Attacks on his
Late Companions--Charges against Nauvoo Morality--The Case of Nancy
Rigdon--The Higbee Incident

X. THE INSTITUTION OF POLYGAMY: An Examination of its
Origin--Its Conflict with the Teachings of the Mormon Bible and
Revelations--Early Loosening of the Marriage View under Smith--Proof of
the Practice of Polygamy in Nauvoo--Testimony of Eliza R. Snow--How
her Brother Lorenzo shook off his Bachelorhood--John B. Lee as a
Polygamist--Ebenezer Robinson's Statement--Objects of "The Holy
Order"--The Writing of the Revelation about Polygamy--Its First Public
Announcement--Sidney Rigdon's Innocence in the Matter

XI. PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DOCTRINE OF POLYGAMY: Text of
the Revelation--Orson Pratt's Presentation of it--The Doctrine of
Sealing--Necessity of Sealing as a Means of Salvation--Attempt to show
that Christ was a Polygamist

XII. THE SUPPRESSION OF THE EXPOSITOR: Dr. Foster and the
Laws--Rebellion against Smith's Teachings--Leading Features of
the Expositor--Trial of the Paper and its Editors before the City
Council--Destruction of the Press and Type--Smith's Proclamation

XIII. UPRISING OF THE NON-MORMONS: Resolutions Adopted at
Warsaw--Organizing and Arming of the People--Action of Governor
Ford--Smith's Arrest--Departure of the Prisoners for Carthage

XIV. THE MURDER OF THE PROPHET: Legal Proceedings after his
Arrival in Carthage--The Governor and the Militia--The Carthage Jail and
its Guards--Action of the Warsaw Regiment--The Attack on the Jail
and the Killing of the Prophet and his Brother--Funeral Services in
Nauvoo--Final Resting-place of the Bodies--Result of Indictments of the
Alleged Murderers--Review of the Prophet's Character

XV. AFTER SMITH'S DEATH: The People in a Panic--The Mormon
Leaders for Peace--The Future Government of the Church--Brigham Young's
Victory--Rigdon's Trial before the High Council--Verdict Against
Him--His Church in Pennsylvania--His Ambition to be the Head of a
Distinct Church--A Visit from Heavenly Messengers--His Last Days

XVI. RIVALRIES OVER THE SUCCESSION: The Claim of the Prophet's
Eldest Son--Trouble caused by the Prophet's Widow--The Reorganized
Church--Strang's Church in Wisconsin--Lyman Wight's Colony in Texas

XVII. BRIGHAM YOUNG: His Early Years--His Initiation into the
Mormon Church--Fidelity to the Prophet--Embarrassments of his Position
as Head of the Church--His View about Revelations--Plan for Home Mission
Work--His Election as President

XVIII. RENEWED TROUBLE FOR THE MORMONS: More Charges
of Stealing--Significant Admission by Young--Business Plight of
Nauvoo--More Politics--Defiant Attitude of Mormon Leaders--An Editor's
View of Legal Rights--Stories about the Danites--Brother William
on Brigham Young--The "Burnings"--Sheriff Backenstos's
Proclamations--Lieutenant Worrell's Murder--Mormon
Retaliation--Appointment of the Douglas-Hardin Commission

XIX. THE EXPULSION OF THE MORMONS: General Hardin's
Proclamation--County Meetings of Non-Mormons--Their Ultimatum--The
Commission's Negotiations--Non-Mormon Convention at Carthage--The
Agreement for the Mormon Evacuation

XX. THE EVACUATION OF NAUVOO: Major Warren as a Peace
Preserver--The Mormons' Disposition of their Property--Departure of
the Leaders hastened by Indictments--Arrival of New Citizens--Continued
Hostility of the Non-Mormons--"The Last Mormon War"--Panic in
Nauvoo--Plan for a March on the Mormon City--Fruitless Negotiations
for a Compromise--The Advance against the City--The Battle and its
Results--Terms of Peace--The Final Evacuation XXI. NAUVOO AFTER
THE EXODUS: Arrival of Governor Ford--The Final Work on the Temple--The
"Endowment" Ceremony and Oath--Futile Efforts to sell the Temple--Its
Destruction by Fire and Wind--The Nauvoo of To-day

BOOK V. THE MIGRATION TO UTAH

I. PREPARATIONS FOR THE LONG MARCH: Uncertainty of their
Destination--Explanations to the People--Disposition of Real and
Personal Property--Collection of Draft Animals--Activity in Wagon and
Tent Making--The Old Charge of Counterfeiting--Pecuniary Sacrifices of
the Mormons in Illinois

II. FROM THE MISSISSIPPI TO THE MISSOURI: The First Crossings of
the River--Camp Arrangements--Sufferings from the Cold--The Story of
the Westward March--Motley Make-up of the Procession--Expedients
for obtaining Supplies--Terrible Sufferings of the Expelled
Remnant--Privations at Mt. Pisgah

III. THE MORMON BATTALION: Extravagant Claims Regarding
it Disproved--General Kearney's Invitation--Source of the Initial
Suggestion--How the Mormons profited by the Organization--The March to
California--Colonel Thomas L. Kane's Visit to the Missouri--His Intimate
Relations with the Mormon Church

IV. THE CAMPS ON THE MISSOURI: Friendly Welcome of the Mormons
by the Indians--The Site of Winter Quarters--Busy Scenes on the River
Bank--Sickness and Death--The Building of a Temporary City

V. THE PIONEER TRIP ACROSS THE PLAINS: Early Views of the
Unexplored West--The First White Visitors to that Country--Organization
of the Pioneer Mormon Band--Rules observed on the March--Successful
Buffalo Hunting--An Indian Alarm--Dearth of Forage--Post-offices of the
Plains--A Profitable Ferry

VI. FROM THE ROCKIES TO SALT LAKE VALLEY: No Definite
Stopping-place in View--Advice received on the Way--The Mormon
Expedition to California by Way of Cape Horn--Brannan's Fall from
Grace--Westward from Green River--Advance Explorers through a
Canon--First View of Great Salt Lake Valley--Irrigation and Crop
Planting begun

VII. THE FOLLOWING COMPANIES: Their Leaders and Make-up
--Young's Return Trip--Last Days on the Missouri--Scheme for a Permanent
Settlement in Iowa--Westward March of Large Companies

BOOK VI. IN UTAH

I. THE FOUNDING OF SALT LAKE CITY: Utah's First White
Explorers--First Mormon Services in the Valley--Young's View of the
Right to the Land--The First Buildings--Laying out the City--Early
Crop Disappointment--Discomforts of the First Winter--Primitive
Dwelling-places--The Visitation of Crickets--Glowing Accounts sent to
England

II. PROGRESS OF THE SETTLEMENT: Schools and Manufactures
--How the City appeared in 1849--Sufferings during the Winter of
1908--Immigration checked by the Lack of Food--Aid supplied by the
California Goldseekers--Danger of a Mormon Exodus--Young's Rebuke to his
Gold-seeking Followers--The Crop Failure of 1855 and the Famine of the
Following Winter--The Tabernacle and Temple

III. THE FOREIGN IMMIGRATION TO UTAH: The Commercial joint Stock
Company Scandal--Deceptive Statements made to Foreign Converts--John
Taylor's Address to the Saints in Great Britain--Petition to
Queen Victoria--Mormon Duplicity illustrated--Young's Advice to
Emigrants--Glowing Pictures of Salt Lake Valley--The Perpetual
Emigrating Fund--Details of the Emigration System

IV. THE HAND-CART TRAGEDY: Young's Scheme for Economy--His
Responsibility for the Hand-cart Experiment--Details of the
Arrangement--Delays at Iowa City--Unheeded Warnings--Privations by
the Way--Early Lack of Provisions--Suffering caused by Insufficient
Clothing--Deaths of the Old and Infirm--Horrors of the Camps in the
Mountains--Frozen Corpses found at Daybreak--Sufferings of a Party at
Devil's Gate--Young's Attempt to shift the Responsibility

V. EARLY POLITICAL HISTORY: The Aim at Independence--First
Local Government--Adoption of a Constitution for the State of
Deseret--Babbitt's Application for Admission as a Delegate--Memorial
opposing his Claim--His Rejection--The Territorial Government

VI. BRIGHAM YOUNG'S DESPOTISM: Causes that contributed to
its Success--Helplessness of the New-comers from Europe--Influence of
Superstition--Young's Treatment of the Gladdenites--His Appropriation
of Property Laws passed by the Mormon Legislature--Bishops as Ward
Magistrates--A Mormon Currency and Alphabet--What Emigrants to
California learned about Mormon Justice

VII. THE "REFORMATION": Young's Disclosures about the Character
of his Flock--The Stealing from One Another--The Threat about "Laying
Judgment to the Line"--Plain Declarations about the taking of
Human Lives--First Steps of the "Reformation"--An Inquisition and
Catechism--An Embarrassing Confession--Warning to those who would leave
the Valley

VIII. SOME CHURCH-INSPIRED MURDERS: The Story of the
Parrishes--Carrying out of a Cold-blooded Plot--Judge Cradlebaugh's
Effort to convict the Murderers--The Tragedy of the Aikin Party--The
Story of Frederick Loba's Escape

IX. BLOOD ATONEMENT: Early Intimations concerning it--Jedediah
M. Grant's Explanation of Human Sacrifices--Brigham Young's Definition
of "Laying Judgment to the Line"--Two of the Sacrifices described--"The
Affair at San Pete"

X. TERRITORIAL GOVERNMENT: Brigham Young the First
Governor--Colonel Kane's Part in his Appointment--Kane's False
Statements to President Fillmore--Welcome to the Non-Mormon
Officers--Their Early Information about Young's Influence--Pioneer
Anniversary Speeches--Judge Brocchus's Offence to the Mormons--Young's
Threatening and Abusive Reply--The Judge's Alarm about his Personal
Safety--Return of the Non-Mormon Federal Officers to Washington--Young's
Defence

XI. MORMON TREATMENT OF FEDERAL OFFICERS: A Territorial Election
Law--Why Colonel Steptoe declined the Governorship--Young's Assertion of
his Authority--His Reappointment--Two Bad Judicial Appointments--Judge
Stiles's Trouble about the Marshals--Burning of his Books and
Papers--How Judge Drummond's Attempt at Independence was foiled--The
Mormon View of Land Titles--Hostile Attitude toward the Government
Surveyors--Reports of the Indian Agents

XII. THE MORMON "WAR": What the Federal Authorities had learned
about Mormonism--Declaration of the Republican National Convention of
1856--Striking Speech by Stephen A. Douglas--Alfred Cumming appointed
Governor with a New Set of Judges--Statement in the President's
Message--Employment of a Military Force--The Kimball Mail
Contract--Organization of the Troops--General Harney's Letter of
Instruction--Threats against the Advancing Foe--Mobilization of the
Nauvoo Legion--Captain Van Vliet's Mission to Salt Lake City--Young's
Defiance of the Government--His Proclamation to the Citizens of
Utah--"General" Wells's Order to his Officers--Capture and Burning of a
Government Train--Colonel Alexander's Futile March--Colonel Johnston's
Advance from Fort Laramie--Harrowing Experience of Lieutenant Colonel
Cooke's Command

XIII. THE MORMON PURPOSE: Correspondence between Colonel
Alexander and Brigham Young--Illustration of Young's Vituperative
Powers--John Taylor's Threat--Incendiary Teachings in Salt Lake City--A
Warning to Saints who would Desert--The Army's Winter Camp--Proclamation
by Governor Cumming--Judge Eckles's Court--Futile Preparations at
Washington

XIV. COLONEL KANE'S MISSION: His Wily Proposition to President
Buchanan--His Credentials from the President--Arrival in California
under an Assumed Name--Visit to Camp Scott--General Johnston
ignored--Reasons why both the Government and the Mormons desired
Peace--Kane's Success with Governor Cumming--The Governor's Departure
for Salt Lake City--Deceptions practiced on him in Echo Canon--His
Reception in the City--Playing into Mormon Hands--The Governor's
Introduction to the People--Exodus of Mormons begun

XV. THE PEACE COMMISSION: President Buchanan's Volte-face--A
Proclamation of Pardon--Instructions to Two Peace Commissioners--Chagrin
of the Military--Governor Cumming's Misrepresentations--Conferences
between the Commissioners and Young--Brother Dunbar's Singing
of "Zion"--Young's Method of Surrender--Judge Eckles on Plural
Marriages--The Terms made with the Mormons--March of the Federal Troops
to the Deserted City--Return of the Mormons to their Homes

XVI. THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE: Circumstances Indicative
of Mormon Official Responsibility--The Make-up of the Arkansas
Party--Motives for Mormon Hostility to them--Parley P. Pratt's Shooting
in Arkansas--Refusal of Food Supplies to the Party after leaving Salt
Lake City--Their Plight before they were attacked--Successful Measures
for Defence--Disarrangement of the Mormon Plans--John D. Lee's
Treacherous Mission--Pitiless Slaughter of Men, Women, and
Children--Testimony given at Lee's Trial--The Plundering of the
Dead--Lee's Account of the Planning of the Massacre--Responsibility
of High Church Officers--Lee's Report to Brigham Young and Brigham's
Instructions to him--The Disclosures by "Argus"--Lee's Execution and
Last Words

XVII. AFTER THE "WAR": Judge Cradlebaugh's Attempts to enforce
the Law--Investigation of the Mountain Meadows Massacre--Governor
Cumming's Objections to the Use of Troops to assist the Court--A
Washington Decision in Favor of Young's Authority--The Story of a
Counterfeit Plate--Five Thousand Men under Arms to protect Young from
Arrest--Sudden Departure of Cumming--Governor Dawson's Brief
Term--His Shocking Treatment at Mormon Hands--Governor Harding's
Administration--The Morrisite Tragedy

XVIII. ATTITUDE OF THE MORMONS DURING THE SOUTHERN REBELLION:
Press and Pulpit Utterances--Arrival of Colonel Connor's Force--His
March through Salt Lake City to Camp Douglas--Governor Harding's Plain
Message to the Legislature--Mormon Retaliation--The Governor and Two
Judges requested to leave the Territory--Their Spirited Replies--How
Young escaped Arrest by Colonel Connor's Force--Another Yielding to
Mormon Power at Washington

XIX. EASTERN VISITORS To SALT LAKE CITY: Schuyler Colfax's
Interviews with Young--Samuel Bowles's Praise of the Mormons and his
Speedy Correction of his Views--Repudiation of Colfax's Plan to drop
Polygamy--Two more Utah Murders--Colfax's Second Visit

XX. GENTILE IRRUPTION AND MORMON SCHISM: Young's Jealousy of
Gentile Merchants--Organization of the Zion Cooperative Mercantile
Institution--Inception of the "New Movement"--Its Leaders and
Objects--The Peep o' Day and the Utah Magazine--Articles that aroused
Young's Hostility--Visit of the Prophet's Sons to Salt Lake City--Trial
and Excommunication of Godbe and Harrison--Results of the "New
Movement".

XXI. THE LAST YEARS OF BRIGHAM YOUNG: New Governors--Shaffer's
Rebuke to the Nauvoo Legion--Conflict with the New Judges--Brigham Young
and Others indicted--Young's Temporary Imprisonment--A Supreme Court
Decision in Favor of the Mormon Marshal and Attorney--Outside Influences
affecting Utah Affairs--Grant's Special Message to Congress--Failure
of the Frelinghuysen Bill in the House--Signing of the Poland Bill--Ann
Eliza Young's Suit for Divorce--The Later Governors

XXII. BRIGHAM YOUNG'S DEATH: His Character--Explanation of
his Dictatorial Power--Exaggerated Views of his Executive
Ability--Overestimations by Contemporaries--Young's Wealth and how he
acquired it--His Revenue from Divorces--Unrestrained Control of the
Church Property--His Will--Suit against his Executors--List of his
Wives--His Houses in Salt Lake City

XXIII. SOCIAL ASPECTS OF POLYGAMY: Varied Provisions for Plural
Wives--Home Accommodations of the Leaders--Horace Greeley's Observation
about Woman's Place in Utah--Means of overcoming Female Jealousy--Young
and Grant on the Unhappiness of Mormon Wives--Acceptance of Fanatical
Teachings by Women--Kimball on a Fair Division of the Converts--Church
Influence in Behalf of Plural Marriages--A Prussian Convert's
Dilemma--President Cleveland on the Evils of Polygamy

XXIV. THE FIGHT AGAINST POLYGAMY: First Measures introduced in
Congress--The Act of 1862--The Cullom Bill of 1869--Its Failure in
the Senate--The United States Supreme Court Decision regarding
Polygamy--Conviction of John Miles--Appeal of Women of Salt Lake City to
Mrs. Hayes and the Women of the United States--President Hayes's Drastic
Recommendation to Congress--Recommendations of Presidents Garfield and
Arthur--Passage of the Edmunds Bill--Its Provisions--The Edmunds-Tucker
Amendment--Appointment of the Utah Commission--Determined Opposition of
the Mormon Church--Placing their Flags at Half Mast--Convictions under
the New Law--Leaders in Hiding or in Exile--Mormon Honors for those
who took their Punishment--Congress asked to disfranchise All
Polygamists--The Mormon Church brought to Bay--Woodruff's Famous
Proclamation--How it was explained to the Church--The Roberts Case and
the Vetoed Act of 1901--How Statehood came

XXV. THE MORMONISM OF TO-DAY: Future Place of the Church in
American History--Main Points of the Mormon Political Policy--Unbroken
Power of the Priesthood--Fidelity of the Younger Members--Extension
of the Membership over Adjoining States--Mission Work at Home and
Abroad--Decreased Foreign Membership--Effect of False Promises to
Converts--The Settlements in Canada and Mexico--Polygamy still a Living
Doctrine--Reasons for its Hold on the Church--Its Appeal to the Female
Members--Importance of a Federal Constitutional Amendment forbidding
Polygamous Marriages--Scope of the Mormon Political Ambition




THE STORY OF THE MORMONS




BOOK I. -- THE MORMON ORIGIN



CHAPTER I. -- FACILITY OF HUMAN BELIEF

Summing up his observations of the Mormons as he found them in Utah
while secretary of the territory, five years after their removal to the
Great Salt Lake valley, B. G. Ferris wrote, "The real miracle [of their
success] consists in so large a body of men and women, in a civilized
land, and in the nineteenth century, being brought under, governed, and
controlled by such gross religious imposture." This statement presents,
in concise form, the general view of the surprising features of the
success of the Mormon leaders, in forming, augmenting, and keeping
together their flock; but it is a mistaken view. To accept it would be
to concede that, in a highly civilized nation like ours, and in so
late a century, the acceptance of religious beliefs which, to the
nonbelievers, seem gross superstitions, is so unusual that it may be
classed with the miraculous. Investigation easily disproves this.

It is true that the effrontery which has characterized Mormonism from
the start has been most daring. Its founder, a lad of low birth,
very limited education, and uncertain morals; its beginnings so near
burlesque that they drew down upon its originators the scoff of their
neighbors,--the organization increased its membership as it was driven
from one state to another, building up at last in an untried wilderness
a population that has steadily augmented its wealth and numbers;
doggedly defending its right to practise its peculiar beliefs and obey
only the officers of the church, even when its course in this respect
has brought it in conflict with the government of the United States.
Professing only a desire to be let alone, it promulgated in polygamy a
doctrine that was in conflict with the moral sentiment of the Christian
world, making its practice not only a privilege, but a part of
the religious duty of its members. When, in recent years, Congress
legislated against this practice, the church fought for its peculiar
institution to the last, its leading members accepting exile and
imprisonment; and only the certainty of continued exclusion from the
rights of citizenship, and the hopelessness of securing the long-desired
prize of statehood for Utah, finally induced the church to bow to the
inevitable, and to announce a form of release for its members from the
duty of marrying more wives than one. Aside from this concession, the
Mormon church is to-day as autocratic in its hold on its members,
as aggressive in its proselyting, and as earnest in maintaining its
individual religious and political power, as it has been in any previous
time in its history.

In its material aspects we must concede to the Mormon church
organization a remarkable success; to Joseph Smith, Jr., a leadership
which would brook no rival; to Brigham Young the maintenance of an
autocratic authority which enabled him to hold together and enlarge his
church far beyond the limits that would have been deemed possible when
they set out across the plains with all their possessions in their
wagons. But it is no more surprising that the Mormons succeeded in
establishing their church in the United States than it would have been
if they had been equally successful in South America; no more surprising
that this success should have been won in the nineteenth century than it
would have been to record it in the twelfth.

In studying questions of this kind, we are, in the first place, entirely
too apt to ignore the fact that man, while comparatively a "superior
being," is in simple fact one species of the animals that are found upon
the earth; and that, as a species, he has traits which distinguish him
characteristically just as certain well-known traits characterize those
animals that we designate as "lower." If a traveller from the Sun should
print his observations of the inhabitants of the different planets, he
would have to say of those of the Earth something like this: "One of
Man's leading traits is what is known as belief. He is a credulous
creature, and is especially susceptible to appeals to his credulity
in regard to matters affecting his existence after death." Whatever
explanation we may accept of the origin of the conception by this animal
of his soul-existence, and of the evolution of shadowy beliefs into
religious systems, we must concede that Man is possessed of a tendency
to worship something,--a recognition, at least, of a higher power
with which it behooves him to be on friendly terms,--and so long as the
absolute correctness of any one belief or doctrine cannot be actually
proved to him, he is constantly ready to inquire into, and perhaps give
credence to, new doctrines that are presented for his consideration.
The acceptance by Man of novelties in the way of religions is a
characteristic that has marked his species ever since its record has
been preserved. According to Max Matter, "every religion began simply as
a matter of reason, and from this drifted into a superstition"; that
is, into what non-believers in the new doctrine characterize as a
superstition. Whenever one of these driftings has found a lodgement,
there has been planted a new sect. There has never been a year in the
Christian era when there have not been believers ready to accept
any doctrine offered to them in the name of religion. As Shakespeare
expresses it, in the words of Bassanio:--

"In religion, What damned error but some sober brow Will bless it, and
approve it with a text, Hiding the grossness with fair ornament?"

In glancing at the cause of this unchanged susceptibility to religious
credulity--unchanged while the world has been making such strides in
the acquisition of exact information--we may find a summing up of the
situation in Macaulay's blunt declaration that "natural theology is not
a progressive science; a Christian of the fifth century with a Bible is
on a par with a Christian of the nineteenth century with a Bible." The
"orthodox" believer in that Bible can only seek a better understanding
of it by studying it himself and accepting the deductions of other
students. Nothing, as the centuries have passed, has been added to
his definite knowledge of his God or his own future existence. When,
therefore, some one, like a Swedenborg or a Joseph Smith, appears with
an announcement of an addition to the information on this subject,
obtained by direct revelation from on high, he supplies one of the
greatest desiderata that man is conscious of, and we ought, perhaps, to
wonder that his followers are not so numerous, but so few. Progress in
medical science would no longer permit any body like the College of
the Physicians of London to recognize curative value in the skull of a
person who had met with a violent death, as it did in the seventeenth
century; but the physician of the seventeenth century with a
pharmacopoeia was not "on a par with" a physician of the nineteenth
century with a pharmacopoeia.

Nor has man changed in his mental susceptibilities as the centuries have
advanced. It is a failure to recognize this fact which leads observers
like Ferris to find it so marvellous that a belief like Mormonism
should succeed in the nineteenth century. Draper's studies of man's
intellectual development led him to declare that "man has ever been the
same in his modes of thought and motives of action, and to assert his
purpose to judge past occurrences in the same way as those of our own
time."* So Macaulay refused to accept the doctrine that "the world is
constantly becoming more and more enlightened," asserting that "the
human mind, instead of marching, merely marks time." Nothing offers
stronger confirmation of the correctness of these views than the history
of religious beliefs, and the teachings connected therewith since the
death of Christ.


     * "Intellectual Development of Europe," Vol. II, Chap. 3.


The chain of these beliefs and teachings--including in the list only
those which offer the boldest challenge to a sane man's credulity--is
uninterrupted down to our own day. A few of them may be mentioned by way
of illustration. In one century we find Spanish priests demanding the
suppression of the opera on the ground that this form of entertainment
caused a drought, and a Pope issuing a bull against men and women having
sexual intercourse with fiends. In another, we find an English tailor,
unsuccessfully, allotting endless torments to all who would not accept
his declaration that God was only six feet in height, at the same time
that George Fox, who was successful in establishing the Quaker sect,
denounced as unchristian adoration of Janus and Woden, any mention of a
month as January or a day as Wednesday. Luther, the Protestant pioneer,
believed that he had personal conferences with the devil; Wesley,
the founder of Methodism, declared that "the giving up of (belief) in
witchcraft is, in effect, giving up the Bible." Education and mental
training have had no influence in shaping the declarations of the
leaders of new religious sects.* The learned scientist, Swedenborg, told
of seeing the Virgin Mary dressed in blue satin, and of spirits wearing
hats, just as confidently as the ignorant Joseph Smith, Jr., described
his angel as "a tall, slim, well-built, handsome man, with a bright
pillar upon his head."


   * "The splendid gifts which make a seer are usually found among
those whom society calls 'common or unclean.' These brutish beings
are the chosen vessels in whom God has poured the elixirs which amaze
humanity. Such beings have furnished the prophets, the St. Peters, the
hermits of history." BALZAC, in "Cousin Pons."


The readiness with which even believers so strictly taught as are the
Jews can be led astray by the announcement of a new teacher divinely
inspired, is illustrated in the stories of their many false Messiahs.
One illustration of this--from the pen of Zangwill--may be given:--

"From all the lands of the Exile, crowds of the devout came to do
him homage and tender allegiance--Turkish Jews with red fez or
saffron-yellow turban; Jerusalem Jews in striped cotton gowns and soft
felt hats; Polish Jews with foxskin caps and long caftans; sallow German
Jews, gigantic Russian Jews, highbred Spanish Jews; and with them often
their wives and daughters--Jerusalem Jewesses with blue shirts and
head-veils, Egyptian Jewesses with sweeping robes and black head-shawls,
Jewesses from Ashdod and Gaza, with white visors fringed with gold
coins; Polish Jewesses with glossy wigs; Syrian Jewesses with eyelashes
black as though lined with kohl; fat Jewesses from Tunis, with clinging
breeches interwoven with gold and silver."

This homage to a man who turned Turk, and became a doorkeeper of the
Sultan, to save himself from torture and death!

Savagery and civilization meet on this plane of religious credulity. The
Indians of Canada believed not more implicitly in the demons who howled
all over the Isles of Demons, than did the early French sailors and the
priests whose protection the latter asked. The Jesuit priests of the
seventeenth century accepted, and impressed upon their white followers
in New France, belief in miracles which made a greater demand on
credulity than did any of the exactions of the Indian medicine man. That
the head of a white man, which the Iroquois carried to their village,
spoke to them and scolded them for their perfidy, "found believers among
the most intelligent men of the colony," just as did the story of the
conversion of a sick Huguenot immigrant, with whose gruel a Mother
secretly mixed a little of the powdered bone of a Jesuit martyr.* And
French Canada is to-day as "orthodox" in its belief in miracles as
was the Canada of the seventeenth century. The church of St. Anne de
Beaupre, below Quebec, attracts thousands annually, and is piled with
the crutches which the miraculously cured have cast aside. Masses were
said in 1899 in the church of Notre Dame de Bonsecours at Montreal,
at the expense of a pilots' association, to ward off wrecks in the
treacherous St. Lawrence; and in the near-by provinces there were
religious processions to check the attacks of caterpillars in the
orchards.


   * Parkman's "Old Regime in Canada."


Nor need we go to Catholic Quebec for modern illustrations of this kind
of faith. "Bareheaded people stood out upon the corner in East 113th
Street yesterday afternoon," said a New York City newspaper of December
18, 1898, "because they were unable to get into the church of Our Lady
Queen of Angels, where a relic of St. Anthony of Padua was exposed for
veneration." Describing a service in the church of St. Jean Baptiste
in East 77th Street, New York, where a relic alleged to be a piece of a
bone of the mother of the Virgin was exposed, a newspaper of that city,
on July 24th, 1901, said: "There were five hundred persons, by actual
count, in and around the crypt chapel of St. Anne when afternoon service
stopped the rush of the sick and crippled at 4.30 o'clock yesterday.
There were many more at the 8 o'clock evening Mass." What did these
people seek at the shrine? Only the favor of St. Anne and a kiss and
touch of the casket that, by church authority, contains bone of
her body. "France has to-day its Grotto of Lourdes, Wales its St.
Winefride's Well, Mexico its wonder-working doll" that makes the sick
well and the childless mothers, and Moscow its "wonder-working picture
of the Mother of God," before which the Czar prostrates himself."

Not in recent years has the appetite for some novelty on which to fasten
belief been more manifest in the United States than it was at the
close of the nineteenth century. Old beliefs found new teachers, and
promulgators of new ideas found followers. Instructors in Brahminism
attracted considerable attention. A "Chapter of the College of Divine
Sciences and Realization" instituted a revival of Druid sun-adoration
on the shores of Lake Michigan. An organization has been formed of
believers in the One-Over-At-Acre, a Persian who claimed to be the
forerunner of the Millennium, and in whom, as Christ, it is said that
more than three thousand persons in this country believe. We have among
us also Jaorelites, who believe in the near date of the end of the
world, and that they must make their ascent to heaven from a mountain in
Scotland. The hold which the form of belief called Christian Science has
obtained upon people of education and culture needs only be referred
to. Along with this have come the "divine healers," gaining patients
in circles where it would be thought impossible for them to obtain even
consideration, and one of them securing a clientage in a Western city
which has enabled him to establish there a church of his own.

In fact, instead of finding in enlightened countries like the United
States and England a poor field for the dissemination of new beliefs,
the whole school of revealers find there their best opportunities.
Discussing this susceptibility, Aliene Gorren, in her "Anglo-Saxons and
Others," reaches this conclusion: "Nowhere are so many persons of sound
intelligence in all practical affairs so easily led to follow after
crazy seers and seeresses as in England and the United States. The truth
is that the mind of man refuses to be shut out absolutely from the world
of the higher abstractions, and that, if it may not make its way thither
under proper guidance, it will set off even at the tail of the first
ragged street procession that passes."

The "real miracle" in Mormonism, then,--the wonderful feature of its
success,--is to be sought, not in the fact that it has been able to
attract believers in a new prophet, and to find them at this date and in
this country, but in its success in establishing and keeping together in
a republic like ours a membership who acknowledge its supreme authority
in politics as well as in religion, and who form a distinct organization
which does not conceal its purpose to rule over the whole nation. Had
Mormonism confined itself to its religious teachings, and been preached
only to those who sought its instruction, instead of beating up the
world for recruits and conveying them to its home, the Mormon church
would probably to-day be attracting as little attention as do the
Harmonists of Pennsylvania.



CHAPTER II. -- THE SMITH FAMILY

Among the families who settled in Ontario County, New York, in 1816, was
that of one Joseph Smith. It consisted of himself, his wife, and nine
children. The fourth of these children, Joseph Smith, Jr., became the
Mormon prophet.

The Smiths are said to have been of Scotch ancestry. It was the mother,
however, who exercised the larger influence on her son's life, and she
has left very minute details of her own and her father's family.* Her
father, Solomon Mack, was a native of Lyme, Connecticut. The daughter
Lucy, who became Mrs. Joseph Smith, Sr., was born in Gilsum, Cheshire
County, New Hampshire, on July 8, 1776. Mr. Mack was remembered as
a feeble old man, who rode around the country on horseback, using a
woman's saddle, and selling his own autobiography. The "tramp" of those
early days often offered an autobiography, or what passed for one, and,
as books were then rare, if he could say that it contained an account of
actual adventures in the recent wars, he was certain to find purchasers.


   * "Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith and his Progenitors for
Many Generations," Lucy Smith.


One of the few copies of this book in existence lies before me. It
was printed at the author's expense about the year 1810. It is wholly
without interest as a narrative, telling of the poverty of his parents,
how he was bound, when four years old, to a farmer who gave him no
education and worked him like a slave; gives some of his experiences in
the campaigns against the French and Indians in northern New York and
in the war of the Revolution, when he was in turn teamster, sutler,
and privateer; describes with minute detail many ordinary illnesses and
accidents that befell him; and closes with a recital of his religious
awakening, which was deferred until his seventy-sixth year, while he was
suffering with rheumatism. At that time it seemed to him that he several
times "saw a bright light in a dark night," and thought he heard a voice
calling to him. Twenty-two of the forty-eight duodecimo pages that the
book contains are devoted to hymns "composed," the title-page says, "on
the death of several of his relatives," not all by himself. One of these
may be quoted entire:--

"My friends, I am on the ocean, So sweetly do I sail; Jesus is my
portion, He's given me a pleasant gale.

"The bruises sore, In harbor soon I'll be, And see my redeemer there
That died for you and me."

Mrs. Smith's family seem to have had a natural tendency to belief in
revelations. Her eldest brother, Jason, became a "Seeker"; the "Seekers"
of that day believed that the devout of their times could, through
prayer and faith, secure the "gifts" of the Gospel which were granted to
the ancient apostles.* He was one of the early believers in faith-cure,
and was, we are told, himself cured by that means in 1835. One of Lucy's
sisters had a miraculous recovery from illness. After being an invalid
for two years she was "borne away to the world of spirits," where she
saw the Saviour and received a message from Him for her earthly friends.


   * A sect called "Seekers," who arose in 1645, taught, like the
Mormons, that the Scriptures are defective, the true church lost, and
miracles necessary to faith.


Lucy herself came very exactly under the description given by Ruth
McEnery Stuart of one of her negro characters: "Duke's mother was of the
slighter intelligences, and hence much given to convictions. Knowing
few things, she 'believed in' a great many." Lucy Smith had neither
education nor natural intelligence that would interfere with such
"beliefs" as came to her from family tradition, from her own literal
interpretations of the Bible, or from the workings of her imagination.
She tells us that after her marriage, when very ill, she made a covenant
with God that she would serve him if her recovery was granted; thereupon
she heard a voice giving her assurance that her prayer would be
answered, and she was better the next morning. Later, when anxious for
the safety of her husband's soul, she prayed in a grove (most of
the early Mormons' prayers were made in the woods), and saw a vision
indicating his coming conversion; later still, in Vermont, a daughter
was restored to health by her parent's prayers.

According to Mrs. Smith's account of their life in Vermont, they were
married on January 24, 1796, at Tunbridge, but soon moved to Randolph,
where Smith was engaged in "merchandise," keeping a store. Learning of
the demand for crystallized ginseng in China, he invested money in that
product and made a shipment, but it proved unprofitable, and, having in
this way lost most of his money, they moved back to a farm at Tunbridge.
Thence they moved to Royalton, and in a few months to Sharon, where,
on December 23, 1805, Joseph Smith, Jr., their fourth child, was born.*
Again they moved to Tunbridge, and then back to Royalton (all these
places in Vermont). From there they went to Lebanon, New Hampshire,
thence to Norwich, Vermont, still "farming" without success, until,
after three years of crop failure, they decided to move to New York
State, arriving there in the summer of 1816.


   ** There is equally good authority for placing the house in which
Smith was born across the line in Royalton.


Less prejudiced testimony gives an even less favorable view than this of
the elder Smith's business career in Vermont. Judge Daniel Woodward,
of the county court of Windsor, Vermont, near whose father's farm the
Smiths lived, says that the elder Smith while living there was a hunter
for Captain Kidd's treasure, and that he also "became implicated with
one Jack Downing in counterfeiting money, but turned state's evidence
and escaped the penalty."* He had in earlier life been a Universalist,
but afterward became a Methodist. His spiritual welfare gave his wife
much concern, but although he had "two visions" while living in Vermont,
she did not accept his change of heart. She admits, however, that after
their removal to New York her husband obeyed the scriptural injunction,
"your old men shall dream dreams," and she mentions several of these
dreams, the latest in 1819, giving the particulars of some of them. One
sample of these will suffice. The dreamer found himself in a beautiful
garden, with wide walks and a main walk running through the centre. "On
each side of this was a richly carved seat, and on each seat were placed
six wooden images, each of which was the size of a very large man. When
I came to the first image on the right side it arose, bowed to me with
much deference. I then turned to the one which sat opposite to me, on
the left side, and it arose and bowed to me in the same manner as the
first. I continued turning first to the right and then to the left until
the whole twelve had made the obeisance, after which I was entirely
healed (of a lameness from which he then was suffering). I then asked my
guide the meaning of all this, but I awoke before I received an answer."


   * Historical Magazine, 1870.


A similar wakefulness always manifested itself at the critical moment
in these dreams. What the world lost by this insomnia of the dreamer the
world will never know.

The Smiths' first residence in New York State was in the village
of Palmyra. There the father displayed a sign, "Cake and Beer Shop,
"selling" gingerbread, pies, boiled eggs, root beer, and other like
notions," and he and his sons did odd jobs, gardening, harvesting, and
well-digging, when they could get them.*


   * Tucker's "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," p. 12.


They were very poor, and Mrs. Smith added to their income by painting
oilcloth table covers. After a residence of three years and a half in
Palmyra, the family took possession of a piece of land two miles south
of that place, on the border of Manchester. They had no title to it,
but as the owners were nonresident minors they were not disturbed. There
they put up a little log house, with two rooms on the ground floor
and two in the attic, which sheltered them all. Later, the elder Smith
contracted to buy the property and erected a farmhouse on it; but he
never completed his title to it.

While classing themselves as farmers, the Smiths were regarded by
their neighbors as shiftless and untrustworthy. They sold cordwood,
vegetables, brooms of their own manufacture, and maple sugar, continuing
to vend cakes in the village when any special occasion attracted a
crowd. It may be remarked here that, while Ontario County, New York, was
regarded as "out West" by seaboard and New England people in 1830,
its population was then almost as large as it is to-day (having 40,288
inhabitants according to the census of 1830 and 48,453 according to the
census of 1890). The father and several of the boys could not read,
and a good deal of the time of the younger sons was spent in hunting,
fishing, and lounging around the village.

The son Joseph did not rise above the social standing of his brothers.
The best that a Mormon biographer, Orson Pratt, could say of him as a
youth was that "He could read without much difficulty, and write a very
imperfect hand, and had a very limited understanding of the elementary
rules of arithmetic. These were his highest and only attainments, while
the rest of those branches so universally taught in the common schools
throughout the United States were entirely unknown to him."* He was "Joe
Smith" to every one. Among the younger people he served as a butt
for jokes, and we are told that the boys who bought the cakes that he
peddled used to pay him in pewter twoshilling pieces, and that when he
called at the Palmyra Register office for his father's weekly paper, the
youngsters in the press room thought it fun to blacken his face with the
ink balls.


   * "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," p. 16.


Here are two pictures of the young man drawn by persons who saw him
constantly in the days of his vagabondage. The first is from Mr.
Tucker's book:--

"At this period in the life and career of Joseph Smith, Jr., or 'Joe
Smith,' as he was universally named, and the Smith family, they were
popularly regarded as an illiterate, whiskey-drinking, shiftless,
irreligious race of people--the first named, the chief subject of this
biography, being unanimously voted the laziest and most worthless of
the generation. From the age of twelve to twenty years he is distinctly
remembered as a dull-eyed, flaxen-haired, prevaricating boy noted
only for his indolent and vagabondish character, and his habits
of exaggeration and untruthfulness. Taciturnity was among his
characteristic idiosyncrasies, and he seldom spoke to any one outside
of his intimate associates, except when first addressed by another;
and then, by reason of his extravagancies of statement, his word was
received with the least confidence by those who knew him best. He could
utter the most palpable exaggeration or marvellous absurdity with the
utmost apparent gravity. He nevertheless evidenced the rapid development
of a thinking, plodding, evil-brewing mental composition--largely given
to inventions of low cunning, schemes of mischief and deception, and
false and mysterious pretensions. In his moral phrenology the professor
might have marked the organ of secretiveness as very large, and that of
conscientiousness omitted. He was, however, proverbially good natured,
very rarely, if ever, indulging in any combative spirit toward any one,
whatever might be the provocation, and yet was never known to laugh.
Albeit, he seemed to be the pride of his indulgent father, who has been
heard to boast of him as the 'genus of the family,' quoting his own
expression."*


   * "Remarkable Visions."


The second (drawn a little later) is by Daniel Hendrix, a resident of
Palmyra, New York, at the time of which he speaks, and an assistant in
setting the type and reading the proof of the Mormon Bible:--

"Every one knew him as Joe Smith. He had lived in Palmyra a few years
previous to my going there from Rochester. Joe was the most ragged,
lazy fellow in the place, and that is saying a good deal. He was about
twenty-five years old. I can see him now in my mind's eye, with his torn
and patched trousers held to his form by a pair of suspenders made out
of sheeting, with his calico shirt as dirty and black as the earth, and
his uncombed hair sticking through the holes in his old battered hat. In
winter I used to pity him, for his shoes were so old and worn out that
he must have suffered in the snow and slush; yet Joe had a jovial, easy,
don't-care way about him that made him a lot of warm friends. He was a
good talker, and would have made a fine stump speaker if he had had
the training. He was known among the young men I associated with as a
romancer of the first water. I never knew so ignorant a man as Joe
was to have such a fertile imagination. He never could tell a common
occurrence in his daily life without embellishing the story with his
imagination; yet I remember that he was grieved one day when old Parson
Reed told Joe that he was going to hell for his lying habits."*


   * San Jacinto, California, letter of February 2, 1897, to the St.
Louis Globe-Democrat.


To this testimony may be added the following declarations, published in
1833, the year in which a mob drove the Mormons out of Jackson County,
Missouri. The first was signed by eleven of the most prominent citizens
of Manchester, New York, and the second by sixty-two residents of
Palmyra:--

"We, the undersigned, being personally acquainted with the family of
Joseph Smith, Sr., with whom the Gold Bible, so called, originated,
state: That they were not only a lazy, indolent set of men, but also
intemperate, and their word was not to be depended upon; and that we are
truly glad to dispense with their society."

"We, the undersigned, have been acquainted with the Smith family for
a number of years, while they resided near this place, and we have
no hesitation in saying that we consider them destitute of that
moral character which ought to entitle them to the confidence of any
community. They were particularly famous for visionary projects; spent
much of their time in digging for money which they pretended was hid in
the earth, and to this day large excavations may be seen in the earth,
not far from their residence, where they used to spend their time in
digging for hidden treasures. Joseph Smith, Sr., and his son Joseph
were, in particular, considered entirely destitute of moral character,
and addicted to vicious habits."*


   * Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 261.


Finally may be quoted the following affidavit of Parley Chase:--

"Manchester, New York, December 2, 1833. I was acquainted with the
family of Joseph Smith, Sr., both before and since they became Mormons,
and feel free to state that not one of the male members of the
Smith family were entitled to any credit whatsoever. They were lazy,
intemperate, and worthless men, very much addicted to lying. In this
they frequently boasted their skill. Digging for money was their
principal employment. In regard to their Gold Bible speculation, they
scarcely ever told two stories alike. The Mormon Bible is said to be a
revelation from God, through Joseph Smith, Jr., his Prophet, and this
same Joseph Smith, Jr., to my knowledge, bore the reputation among his
neighbors of being a liar."*


   * Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 248.


The preposterousness of the claims of such a fellow as Smith to
prophetic powers and divinely revealed information were so apparent to
his local acquaintances that they gave them little attention. One of
these has remarked to me in recent years that if they had had any idea
of the acceptance of Joe's professions by a permanent church, they would
have put on record a much fuller description of him and his family.



CHAPTER III. -- HOW JOSEPH SMITH BECAME A MONEY-DIGGER

The elder Smith, as we have seen, was known as a money-digger while a
resident of Vermont. Of course that subject as a matter of conversation
in his family, and his sons were a character to share in his belief in
the existence of hidden treasure. The territory around Palmyra was as
good ground for their explorations as any in Vermont, and they soon let
their neighbors know of a possibility of riches that lay within their
reach.

The father, while a resident of Vermont, also claimed ability to locate
an underground stream of water over which would be a good site for a
well, by means of a forked hazel switch,* and in this way doubtless
increased the demand for his services as a well-digger, but we have no
testimonials to his success. The son Joseph, while still a young lad,
professed to have his father's gift in this respect, and he soon added
to his accomplishments the power to locate hidden riches, and in
this way began his career as a money-digger, which was so intimately
connected with his professions as a prophet.


   * The so-called "divining rod" has received a good deal of
attention from persons engaged in psychical research. Vol. XIII, Part
II, of the "Proceedings of the Society Of Psychical Research" is devoted
to a discussion of the subject by Professor W. F. Barrett of the
Royal College of Science for Ireland, in Dublin, and in March, 1890, a
commission was appointed in France to study the matter.


Writers on the origin of the Mormon Bible, and the gradual development
of Smith the Prophet from Smith the village loafer and money-seeker,
have left their readers unsatisfied on many points. Many of these
obscurities will be removed by a very careful examination of Joseph's
occupations and declarations during the years immediately preceding the
announcement of the revelation and delivery to him of the golden plates.

The deciding event in Joe's career was a trip to Susquehanna County,
Pennsylvania, when he was a lad. It can be shown that it was there that
he obtained an idea of vision-seeing nearly ten years before the date he
gives in his autobiography as that of the delivery to him of the golden
plates containing the Book of Mormon, and it was there probably that, in
some way, he later formed the acquaintance of Sidney Rigdon. It can also
be shown that the original version of his vision differed radically
from the one presented, after the lapse of another ten years spent under
Rigdon's tutelage, in his autobiography. Each of these points is of
great incidental value in establishing Rigdon's connection with the
conception of a new Bible, and the manner of its presentation to the
public. Later Mormon authorities have shown a dislike to concede that
Joe was a money-digger, but the fact is admitted both in his mother's
history of him and by himself. His own statement about it is as
follows:--

"In the month of October, 1825, I hired with an old gentleman by the
name of Josiah Stoal, who lived in Chenango County, State of New York.
He had heard something of a silver mine having been opened by the
Spaniards in Harmony, Susquehanna County, State of Pennsylvania, and
had, previous to my hiring with him, been digging in order, if possible,
to discover the mine. After I went to live with him he took me, among
the rest of his hands, to dig for the silver mine, at which I continued
to work for nearly a month, without success in our undertaking, and
finally I prevailed with the old gentleman to cease digging for it.
Hence arose the very prevalent story of my having been a moneydigger."*


   * Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt., p. 6.


Mother Smith's account says, however, that Stoal "came for Joseph on
account of having heard that he possessed certain keys by which he could
discern things invisible to the natural eye"; thus showing that he had
a reputation as a "gazer" before that date. It was such discrepancies
as these which led Brigham Young to endeavor to suppress the mother's
narrative.

The "gazing" which Joe took up is one of the oldest--perhaps the
oldest--form of alleged human divination, and has been called
"mirror-gazing," "crystal-gazing," "crystal vision," and the like. Its
practice dates back certainly three thousand years, having been noted
in all ages, and among nations uncivilized as well as civilized. Some
students of the subject connect with such divination Joseph's silver cup
"whereby indeed he divineth" (Genesis xliv. 5). Others, long before the
days of Smith and Rigdon, advanced the theory that the Urim and Thummim
were clear crystals intended for "gazing" purposes. One writer remarks
of the practice, "Aeschylus refers it to Prometheus, Cicero to the
Assyrians and Etruscans, Zoroaster to Ahriman, Varro to the Persian
Magi, and a very large class of authors, from the Christian Fathers and
Schoolmen downward, to the devil."* An act of James I (1736), against
witchcraft in England, made it a crime to pretend to discover property
"by any occult or crafty science." As indicating the universal knowledge
of "gazing," it may be further noted that Varro mentions its practice
among the Romans and Pausanias among the Greeks. It was known to the
ancient Peruvians. It is practised to-day by East Indians, Africans
(including Egyptians), Maoris, Siberians, by Australian, Polynesian, and
Zulu savages, by many of the tribes of American Indians, and by persons
of the highest culture in Europe and America.** Andrew Lang's collection
of testimony about visions seen in crystals by English women in 1897
might seem convincing to any one who has not had experience in weighing
testimony in regard to spiritualistic manifestations, or brought this
testimony alongside of that in behalf of the "occult phenomena" of Adept
Brothers presented by Sinnett.***


   * Recent Experiments in "Crystal Vision," Vol. V, "Proceedings of
the Society for Psychical Research."


   ** Lang's "The Making of Religion," Chap. V.


   *** "The Occult World."


"Gazers" use different methods. Some look into water contained in a
vessel, some into a drop of blood, some into ink, some into a round
opaque stone, some into mirrors, and many into some form of crystal or a
glass ball. Indeed, the "gazer" seems to be quite independent as to the
medium of his sight-seeing, so long as he has the "power." This "power"
is put also to a great variety of uses. Australian savages depend on it
to foretell the outcome of an attack on their enemies; Apaches resort to
it to discover the whereabouts of things lost or stolen; and Malagasies,
Zulus, and Siberians to see what will happen. Perhaps its most general
use has been to discover lost objects, and in this practice the seers
have very often been children, as we shall see was the case in the
exhibition which gave Joe Smith his first idea on the subject. In the
experiments cited by Lang, the seers usually saw distant persons or
scenes, and he records his belief that "experiments have proved beyond
doubt that a fair percentage of people, sane and healthy, can see vivid
landscapes, and figures of persons in motion, in glass balls and other
vehicles."

It can easily be imagined how interested any member of the Smith family
would have been in an exhibition like that of a "crystal-gazer," and
we are able to trace very consecutively Joe's first introduction to the
practice, and the use he made of the hint thus given.

Emily C. Blackman, in the appendix to her "History of Susquehanna
County, Pennsylvania" (1873), supplies the needed important information
about Joe's visits to Pennsylvania in the years preceding the
announcement of his Bible. She says that it is uncertain when he arrived
at Harmony (now Oakland), "but it is certain he was here in 1825 and
later." A very circumstantial account of Joe's first introduction to a
"peep-stone" is given in a statement by J. B. Buck in this appendix. He
says:--

"Joe Smith was here lumbering soon after my marriage, which was in
1818, some years before he took to 'peeping', and before diggings were
commenced under his direction. These were ideas he gained later. The
stone which he afterward used was in the possession of Jack Belcher of
Gibson, who obtained it while at Salina, N. Y., engaged in drawing salt.
Belcher bought it because it was said to be a 'seeing-stone.' I have
often seen it. It was a green stone, with brown irregular spots on it.
It was a little longer than a goose's egg, and about the same thickness.
When he brought it home and covered it with a hat, Belcher's little boy
was one of the first to look into the hat, and as he did so, he said he
saw a candle. The second time he looked in he exclaimed, 'I've found my
hatchet' (it had been lost two years), and immediately ran for it to
the spot shown him through the stone, and it was there. The boy was soon
beset by neighbors far and near to reveal to them hidden things, and
he succeeded marvellously. Joe Smith, conceiving the idea of making
a fortune through a similar process of 'seeing,' bought the stone
of Belcher, and then began his operations in directing where hidden
treasures could be found. His first diggings were near Capt. Buck's
sawmill, at Red Rock; but because the followers broke the rule of
silence, 'the enchantment removed the deposit.'"

One of many stories of Joe's treasure-digging, current in that
neighborhood, Miss Blackman narrates. Learning from a strolling Indian
of a place where treasure was said to be buried, Joe induced a farmer
named Harper to join him in digging for it and to spend a considerable
sum of money in the enterprise. "After digging a great hole, that is
still to be seen," the story continues, "Harper got discouraged, and was
about abandoning the enterprise. Joe now declared to Harper that there
was an 'enchantment' about the place that was removing the treasure
farther off; that Harper must get a perfectly white dog (some said
a black one), and sprinkle his blood over the ground, and that would
prevent the 'enchantment' from removing the treasure. Search was made
all over the country, but no perfectly white dog could be found. Then
Joe said a white sheep would do as well; but when this was sacrificed
and failed, he said The Almighty was displeased with him for attempting
to palm off on Him a white sheep for a white dog." This informant
describes Joe at that time as "an imaginative enthusiast,
constitutionally opposed to work, and a general favorite with the
ladies."

In confirmation of this, R. C. Doud asserted that "in 1822 he was
employed, with thirteen others, by Oliver Harper to dig for gold
under Joe's direction on Joseph McKune's land, and that Joe had begun
operations the year previous."

F. G. Mather obtained substantially the same particulars of Joe's
digging in connection with Harper from the widow of Joseph McKune about
the year 1879, and he said that the owner of the farm at that time "for
a number of years had been engaged in filling the holes with stone
to protect his cattle, but the boys still use the northeast hole as a
swimming pond in the summer."*


   * Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1880.


Confirmation of the important parts of these statements has been
furnished by Joseph's father. When the reports of the discovery of a new
Bible first gained local currency (in 1830), Fayette Lapham decided to
visit the Smith family, and learn what he could on the subject. He found
the elder Smith very communicative, and he wrote out a report of his
conversation with him, "as near as I can repeat his words," he says, and
it was printed in the Historical Magazine for May, 1870. Father Smith
made no concealment of his belief in witchcraft and other things
supernatural, as well as in the existence of a vast amount of buried
treasure. What he said of Joe's initiation into "crystal-gazing" Mr.
Lapham thus records:--

"His son Joseph, whom he called the illiterate,* when he was about
fourteen years of age, happened to be where a man was looking into a
dark stone, and telling people therefrom where to dig for money and
other things. Joseph requested the privilege of looking into the stone,
which he did by putting his face into the hat where the stone was. It
proved to be not the right stone for him; but he could see some things,
and among them he saw the stone, and where it was, in which he could see
whatever he wished to see.... The place where he saw the stone was not
far from their house, and under pretence of digging a well, they found
water and the stone at a depth of twenty or twenty-two feet. After this,
Joseph spent about two years looking into this stone, telling fortunes,
where to find lost things, and where to dig for money and other hidden
treasures."


   * Joe's mother, describing Joe's descriptions to the family, at
their evening fireside, of the angel's revelations concerning the golden
plates, says (p. 84): "All giving the most profound attention to a boy
eighteen years of age, who had never read the Bible through in his life;
he seemed much less inclined to the perusal of books than any of the
rest of our children."

If further confirmation of Joe's early knowledge on this subject is
required, we may cite the Rev. John A. Clark, D.D., who, writing in 1840
after careful local research, said: "Long before the idea of a golden
Bible entered their [the Smiths'] minds, in their excursions for
money-digging.... Joe used to be usually their guide, putting into a hat
a peculiar stone he had, through which he looked to decide where they
should begin to dig."*


   * "Gleanings by the Way" (1842), p. 225.


We come now to the history of Joe's own "peek-stone" (as the family
generally called it), that which his father says he discovered by using
the one that he first saw. Willard Chase, of Manchester, New York, near
Palmyra, employed Joe and his brother Alvin some time in the year 1822
(as he fixed the date in his affidavit)* to assist him in digging a
well. "After digging about twenty feet below the surface of the earth,"
he says, "we discovered a singularly appearing stone which excited my
curiosity. I brought it to the top of the well, and as we were examining
it, Joseph put it into his hat and then his face into the top of the
hat. It has been said by Smith that he brought the stone from the well,
but this is false. There was no one in the well but myself. The next
morning he came to me and wished to obtain the stone, alleging that
he could see in it; but I told him I did not wish to part with it on
account of its being a curiosity, but would lend it. After obtaining
the stone, he began to publish abroad what wonders he could discover by
looking in it, and made so much disturbance among the credulous part of
the community that I ordered the stone to be returned to me again.
He had it in his possession about two years." Joseph's brother Hyrum
borrowed the stone some time in 1825, and Mr. Chase was unable to
recover it afterward. Tucker describes it as resembling a child's foot
in shape, and "of a whitish, glassy appearance, though opaque."**


   * Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 240.


   ** Tucker closes his chapter about this stone with the
declaration "that the origin [of Mormonism] is traceable to the
insignificant little stone found in the digging of Mr. Chase's well in
1822." Tucker was evidently ignorant both of Joe's previous experience
with "crystal-gazing" in Pennsylvania and of "crystal-gazing" itself.


The Smiths at once began turning Chase's stone to their own financial
account, but no one at the time heard that it was giving them any
information about revealed religion. For pay they offered to disclose by
means of it the location of stolen property and of buried money. There
seemed to be no limit to the exaggeration of their professions. They
would point out the precise spot beneath which lay kegs, barrels, and
even hogsheads of gold and silver in the shape of coin, bars, images,
candlesticks, etc., and they even asserted that all the hills thereabout
were the work of human bands, and that Joe, by using his "peek-stone,"
could see the caverns beneath them.* Persons can always be found to give
at least enough credence to such professions to desire to test them. It
was so in this case. Joe not only secured small sums on the promise of
discovering lost articles, but he raised money to enable him to dig for
larger treasure which he was to locate by means of the stone. A Palmyra
man, for instance, paid seventy-five cents to be sent by him on a fool's
errand to look for some stolen cloth.


   * William Stafford's affidavit, Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p.
237.


Certain ceremonies were always connected with these money-digging
operations. Midnight was the favorite hour, a full moon was helpful, and
Good Friday was the best date. Joe would sometimes stand by, directing
the digging with a wand. The utmost silence was necessary to success.
More than once, when the digging proved a failure, Joe explained to his
associates that, just as the deposit was about to be reached, some one,
tempted by the devil, spoke, causing the wished-for riches to disappear.
Such an explanation of his failures was by no means original with
Smith, the serious results of an untimely spoken word having been long
associated with divers magic performances. Joe even tried on his New
York victims the Pennsylvania device of requiring the sacrifice of
a black sheep to overcome the evil spirit that guarded the treasure.
William Stafford opportunely owned such an animal, and, as he puts
it, "to gratify my curiosity," he let the Smiths have it. But some new
"mistake in the process" again resulted in disappointment. "This, I
believe," remarks the contributor of the sheep, "is the only time they
ever made money-digging a profitable business." The Smiths ate the
sheep.

These money-seeking enterprises were continued from 1820 to 1827 (the
year of the delivery to Smith of the golden plates). This period
covers the years in which Joe, in his autobiography, confesses that
he "displayed the corruption of human nature." He explains that his
father's family were poor, and that they worked where they could find
employment to their taste; "sometimes we were at home and sometimes
abroad." Some of these trips took them to Pennsylvania, and the stories
of Joe's "gazing" accomplishment may have reached Sidney Rigdon, and
brought about their first interview. Susquehanna County was more thinly
settled than the region around Palmyra, and Joe found persons who were
ready to credit him with various "gifts"; and stories are still current
there of his professed ability to perform miracles, to pray the frost
away from a cornfield, and the like.*


   * Lippincott's Magazine, August, 1880.



CHAPTER IV. -- FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE GOLDEN BIBLE

Just when Smith's attention was originally diverted from the discovery
of buried money to the discovery of a buried Bible engraved on gold
plates remains one of the unexplained points in his history. He was
so much of a romancer that his own statements at the time, which were
carefully collected by Howe, are contradictory. The description given of
the buried volume itself changed from time to time, giving strength in
this way to the theory that Rigdon was attracted to Smith by the rumor
of his discovery, and afterward gave it shape. First the book was
announced to be a secular history, says Dr. Clark; then a gold Bible;
then golden plates engraved; and later metallic plates, stereotyped or
embossed with golden letters.* Daniel Hendrix's recollection was that
for the first few months Joe did not claim the plates any new revelation
or religious significance, but simply that they were a historical record
of an ancient people. This would indicate that he had possession of the
"Spaulding Manuscript" before it received any theological additions.


   * "Gleanings by the Way," p. 229.


The account of the revelation of the book by an angel, which is accepted
by the Mormons, is the one elaborated in Smith's autobiography, and
was not written until 1838, when it was prepared under the direction of
Rigdon (or by him). Before examining this later version of the story, we
may follow a little farther Joe's local history at the time.

While the Smiths were conducting their operations in Pennsylvania, and
Joseph was "displaying the corruption of human nature," they boarded for
a time in the family of Isaac Hale, who is described as a "distinguished
hunter, a zealous member of the Methodist church," and (as later
testified to by two judges of the Court of Common Pleas of Susquehanna
County)" a man of excellent moral character and of undoubted veracity."*
Mr. Hale had three daughters, and Joe received enough encouragement to
his addresses to Emma to induce him to ask her father's consent to their
marriage. This consent was flatly refused. Mr. Hale made a statement
in 1834, covering his knowledge of Smith and the origin of the Mormon
Bible.** When he became acquainted with the future prophet, in 1825, Joe
was employed by the so-called "money-diggers," using his "peek-stone."
Among the reasons which Mr. Hale gave for refusing consent to the
marriage was that Smith was a stranger and followed a business which he
could not approve.


   * Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 266.


   ** Ibid., p. 262.


Joe thereupon induced Emma to consent to an elopement, and they were
married on January 18, 1827, by a justice of the peace, just across
the line in New York State. Not daring to return to the house of his
father-in-law, Joe took his wife to his own home, near Palmyra, New
York, where for some months he worked again with his father.

In the following August Joe hired a neighbor named Peter Ingersol to
go with him to Pennsylvania to bring from there some household effects
belonging to Emma. Of this trip Ingersol said, in an affidavit made in
1833:--

"When we arrived at Mr. Hale's in Harmony, Pa., from which place he
had taken his wife, a scene presented itself truly affecting. His
father-in-law addressed Joseph in a flood of tears: 'You have stolen
my daughter and married her. I had much rather have followed her to her
grave. You spend your time in digging for money--pretend to see in a
stone, and thus try to deceive people.' Joseph wept and acknowledged
that he could not see in a stone now nor never could, and that his
former pretensions in that respect were false. He then promised to give
up his old habits of digging for money and looking into stones. Mr. Hale
told Joseph, if he would move to Pennsylvania and work for a living,
he would assist him in getting into business. Joseph acceded to this
proposition, then returned with Joseph and his wife to Manchester....

"Joseph told me on his return that he intended to keep the promise which
he had made to his father-in-law; 'but,' said he, it will be hard for
me, for they [his family] will all oppose, as they want me to look in
the stone for them to dig money'; and in fact it was as he predicted.
They urged him day after day to resume his old practice of looking in
the stone. He seemed much perplexed as to the course he should pursue.
In this dilemma he made me his confidant, and told me what daily
transpired in the family of Smiths.

"One day he came and greeted me with joyful countenance. Upon asking the
cause of his unusual happiness, he replied in the following language:
'As I was passing yesterday across the woods, after a heavy shower of
rain, I found in a hollow some beautiful white sand that had been washed
up by the water. I took off my frock and tied up several quarts of it,
and then went home. On entering the house I found the family at the
table eating dinner. They were all anxious to know the contents of
my frock. At that moment I happened to think about a history found in
Canada, called a Golden Bible;* so I very gravely told them it was the
Golden Bible. To my surprise they were credulous enough to believe what
I said. Accordingly I told them I had received a commandment to let
no one see it, for, says I, no man can see it with the natural eye and
live. However, I offered to take out the book and show it to them, but
they refused to see it and left the room. 'Now,' said Joe, 'I have got
the d--d fools fixed and will carry out the fun.' Notwithstanding he
told me he had no such book and believed there never was such book, he
told me he actually went to Willard Chase, to get him to make a chest in
which he might deposit the Golden Bible. But as Chase would not do it,
he made the box himself of clapboards, and put it into a pillow-case,
and allowed people only to lift it and feel of it through the case."**


   * The most careful inquiries bring no information that any such
story was ever current in Canada.


   ** Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 234.


In line with this statement of Joe to Ingersol is a statement which
somewhat later he made to his brother-in-law, Alva Hale, that "this
'peeking' was all d--d nonsense; that he intended to quit the business
and labor for a livelihood."*


   * Ibid., p. 268.


Joe's family were quite ready to accept his statement of his discovery
of golden plates for more reasons than one. They saw in it, in the first
place, a means of pecuniary gain. Abigail Harris in a statement (dated
"11th mo., 28th, 1833") of a talk she had with Joe's father and mother
at Martin Harris's house, said:--

"They [the Smiths] said the plates Joe then had in possession were but
an introduction to the Gold Bible; that all of them upon which the Bible
was written were so heavy that it would take four stout men to load them
into a cart; that Joseph had also discerned by looking through his stone
the vessel in which the gold was melted from which the plates were made,
and also the machine with which they were rolled; he also discovered in
the bottom of the vessel three balls of gold, each as large as his fist.
The old lady said also that after the book was translated, the plates
were to be publicly exhibited, admission 25 cts."*


   * Ibid, p. 253.


But aside from this pecuniary view, the idea of a new Bible would have
been eagerly accepted by a woman like Mrs. Smith, and a mere intimation
by Joe of such a discovery would have given him, in her, an instigator
to the carrying out of the plot. It is said that she had predicted that
she was to be the mother of a prophet. She tells us that although, in
Vermont, she was a diligent church attendant, she found all preachers
unsatisfactory, and that she reached the conclusion that "there was not
on earth the religion she sought." Joe, in his description of his state
of mind just before the first visit of the angel who told him about
the plates, describes himself as distracted by the "war and tumult of
opinions." He doubtless heard this subject talked of by his mother
in the home circle, but none of his acquaintances at the time had any
reason to think that he was laboring under such mental distress.

The second person in the neighborhood whom Joe approached about his
discovery was Willard Chase, in whose well the "peek-stone" was found.
Mr. Chase in his statement (given at length by Howe) says that Joe
applied to him, soon after the above quoted conversation with Ingersol,
to make a chest in which to lock up his Gold Book, offering Chase an
interest in it as compensation. He told Chase that the discovery of
the book was due to the "peek-stone," making no allusion whatever to an
angel's visit. He and Chase could not come to terms, and Joe accordingly
made a box in which what he asserted were the plates were placed.

Reports of Joe's discovery soon gained currency in the neighborhood
through the family's account of it, and neighbors who had accompanied
them on the money-seeking expeditions came to hear about the new Bible,
and to request permission to see it. Joe warded off these requests
by reiterating that no man but him could look upon it and live.
"Conflicting stories were afterward told," says Tucker, "in regard to
the manner of keeping the book in concealment and safety, which are
not worth repeating, further than to mention that the first place of
secretion was said to be under a heavy hearthstone in the Smith family
mansion."

Joe's mother and Parley P. Pratt tell of determined efforts of mobs and
individuals to secure possession of the plates; but their statements
cannot be taken seriously, and are contradicted by Tucker from personal
knowledge. Tucker relates that two local wags, William T. Hussey and
Azel Vandruver, intimate acquaintances of Smith, on asking for a sight
of the book and hearing Joe's usual excuse, declared their readiness to
risk their lives if that were the price of the privilege. Smith was not
to be persuaded, but, the story continues, "they were permitted to go to
the chest with its owner, and see WHERE the thing was, and observe its
shape and size, concealed under a piece of thick canvas. Smith, with his
accustomed solemnity of demeanor, positively persisting in his refusal
to uncover it, Hussey became impetuous, and (suiting his action to
his word) ejaculated, 'Egad, I'll see the critter, live or die,' and
stripping off the canvas, a large tile brick was exhibited. But Smith's
fertile imagination was equal to the emergency. He claimed that his
friends had been sold by a trick of his."*


   * "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," p. 31.


Mother Smith, in her book, gives an account of proceedings in court
brought by the wife of Martin Harris to protect her husband's property
from Smith, on the plea that Smith was deceiving him in alleging the
existence of golden plates; and she relates how one witness testified
that Joe told him that "the box which he had contained nothing but sand,"
that a second witness swore that Joe told him, "it was nothing but a
box of lead," and that a third witness declared that Joe had told him
"there was nothing at all in the box." When Joe had once started the
story of his discovery, he elaborated it in his usual way. "I distinctly
remember," says Daniel Hendrix, "his sitting on some boxes in the store
and telling a knot of men, who did not believe a word they heard, all
about his vision and his find. But Joe went into such minute and careful
details about the size, weight, and beauty of the carvings on the golden
tablets, and strange characters and the ancient adornments, that I
confess he made some of the smartest men in Palmyra rub their eyes in
wonder."



CHAPTER V. -- THE DIFFERENT ACCOUNTS OF THE REVELATION OF THE BIBLE

The precise date when Joe's attention was first called to the
possibility of changing the story about his alleged golden plates so
that they would serve as the basis for a new Bible such as was finally
produced, and as a means of making him a prophet, cannot be ascertained.
That some directing mind gave the final shape to the scheme is shown by
the difference between the first accounts of his discovery by means
of the stone, and the one provided in his autobiography. We have also
evidence that the story of a direct revelation by an angel came some
time later than the version which Joe gave first to his acquaintances in
Pennsylvania.

James T. Cobb of Salt Lake City, who has given much time to
investigating matters connected with early Mormon history, received a
letter under date of April 23, 1879, from Hiel and Joseph Lewis, sons
of the Rev. Nathaniel Lewis, of Harmony, Pennsylvania, and relatives of
Joseph's father-in-law, in which they gave the story of the finding of
the plates as told in their hearing by Joe to their father, when he was
translating them. This statement, in effect, was that he dreamed of
an iron box containing gold plates curiously engraved, which he must
translate into a book; that twice when he attempted to secure the plates
he was knocked down, and when he asked why he could not have them, "he
saw a man standing over the spot who, to him, appeared like a Spaniard,
having a long beard down over his breast, with his throat cut from ear
to ear and the blood streaming down, who told him that he could not get
it alone." (He then narrated how he got the box in company with Emma.)
In all this narrative there was not one word about visions of God, or of
angels, or heavenly revelations; all his information was by that dream
and that bleeding ghost. The heavenly visions and messages of angels,
etc., contained in the Mormon books were afterthoughts, revised to
order.

In direct confirmation of this we have the following account of the
disclosure of the buried articles as given by Joe's father to Fayette
Lapham when the Bible was first published:--

"Soon after joining the church he [Joseph] had a very singular dream....
A very large, tall man appeared to him dressed in an ancient suit of
clothes, and the clothes were bloody. This man told him of a buried
treasure, and gave him directions by means of which he could find the
place. In the course of a year Smith did find it, and, visiting it by
night, "I by some supernatural power" was enabled to overturn a huge
boulder under which was a square block of masonry, in the centre of
which were the articles as described. Taking up the first article, he
saw others below; laying down the first, he endeavored to secure the
others; but, before he could get hold of them, the one he had taken up
slid back to the place he had taken it from, and, to his great surprise
and terror, the rock immediately fell back to its former place, nearly
crushing him [Joseph] in its descent. While trying in vain to raise the
rock again with levers, Joseph felt something strike him on the breast,
a third blow knocking him down; and as he lay on the ground he saw
the tall man, who told him that the delivery of the articles would be
deferred a year because Joseph had not strictly followed the directions
given to him. The heedless Joseph allowed himself to forget the date
fixed for his next visit, and when he went to the place again, the tall
man appeared and told him that, because of his lack of punctuality, he
would have to wait still another year before the hidden articles would
be confided to him. "Come in one year from this time, and bring your
oldest brother with you," said the guardian of the treasures, "then you
may have them." Before the date named arrived, the elder brother
had died, and Joseph decided that his wife was the proper person to
accompany him. Mr. Lapham's report proceeds as follows:--

"At the expiration of the year he [Joseph] procured a horse and light
wagon, with a chest and pillowcase, and proceeded punctually with his
wife to find the hidden treasure. When they had gone as far as they
could with the wagon, Joseph took the pillow-case and started for the
rock. Upon passing a fence a host of devils began to screech and
to scream, and make all sorts of hideous yells, for the purpose of
terrifying him and preventing the attainment of his object; but Joseph
was courageous and pursued his way in spite of them. Arriving at the
stone, he again lifted it with the aid of superhuman power, as at
first, and secured the first or uppermost article, this time putting it
carefully into the pillow-case before laying it down. He now attempted
to secure the remainder; but just then the same old man appeared, and
said to him that the time had not yet arrived for their exhibition to
the world, but that when the proper time came he should have them and
exhibit them, with the one he had now secured; until that time arrived,
no one must be allowed to touch the one he had in his possession; for
if they did, they would be knocked down by some superhuman power. Joseph
ascertained that the remaining articles were a gold hilt and chain, and
a gold ball with two pointers. The hilt and chain had once been part
of a sword of unusual size; but the blade had rusted away and become
useless. Joseph then turned the rock back, took the article in the
pillow-case, and returned to the wagon. The devils, with more hideous
yells than before, followed him to the fence; as he was getting over the
fence, one of the devils struck him a blow on the side, where a black
and blue spot remained three or four days; but Joseph persevered and
brought the article safely home. "I weighed it," said Mr. Smith, Sr.,
"and it weighed 30 pounds." In answer to our question as to what it was
that Joseph had thus obtained, he said it consisted of a set of gold
plates, about six inches wide and nine or ten inches long. They were in
the form of a book."*


   * Historical Magazine, May, 1870.


We may now contrast these early accounts of the disclosure with the
version given in the Prophet's autobiography (written, be it remembered,
in Nauvoo in 1838), the one accepted by all orthodox Mormons. One of
its striking features will be found to be the transformation of the
Spaniard-with-his-throat-cut into a messenger from Heaven.*


   * Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt.


It was, according to this later account, when he was in his fifteenth
year, and when his father's family were "proselyted to the Presbyterian
church," that he became puzzled by the divergent opinions he heard from
different pulpits. One day, while reading the epistle of James (not a
common habit of his, as his mother would testify), Joseph was struck by
the words, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God." Reflecting
on this injunction, he retired to the woods on the morning of a
beautiful clear day early in the spring of 1820, and there he for the
first time uttered a spoken prayer. As soon as he began praying he was
overcome by some power, and "thick darkness" gathered around him. Just
when he was ready to give himself up as lost, he managed to call on God
for deliverance, whereupon he saw a pillar of light descending upon him,
and two personages of indescribable glory standing in the air above him,
one of whom, calling him by name, said to the other, "This is my beloved
Son, hear him." Straightway Joseph, not forgetting the main object of
his going to the woods, asked the two personages: "which of all the
sects was right." He was told that all were wrong, and that he must
join none of them; that all creeds were an abomination, and that all
professors were corrupt. He came to himself lying on his back.

The effect on the boy of this startling manifestation was not radically
beneficial, as he himself concedes. "Forbidden to join any other
religious sects of the day, of tender years," and badly treated by
persons who should have been his friends, he admits that in the next
three years he "frequently fell into many foolish errors, and displayed
the weakness of youth and the corruption of human nature, which, I am
sorry to say, led me into diverse temptations, to the gratification of
many appetites offensive in the sight of God." It was during this period
that he was most active in the use of his "peek-stone."

On the night of September 21, 1823, to proceed with his own account,
when again praying to God for the forgiveness of his sins, the room
became light, and a person clothed in a robe of exquisite whiteness,
and having "a countenance truly like lightning," called him by name, and
said that his visitor was a messenger sent from God, and that his name
was Nephi. This was a mistake on the part of somebody, because the
visitor's real name was Moroni, who hid the plates where they were
deposited. Smith continues:--

"He said there was a book deposited, written upon golden plates, giving
an account of the former inhabitants of this continent and the
source from whence they sprang. He also said that the fulness of the
Everlasting Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Saviour to
the ancient inhabitants. Also, there were two stones in silver bows (and
these stones, fastened to a breastplate, constituted what is called the
Urim and Thummim) deposited with the plates; and the possession and use
of these stones was what constituted seers in ancient or former times,
and that God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book."

The messenger then made some liberal quotations from the prophecies
of the Old Testament (changing them to suit his purpose), and ended by
commanding Smith, when he got the plates, at a future date, to show them
only to those as commanded, lest he be destroyed. Then he ascended into
heaven. The next day the messenger appeared again, and directed Joseph
to tell his father of the commandment which he had received. When he had
done so, his father told him to go as directed. He knew the place (ever
since known locally as "Mormon Hill") as soon as he arrived there, and
his narrative proceeds as follows:--

"Convenient to the village of Manchester, Ontario Co., N. Y., stands
a hill of considerable size, and the most elevated of any in the
neighborhood. On the west side of this hill, not far from the top, under
a stone of considerable size, lay the plates, deposited in a stone box;
this stone was thick and rounded in the middle on the upper side, and
thinner toward the edges, so that the middle part of it was visible
above the ground, but the edge all round was covered with earth. Having
removed the earth and obtained a lever, which I got fixed under the edge
of the stone, and with a little exertion raised it up, I looked in,
and there, indeed, did I behold the plates, the Urim and Thummim and
breastplate, as stated by the messenger. The box in which they lay was
formed by laying stones together in a kind of cement. In the bottom of
the box were laid two stones crosswise of the box, and on these stones
lay the plates and the other things with them. I made an attempt to take
them out, but was forbidden by the messenger. I was again informed that
the time for bringing them out had not yet arrived, neither would till
four years from that time; but he told me that I should come to that
place precisely one year from that time, and that he would there meet
with me, and that I should continue to do so until the time should come
for obtaining the plates".

Mother Smith gives an explanation of Joe's failure to secure the plates
on this occasion, which he omits: "As he was taking them, the unhappy
thought darted through his mind that probably there was something else
in the box besides the plates, which would be of pecuniary advantage
to him.... Joseph was overcome by the power of darkness, and forgot the
injunction that was laid upon him." The mistakes which the Deity made in
Joe's character constantly suggest to the lay reader the query why the
Urim and Thummim were not turned on Joe.

On September 22, 1827, when Joe visited the hill (following his own
story again), the same messenger delivered to him the plates, the Urim
and Thummim and the breastplate, with the warning that if he "let them
go carelessly" he would be "cut off", and a charge to keep them until
the messenger called for them.

Mother Smith's story of the securing of the plates is to the effect that
about midnight of September 21 Joseph and his wife drove away from his
father's house with a horse and wagon belonging to a Mr. Knight. He
returned after breakfast the next morning, bringing with him the Urim
and Thummim, which he showed to her, and which she describes as "two
smooth, three-cornered diamonds set in glass, and the glasses were set
in silver bows that were connected with each other in much the same way
as old-fashioned spectacles." She says that she also saw the breastplate
through a handkerchief, and that it "was concave on one side and convex
on the other, and extended from the neck downward as far as the stomach
of a man of extraordinary size. It had four straps of the same material
for the purpose of fastening it to the breast.... The whole plate was
worth at least $500." The spectacles and breastplate seem to have
been more familiar to Mother Smith than to any other of Joseph's
contemporaries and witnesses.

The substitution of the spectacles called Urim and Thummim for the
"peek-stone" was doubtless an idea of the associate in the plot, who
supplied the theological material found in the Golden Bible. Tucker
considers the "spectacle pretension" an afterthought of some one when
the scheme of translating the plates into a Bible was evolved, as "it
was not heard of outside of the Smith family for a considerable period
subsequent to the first story."* This is confirmed by the elder Smith's
early account of the discovery. It would be very natural that Rigdon,
with his Bible knowledge, should substitute the more respectable
Urim and Thummim for the "peek-stone" of ill-repute, as the medium of
translation.


   * "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," p. 33.


The Urim and Thummim were the articles named by the Lord to Moses in
His description of the priestly garments of Aaron. The Bible leaves them
without description;* and the following verses contain all that is
said of them: Exodus xxviii. 30; Leviticus viii. 8; Numbers xxvii. 21;
Deuteronomy xxxiii. 8; Samuel xxviii. 6; Ezra ii. 63; Nehemiah vii. 65.
Only a pretence of using spectacles in the work of translating was kept
up, later descriptions of the process by Joe's associates referring
constantly to the employment of the stone.


   * "The Hebrew words are generally considered to be plurales
excellentoe, denoting light (that is, revelation) and truth.... There
are two principal opinions respecting the Urim and Thummim. One is
that these words simply denote the four rows of precious stones in the
breastplate of the high priest, and are so called from their brilliancy
and perfection; which stones, in answer to an appeal to God in difficult
cases, indicated His mind and will by some supernatural appearance....
The other principal opinion is that the Urim and Thummim were two small
oracular images similar to the Teraphim, personifying revelation and
truth, which were placed in the cavity or pouch formed by the folds of
the breastplate, and which uttered oracles by a voice.... We incline to
Mr. Mede's opinion that the Urim and Thummim were 'things well known to
the patriarchs' as divinely appointed means of inquiries of the Lord,
suited to an infantile state of religion. 'Cyclopedia of Biblical
Literature.'" Kitto and Alexander, editors.


Joe says that while the plates were in his possession "multitudes" tried
to get them away from him, but that he succeeded in keeping them until
they were translated, and then delivered them again to the messenger,
who still retains them. Mother Smith tells a graphic story of attempts
to get the plates away from her son, and says that when he first
received them he hid them until the next day in a rotten birch log,
bringing them home wrapped in his linen frock under his arm.* Later, she
says, he hid them in a hole dug in the hearth of their house, and again
in a pile of flax in a cooper shop; Willard Chase's daughter almost
found them once by means of a peek-stone of her own.


   * Elder Hyde in his "Mormonism" estimates that "from the
description given of them the plates must have weighed nearly two
hundred pounds."


Mother Smith says that Joseph told all the family of his vision the
evening of the day he told his father, charging them to keep it secret,
and she adds:--

"From that time forth Joseph continued to receive instructions from the
Lord, and we continued to get the children together every evening for
the purpose of listening while he gave us a relation of the same. I
presume our family presented an aspect as singular as any that ever
lived upon the face of the earth--all seated in a circle, father,
mother, sons, and daughters, and giving the most profound attention to
a boy eighteen years old, who had never read the Bible through in his
life.... We were now confirmed in the opinion that God was about to
bring to light something upon which we could stay our mind, or that
would give us a more perfect knowledge of the plan of salvation and the
redemption of the human family."



CHAPTER VI. -- TRANSLATION AND PUBLICATION OF THE BIBLE

The only one of his New York neighbors who seems to have taken a
practical interest in Joe's alleged discovery was a farmer named Martin
Harris, who lived a little north of Palmyra. Harris was a religious
enthusiast, who had been a Quaker (as his wife was still), a
Universalist, a Baptist, and a Presbyterian, and whose sanity it would
have been difficult to establish in a surrogate's court. The Rev.
Dr. Clark, who knew him intimately, says, "He had always been a firm
believer in dreams, visions, and ghosts."


   *Howe describes him as often declaring that he had talked with
Jesus Christ, angels, and the devil, and saying that "Christ was the
handsomest man he ever saw, and the devil looked like a jackass, with
very short, smooth hair similar to that of a mouse." Daniel Hendrix
relates that as he and Harris were riding to the village one evening,
and he remarked on the beauty of the moon, Harris replied that if his
companion could only see it as he had, he might well call it beautiful,
explaining that he had actually visited the moon, and adding that
it "was only the faithful who were permitted to visit the celestial
regions." Jesse Townsend, a resident of Palmyra, in a letter written in
1833, describes him as a visionary fanatic, unhappily married, who "is
considered here to this day a brute in his domestic relations, a fool
and a dupe to Smith in religion, and an unlearned, conceited hypocrite
generally." His wife, in an affidavit printed in Howe's book (p. 255),
says: "He has whipped, kicked, and turned me out of the house." Harris,
like Joe's mother, was a constant reader of and a literal believer in
the Bible. Tucker says that he "could probably repeat from memory every
text from the Bible, giving the chapter and verse in each case." This
seems to be an exaggeration.


   * "Gleanings by the Way."


Mother Smith's account of Harris's early connection with the Bible
enterprise says that her husband told Harris of the existence of the
plates two or three years before Joe got possession of them; that when
Joe secured them he asked her to go and tell Harris that he wanted
to see him on the subject, an errand not to her liking, because "Mr.
Harris's wife was a very peculiar woman," that is, she did not share in
her husband's superstition. Mrs. Smith did not succeed in seeing Harris,
but he soon afterward voluntarily offered Joe fifty dollars "for the
purpose of helping Mr. Smith do the Lord's work." As Harris was
very "close" in money matters, it is probable that Joe offered him a
partnership in the scheme at the start. Harris seems to have placed
much faith in the selling quality of the new Bible. He is said to have
replied to his wife's early declaration of disbelief in it: "What if it
is a lie. If you will let me alone I will make money out of it."* The
Rev. Ezra Booth said: "Harris informed me [after his removal to Ohio]
that he went to the place where Joseph resided [in Pennsylvania], and
Joseph had given it [the translation] up on account of the opposition of
his wife and others; and he told Joseph, 'I have not come down here for
nothing, and we will go on with it.'"**


   * Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 254.


   ** Ibid., p. 182.


Just at this time Joe was preparing to move to the neighborhood of
Harmony, Pennsylvania, having made a trip there after his marriage,
during which, Mr. Hale's affidavit says, "Smith stated to me that he had
given up what he called 'glass-looking,' and that he expected to work
hard for a living and was willing to do so." Smith's brother-in-law
Alva, in accordance with arrangements then made, went to Palmyra and
helped move his effects to a house near Mr. Hale's. Joe acknowledges
that Harris's gift or loan of fifty dollars enabled him to meet the
expenses of moving.

Parley P. Pratt, in a statement published by him in London in 1854, set
forth that Smith was driven to Pennsylvania from Palmyra through fear of
his life, and that he took the plates with him concealed in a barrel of
beans, thus eluding the efforts of persons who tried to secure them by
means of a search warrant. Tucker says that this story rests only on
the sending of a constable after Smith by a man to whom he owed a small
debt. The great interest manifested in the plates in the neighborhood of
Palmyra existed only in Mormon imagination developed in later years.

According to some accounts, all the work of what was called
"translating" the writing on the plates into what became the "Book of
Mormon" was done at Joe's home in New York State, and most of it in a
cave, but this was not the case. Smith himself says: "Immediately after
my arrival [in Pennsylvania] I commenced copying the characters off the
plates. I copied a considerable number of them, and by means of the Urim
and Thummim I translated some of them, which I did between the time
I arrived, at the house of my wife's father in the month of December
(1827) and the February following."

A clear description of the work of translating as carried on in
Pennsylvania is given in the affidavit made by Smith's father-in-law,
Isaac Hale, in 1834.* He says that soon after Joe's removal to his
neighborhood with his wife, he (Hale) was shown a box such as is used
for the shipment of window glass, and was told that it contained the
"book of plates"; he was allowed to lift it, but not to look into it.
Joe told him that the first person who would be allowed to see the
plates would be a young child.** The affidavit continues:--


   * Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 264.


   ** Joe's early announcement was that his first-born child was to
have this power, but the child was born dead. This was one of the
earliest of Joe's mistakes in prophesying.


"About this time Martin Harris made his appearance upon the stage, and
Smith began to interpret the characters, or hieroglyphics, which he
said were engraven upon the plates, while Harris wrote down the
interpretation. It was said that Harris wrote down 116 pages and lost
them. Soon after this happened, Martin Harris informed me that he must
have a GREATER WITNESS, and said that he had talked with Joseph about
it. Joseph informed him that he could not, or durst not, show him the
plates, but that he [Joseph] would go into the woods where the book of
plates was, and that after he came back Harris should follow his track
in the snow, and find the book and examine it for himself. Harris
informed me that he followed Smith's directions, and could not find the
plates and was still dissatisfied.

"The next day after this happened I went to the house where Joseph
Smith, Jr., lived, and where he and Harris were engaged in their
translation of the book. Each of them had a written piece of paper which
they were comparing, and some of the words were, I my servant seeketh a
greater witness, but no greater witness can be given him.... I inquired
whose words they were, and was informed by Joseph or Emma (I rather
think it was the former), that they were the words of Jesus Christ. I
told them that I considered the whole of it a delusion, and advised them
to abandon it. The manner in which he pretended to read and interpret
was the same as when he looked for the moneydiggers, with the stone in
his hat and his hat over his face, while the book of plates was at the
same time hid in the woods.

"After this, Martin Harris went away, and Oliver Cowdery came and wrote
for Smith, while he interpreted as above described.

"Joseph Smith, Jr., resided near me for some time after this, and I
had a good opportunity of becoming acquainted with him, and somewhat
acquainted with his associates; and I conscientiously believe, from the
facts I have detailed, and from many other circumstances which I do not
deem it necessary to relate, that the whole Book of Mormon (so-called)
is a silly fabrication of falsehood and wickedness, got up for
speculation, and with a design to dupe the credulous and unwary."

Harris's natural shrewdness in a measure overcame his fanaticism, and he
continued to press Smith for a sight of the plates. Smith thereupon made
one of the first uses of those "revelations" which played so important
a part in his future career, and he announced one (Section 5, "Doctrine
and Covenants"*), in which "I, the Lord" declared to Smith that the
latter had entered into a covenant with Him not to show the plates to
any one except as the Lord commanded him. Harris finally demanded of
Smith at least a specimen of the writing on the plates for submission to
experts in such subjects. As Harris was the only man of means interested
in this scheme of publication, Joe supplied him with a paper containing
some characters which he said were copied from one of the plates. This
paper increased Harris's belief in the reality of Joe's discovery, but
he sought further advice before opening his purse. Dr. Clark describes a
call Harris made on him early one morning, greatly excited, requesting a
private interview. On hearing his story, Dr. Clark advised him that the
scheme was a hoax, devised to extort money from him, but Harris showed
the slip of paper containing the mysterious characters, and was not to
be persuaded.


   * All references to the "Book of Doctrine and Covenants" refer to
the sections and verses of the Salt Lake city edition of 1890.


Seeking confirmation, however, Harris made a trip to New York City in
order to submit the characters to experts there. Among others, he called
on Professor Charles Anthon. His interview with Professor Anthon
has been a cause of many and conflicting statements, some Mormons
misrepresenting it for their own purposes and others explaining away
the professor's accounts of it. The following statement was written by
Professor Anthon in reply to an inquiry by E. D. Howe:--

"NEW YORK, February 17, 1834.

"DEAR SIR: I received your favor of the 9th, and lose no time in making
a reply. The whole story about my pronouncing the Mormon inscription to
be 'reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics' is perfectly false. Some years ago
a plain, apparently simple-hearted farmer called on me with a note
from Dr. Mitchell, of our city, now dead, requesting me to decypher,
if possible, the paper which the farmer would hand me, and which Dr. M.
confessed he had been unable to understand. Upon examining the paper in
question, I soon came to the conclusion that it was all a trick--perhaps
a hoax. When I asked the person who brought it how he obtained the
writing, he gave me, as far as I can recollect, the following account:
A 'gold book' consisting of a number of plates fastened together in
the shape of a book by wires of the same metal, had been dug up in
the northern part of the state of New York, and along with the book an
enormous pair of 'spectacles'! These spectacles were so large that, if
a person attempted to look through them, his two eyes would have to
be turned toward one of the glasses merely, the spectacles in question
being altogether too large for the breadth of the human face. Whoever
examined the plates through the spectacles, was enabled, not only to
read them, but fully to understand their meaning. All this knowledge,
however, was confined to a young man who had the trunk containing the
book and spectacles in his sole possession. This young man was placed
behind a curtain in the garret of a farmhouse, and being thus concealed
from view, put on the spectacles occasionally, or rather, looked through
one of the glasses, decyphered the characters in the book, and, having
committed some of them to paper, handed copies from behind the curtain
to those who stood on the outside. Not a word, however, was said about
the plates being decyphered 'by the gift of God.' Everything in this way
was effected by the large pair of spectacles. The farmer added that he
had been requested to contribute a sum of money toward the publication
of the 'golden book,' the contents of which would, as he had been
assured, produce an entire change in the world, and save it from ruin.
So urgent had been these solicitations, that he intended selling his
farm, and handing over the amount received to those who wished to
publish the plates. As a last precautionary step, however, he had
resolved to come to New York, and obtain the opinion of the learned
about the meaning of the paper which he had brought with him, and which
had been given him as part of the contents of the book, although no
translation had been furnished at the time by the young man with the
spectacles. On hearing this odd story, I changed my opinion about the
paper, and, instead of viewing it any longer as a hoax upon the learned,
I began to regard it as a part of a scheme to cheat the farmer of his
money, and I communicated my suspicions to him, warning him to beware of
rogues. He requested an opinion from me in writing, which, of course,
I declined giving, and he then took his leave, carrying his paper with
him.

"This paper was in fact a singular scrawl. It consisted of all kinds of
crooked characters, disposed in columns, and had evidently been prepared
by some person who had before him at the time a book containing various
alphabets. Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes, Roman
letters inverted, or placed sideways, were arranged and placed in
perpendicular columns; and the whole ended in a rude delineation of a
circle, divided into various compartments, decked with various strange
marks, and evidently copied after the Mexican Calendar, given by
Humbolt, but copied in such a way as not to betray the source whence
it was, derived. I am thus particular as to the contents of the paper,
inasmuch as I have frequently conversed with my friends on the subject
since the Mormonite excitement began, and well remember that the paper
contained anything else but 'Egyptian Hieroglyphics.'

"Some time after, the farmer paid me a second visit. He brought with
him the golden book in print, and offered it to me for sale. I declined
purchasing. He then asked permission to leave the book with me for
examination. I declined receiving it, although his manner was strangely
urgent. I adverted once more to the roguery which had been, in my
opinion, practised upon him, and asked him what had become of the gold
plates. He informed me that they were in a trunk with the large pair
of spectacles. I advised him to go to a magistrate, and have the trunk
examined. He said 'the curse of God' would come upon him should he do
this. On my pressing him, however, to pursue the course which I had
recommended, he told me he would open the trunk if I would take 'the
curse of God' upon myself. I replied I would do so with the greatest
willingness, and would incur every risk of that nature provided I could
only extricate him from the grasp of the rogues. He then left me.

"I have thus given you a full statement of all that I know respecting
the origin of Mormonism, and must beg you, as a personal favor, to
publish this letter immediately, should you find my name mentioned again
by these wretched fanatics. Yours respectfully,

"CHARLES ANTHON."*


   * "Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 270-272. A letter from Professor
Anthon to the Rev. Dr. Coit, rector of Trinity Church, New Rochelle, New
York, dated April 3, 1841, containing practically the same statement,
will be found in Clark's "Gleanings by the Way," pp. 233-238.


While Mormon speakers quoted Anthon as vouching for the mysterious
writing, their writers were more cautious. P. P. Pratt, in his "Voice of
Warning" (1837), said that Professor Anthon was unable to decipher
the characters, but he presumed that if the original records could
be brought, he could assist in translating them. Orson Pratt, in his
"Remarkable Visions" (1848), saw in the Professor's failure only a
verification of Isaiah xxix. 11 and 12:--

"And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is
sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this,
I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot, for it is sealed: and the book is
delivered to him that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee:
and he saith, I am not learned."

[Illustration:
   Facsimile of the Characters of the Book of Mormon
   072]

John D. Lee, in his "Mormonism Unveiled," mentions the generally used
excuse of the Mormons for the professor's failure to translate the
writing, namely, that Anthon told Harris that "they were written in
a sealed language, unknown to the present age." Smith, in his
autobiography, quotes Harris's account of his interview as follows:--

"I went to New York City and presented the characters which had been
translated, with the translation thereof, to Prof. Anthon, a man quite
celebrated for his literary attainments. Prof. Anthon stated that the
translation was correct, more so than any he had before seen translated
from the Egyptian. I then showed him those which were not yet
translated, and he said they were Egyptian, Chaldaic, Assyriac, and
Arabic, and he said they were the true characters."

Harris declared that the professor gave him a certificate to this
effect, but took it back and tore it up when told that an angel of God
had revealed the plates to Joe, saying that "there were no such things
as ministering angels." This account by Harris of his interview with
Professor Anthon will assist the reader in estimating the value of
Harris's future testimony as to the existence of the plates.

Harris's trip to New York City was not entirely satisfactory to him,
and, as Smith himself relates, "He began to tease me to give him liberty
to carry the writings home and show them, and desired of me that I would
enquire of the Lord through the Urim and Thummim if he might not do so."
Smith complied with this request, but the permission was twice refused;
the third time it was granted, but on condition that Harris would show
the manuscript translation to only five persons, who were named, one of
them being his wife.

In including Mrs. Harris in this list, the Lord made one of the greatest
mistakes into which he ever fell in using Joe as a mouthpiece. Mrs.
Harris's Quaker belief had led her from the start to protest against the
Bible scheme, and to warn her husband against the Smith family, and she
vigorously opposed his investment of any money in the publication of
the book. On the occasion of his first visit to Joe in Pennsylvania,
according to Mother Smith, Mrs. Harris was determined to accompany him,
and he had to depart without her knowledge; and when he went the second
time, she did accompany him, and she ransacked the house to find the
"record" (as the plates are often called in the Smiths' writings).

When Harris returned home with the translated pages which Joe intrusted
to him (in July, 1828), he showed them to his family and to others, who
tried in vain to convince him that he was a dupe. Mrs. Harris decided on
a more practical course. Getting possession of the papers, where Harris
had deposited them for safe keeping, she refused to restore them to him.
What eventually became of them is uncertain, one report being that she
afterward burned them.

This should have caused nothing more serious in the way of delay
than the time required to retranslate these pages; for certainly a
well-equipped Divinity, who was revealing a new Bible to mankind, and
supplying so powerful a means of translation as the Urim and Thummim,
could empower the translator to repeat the words first written. Indeed,
the descriptions of the method of translation given afterward by Smith's
confederates would seem to prove that there could have been but one
version of any translation of the plates, no matter how many times
repeated. Thus, Harris described the translating as follows:--

"By aid of the seer stone [no mention of the magic spectacles] sentences
would appear and were read by the prophet and written by Martin, and,
when finished, he would say 'written'; and if correctly written, that
sentence would disappear, and another appear in its place; but if not
written correctly, it remained until corrected, so that the translation
was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language
then used."*


   * Elder Edward Stevenson in the Deseret News (quoted in Reynold's
"Mystery of the Manuscript Fund," p. 91).

David Whitmer, in an account of this process written in his later years,
said:--

"Joseph would put the seer stone into a hat [more testimony against the
use of the spectacles] and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely
around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual
light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would
appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would
appear, and under it was the translation in English. Brother Joseph
would read off the English to O. Cowdery, who was his principal scribe,
and when it was written down and repeated to brother Joseph to see if
it were correct, then it would disappear and another character with the
interpretation would appear."*


   * "Address to Believers in the Book of Mormon."


But to Joseph the matter of reproducing the lost pages of the
translation did not seem simple. When Harris's return to Pennsylvania
was delayed, Joe became anxious and went to Palmyra to learn what
delayed him, and there he heard of Mrs. Harris's theft of the pages. His
mother reports him as saying in announcing it, "my God, all is lost! all
is lost!" Why the situation was as serious to a sham translator as it
would have been simple to an honest one is easily understood. Whenever
Smith offered a second translation of the missing pages which differed
from the first, a comparison of them with the latter would furnish proof
positive of the fraudulent character of his pretensions.

All the partners in the business had to share in the punishment for what
had occurred. The Smiths lost all faith in Harris. Joe says that Harris
broke his pledge about showing the translation only to five persons,
and Mother Smith says that because of this offence "a dense fog spread
itself over his fields and blighted his wheat." When Joe returned to
Pennsylvania an angel appeared to him, his mother says, and ordered him
to give up the Urim and Thummim, promising, however, to restore them
if he was humble and penitent, and "if so, it will be on the 22d of
September."* Here may be noted one of those failures of mother and son
to agree in their narratives which was excuse enough for Brigham Young
to try to suppress the mother's book. Joe mentions a "revelation" dated
July, 1828 (Sec. 3, "Doctrine and Covenants"), in which Harris was
called "a wicked man," and which told Smith that he had lost his
privileges for a season, and he adds, "After I had obtained the above
revelation, both the plates and the Urim and Thummim were taken from me
again, BUT IN A FEW DAYS they were returned to me."**


   * "Biographical Sketches," by Lucy Smith, p. 125.


   ** Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, p. 8.


For some ten months after this the work of translation was discontinued,
although Mother Smith says that when she and his father visited the
prophet in Pennsylvania two months after his return, the first thing
they saw was "a red morocco trunk lying on Emma's bureau which, Joseph
shortly informed me, contained the Urim and Thummim and the plates."
Mrs. Harris's act had evidently thrown the whole machinery of
translation out of gear, and Joe had to await instructions from his
human adviser before a plan of procedure could be announced. During this
period (in which Joe says he worked on his father's farm), says Tucker,
"the stranger [supposed to be Rigdon] had again been at Smith's, and the
prophet had been away from home, maybe to repay the former's visits."*


   * "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," p. 48.


Two matters were decided on in these consultations, viz., that no
attempt would be made to retranslate the lost pages, and that a second
copy of all the rest of the manuscript should be prepared, to guard
against a similar perplexity in case of the loss of later pages. The
proof of the latter statement I find in the fact that a second copy did
exist. Ebenezer Robinson, who was a leading man in the church from
the time of its establishment in Ohio until Smith's death, says in his
recollections that, when the people assembled on October 2, 1841, to lay
the corner-stone of Nauvoo House, Smith said he had a document to
put into the corner-stone, and Robinson went with him to his house to
procure it. Robinson's story proceeds as follows:--

"He got a manuscript copy of the Book of Mormon, and brought it into the
room where we were standing, and said, 'I will examine to see if it is
all here'; and as he did so I stood near him, at his left side, and saw
distinctly the writing as he turned up the pages until he hastily went
through the book and satisfied himself that it was all there, when he
said, 'I have had trouble enough with this thing'; which remark struck
me with amazement, as I looked upon it as a sacred treasure."

Robinson says that the manuscript was written on foolscap paper and most
of it in Oliver Cowdery's handwriting. He explains that two copies were
necessary, "as the printer who printed the first edition of the book had
to have a copy, as they would not put the original copy into his hands
for fear of its being altered. This accounts for David Whitmer having a
copy and Joseph Smith having one."*


   * The Return, Vol. II, p. 314. Ebenezer Robinson, a printer,
joined the Mormons at Kirtland, followed Smith to Missouri, and went
with the flock to Nauvoo, where he and the prophet's brother, Don
Carlos, established the Times and Seasons. When the doctrine of polygamy
was announced to him and his wife, they rejected it, and he followed
Rigdon to Pennsylvania when Rigdon was turned out by Young. In later
years he was engaged in business enterprises in Iowa, and was a resident
of Davis City when David Whitmer announced the organization of
his church in Missouri, and, not accepting the view of the prophet
entertained by his descendants in the Reorganized Church, Robinson
accepted baptism from Whitmer. The Return was started by him in
January, 1889, and continued until his death, in its second year. His
reminiscences of early Mormon experiences, which were a feature of the
publication, are of value.

Major Bideman, who married the prophet's widow, partly completed and
occupied Nauvoo House after the departure of the Mormons for Utah, and
some years later he took out the cornerstone and opened it, but found
the manuscript so ruined by moisture that only a little was legible.

In regard to the missing pages, it was decided to announce a revelation,
which is dated May, 1829 (Sec. 10, "Doctrine and Covenants"), stating
that the lost pages had got into the hands of wicked men, that "Satan
has put it into their hearts to alter the words which you have caused to
be written, or which you have translated," in accordance with a plan
of the devil to destroy Smith's work. He was directed therefore to
translate from the plates of Nephi, which contained a "more particular
account" than the Book of Lehi from which the original translation was
made.

When Smith began translating again, Harris was not reemployed, but Emma,
the prophet's wife, acted as his scribe until April 15, 1829, when a new
personage appeared upon the scene. This was Oliver Cowdery.

Cowdery was a blacksmith by trade, but gave up that occupation, and,
while Joe was translating in Pennsylvania, secured the place of teacher
in the district where the Smiths lived, and boarded with them. They told
him of the new Bible, and, according to Joe's later account, Cowdery
for himself received a revelation of its divine character, went to
Pennsylvania, and from that time was intimately connected with Joe in
the translation and publication of the book.

In explanation of the change of plan necessarily adopted in the
translation, the following preface appeared in the first edition of the
book, but was dropped later:--

"TO THE READER.

"As many false reports have been circulated respecting the following
work, and also many unlawful measures taken by evil designing persons to
destroy me, and also the work, I would inform you that I translated,
by the gift and power of God, and caused to be written, one hundred
and sixteen pages, the which I took from the book of Lehi, which was an
account abridged from the plates of Lehi, by the hand of Mormon; which
said account, some person or persons have stolen and kept from me,
notwithstanding my utmost efforts to recover it again--and being
commanded of the Lord that I should not translate the same over again,
for Satan had put it into their hearts to tempt the Lord their God,
by altering the words; that they did read contrary from that which I
translated and caused to be written; and if I should bring forth the
same words again, or, in other words, if I should translate the same
over again, they would publish that which they had stolen, and Satan
would stir up the hearts of this generation, that they might not receive
this work, but behold, the Lord said unto me, I will not suffer that
Satan shall accomplish his evil design in this thing; therefore thou
shalt translate from the plates of Nephi until ye come to that which ye
have translated, which ye have retained; and behold, ye shall publish it
as the record of Nephi; and thus I will confound those who have altered
my words. I will not suffer that they shall destroy my work; yea, I will
show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the Devil.
Wherefore, to be obedient unto the commandments of God, I have, through
His grace and mercy, accomplished that which He hath commanded me
respecting this thing. I would also inform you that the plates of which
hath been spoken, were found in the township of Manchester, Ontario
County, New York.--THE AUTHOR."

In June, 1829, Smith accepted an invitation to change his residence to
the house of Peter Whitmer, who, with his sons, David, John, and Peter,
Jr., lived at Fayette, Seneca County, New York, the Whitmers promising
his board free and their assistance in the work of translation. There,
Smith says, they resided "until the translation was finished and the
copyright secured."

As five of the Whitmers were "witnesses" to the existence of the plates,
and David continued to be a person of influence in Mormon circles
throughout his long life, information about them is of value. The
prophet's mother again comes to our aid, although her account conflicts
with her son's. The prophet says that David Whitmer brought the
invitation to take up quarters at his father's, and volunteered the
offer of free board and assistance. Mother Smith says that one day, as
Joe was translating the plates, he came, in the midst of the words
of the Holy Writ, to a commandment to write at once to David Whitmer,
requesting him to come immediately and take the prophet and Cowdery to
his house, "as an evil-designing people were seeking to take away his
[Joseph's] life in order to prevent the work of God from going forth to
the world." When the letter arrived, David's father told him that,
as they had wheat sown that would require two days' harrowing, and a
quantity of plaster to spread, he could not go "unless he could get a
witness from God that it was absolutely necessary." In answer to his
inquiry of the Lord on the subject, David was told to go as soon as his
wheat was harrowed in. Setting to work, he found that at the end of the
first day the two days' harrowing had been completed, and, on going out
the next morning to spread the plaster, he found that work done also,
and his sister told him she had seen three unknown men at work in the
field the day before: so that the task had been accomplished by "an
exhibition of supernatural power."*


   * "Biographical Sketches," Lucy Smith, p. 135.


The translation being ready for the press, in June, 1829 (I follow
Tucker's account of the printing of the work), Joseph, his brother
Hyrum, Cowdery, and Harris asked Egbert B. Grandin, publisher of the
Wayne Sentinel at Palmyra, to give them an estimate of the cost of
printing an edition of three thousand copies, with Harris as security
for the payment. Grandin told them he did not want to undertake the job
at any price, and he tried to persuade Harris not to invest his money
in the scheme, assuring him that it was fraudulent. Application was next
made to Thurlow Weed, then the publisher of the Anti-Masonic Inquirer,
at Rochester, New York. "After reading a few chapters," says Mr. Weed,
"it seemed such a jumble of unintelligent absurdities that we refused
the work, advising Harris not to mortgage his farm and beggar his
family." Finally, Smith and his associates obtained from Elihu F.
Marshall, a Rochester publisher, a definite bid for the work, and with
this they applied again to Grandin, explaining that it would be much
more convenient for them to have the printing done at home, and pointing
out to him that he might as well take the job, as his refusal would not
prevent the publication of the book. This argument had weight with him,
and he made a definite contract to print and bind five thousand copies
for the sum of $3000, a mortgage on Harris's farm to be given him as
security. Mrs. Harris had persisted in her refusal to be in any way a
party to the scheme, and she and her husband had finally made a legal
separation, with a division of the property, after she had entered a
complaint against Joe, charging him with getting money from her husband
on fraudulent representation. At the hearing on this complaint, Harris
denied that he had ever contributed a dollar to Joe at the latter's
persuasion.

Tucker, who did much of the proof-reading of the new Bible, comparing it
with the manuscript copy, says that, when the printing began, Smith
and his associates watched the manuscript with the greatest vigilance,
bringing to the office every morning as much as the printers could set
up during the day, and taking it away in the evening, forbidding also
any alteration. The foreman, John H. Gilbert, found the manuscript
so poorly prepared as regards grammatical construction, spelling,
punctuation, etc., that he told them that some corrections must be made,
and to this they finally consented.

Daniel Hendrix, in his recollections, says in confirmation of this:--

"I helped to read proof on many pages of the book, and at odd times set
some type.... The penmanship of the copy furnished was good, but the
grammar, spelling and punctuation were done by John H. Gilbert, who was
chief compositor in the office. I have heard him swear many a time at
the syntax and orthography of Cowdery, and declare that he would not set
another line of the type. There were no paragraphs, no punctuation and
no capitals. All that was done in the printing office, and what a
time there used to be in straightening sentences out, too. During the
printing of the book I remember that Joe Smith kept in the background."

The following letter is in reply to an inquiry addressed by me to Albert
Chandler, the only survivor, I think, of the men who helped issue the
first edition of Smith's book:--

"COLDWATER, MICH., Dec. 22, 1898.

"My recollections of Joseph Smith, Jr. and of the first steps taken in
regard to his Bible have never been printed. At the time of the printing
of the Mormon Bible by Egbert B. Grandin of the Sentinel I was an
apprentice in the bookbindery connected with the Sentinel office. I
helped to collate and stitch the Gold Bible, and soon after this was
completed, I changed from book-binding to printing. I learned my trade
in the Sentinel office.

"My recollections of the early history of the Mormon Bible are vivid
to-day. I knew personally Oliver Cowdery, who translated the Bible,
Martin Harris, who mortgaged his farm to procure the printing, and
Joseph Smith Jr., but slightly. What I knew of him was from hearsay,
principally from Martin Harris, who believed fully in him. Mr. Tucker's
'Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism' is the fullest account I have
ever seen. I doubt if I can add anything to that history.

"The whole history is shrouded in the deepest mystery. Joseph Smith Jr.,
who read through the wonderful spectacles, pretended to give the scribe
the exact reading of the plates, even to spelling, in which Smith was
woefully deficient. Martin Harris was permitted to be in the room with
the scribe, and would try the knowledge of Smith, as he told me, saying
that Smith could not spell the word February, when his eyes were off the
spectacles through which he pretended to work. This ignorance of Smith
was proof positive to him that Smith was dependent on the spectacles for
the contents of the Bible. Smith and the plates containing the original
of the Mormon Bible were hid from view of the scribe and Martin Harris
by a screen.

"I should think that Martin Harris, after becoming a convert, gave up
his entire time to advertising the Bible to his neighbors and the public
generally in the vicinity of Palmyra. He would call public meetings and
address them himself. He was enthusiastic, and went so far as to say
that God, through the Latter Day Saints, was to rule the world. I heard
him make this statement, that there would never be another President of
the United States elected; that soon all temporal and spiritual power
would be given over to the prophet Joseph Smith and the Latter Day
Saints. His extravagant statements were the laughing stock of the people
of Palmyra. His stories were hissed at, universally. To give you an idea
of Mr. Harris's superstitions, he told me that he saw the devil, in all
his hideousness, on the road, just before dark, near his farm, a little
north of Palmyra. You can see that Harris was a fit subject to carry out
the scheme of organizing a new religion.

"The absolute secrecy of the whole inception and publication of the
Mormon Bible stopped positive knowledge. We only knew what Joseph Smith
would permit Martin Harris to publish, in reference to the whole thing.

"The issuing of the Book of Mormon scarcely made a ripple of excitement
in Palmyra.

"ALBERT CHANDLER."*


   * Mr. Chandler moved to Michigan in 1835, and has been connected
with several newspapers in that state, editing the Kalamazoo Gazette,
and founding and publishing the Coldwater Sentinel. He was elected
the first mayor of Coldwater, serving several terms. He was in his
eighty-fifth year when the above letter was written.


The book was published early in 1830. On paper the sale of the first
edition showed a profit of $3250 at $1.25 a volume, that being the
lowest price to be asked on pain of death, according to a "special
revelation" received by Smith. By the original agreement Harris was to
have the exclusive control of the sale of the book. But it did not sell.
The local community took it no more seriously than they did Joe himself
and his family. The printer demanded his pay as the work progressed,
and it became necessary for Smith to spur Harris on by announcing a
revelation (Sec. 19, "Doctrine and Covenants"), saying, "I command thee
that thou shalt not covet thine own property, but impart it freely to
the printing of the Book of Mormon." Harris accordingly disposed of his
share of the farm and paid Grandin.

To make the book "go," Smith now received a revelation which permitted
his father, soon to be elevated to the title of Patriarch, to sell it on
commission, and Smith, Sr., made expeditions through the country, taking
in pay for any copies sold such farm produce or "store goods" as he
could use in his own family. How much he "cut" the revealed price of the
book in these trades is not known, but in one instance, when arrested in
Palmyra for a debt of $5.63, he, under pledge of secrecy, offered seven
of the Bibles in settlement, and the creditor, knowing that the old man
had no better assets, accepted the offer as a joke.*


   * "Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism," Tucker, p. 63.



CHAPTER VII. -- THE SPAULDING MANUSCRIPT

The history of the Mormon Bible has been brought uninterruptedly to this
point in order that the reader may be able to follow clearly each
step that had led up to its publication. It is now necessary to give
attention to two subjects intimately connected with the origin of this
book, viz., the use made of what is known as the "Spaulding manuscript,"
in supplying the historical part of the work, and Sidney Rigdon's share
in its production.

The most careful student of the career of Joseph Smith, Jr., and of his
family and his associates, up to the year 1827, will fail to find any
ground for the belief that he alone, or simply with their assistance,
was capable of composing the Book of Mormon, crude in every sense as
that work is. We must therefore accept, as do the Mormons, the statement
that the text was divinely revealed to Smith, or must look for some
directing hand behind the scene, which supplied the historical part and
applied the theological. The "Spaulding manuscript" is believed to have
furnished the basis of the historical part of the work.

Solomon Spaulding, born in Ashford, Connecticut, in 1761, was graduated
from Dartmouth College in 1785, studied divinity, and for some years
had charge of a church. His own family described him as a peculiar
man, given to historical researches, and evidently of rather unstable
disposition. He gave up preaching, conducted an academy at Cherry
Valley, New York, and later moved to Conneaut, Ohio, where in 1812 he
had an interest in an iron foundry. His attention was there attracted to
the ancient mounds in that vicinity, and he set some of his men to work
exploring one of them. "I vividly remember how excited he became,"
says his daughter, when he heard that they had exhumed some human
bones, portions of gigantic skeletons, and various relics. From these
discoveries he got the idea of writing a fanciful history of the ancient
races of this country.

The title he chose for his book was "The Manuscript Found." He
considered this work a great literary production, counted on being able
to pay his debts from the proceeds of its sale, and was accustomed to
read selections from the manuscript to his neighbors with evident pride.
The impression that such a production would be likely to make on the
author's neighbors in that frontier region and in those early days, when
books were scarce and authors almost unknown, can with difficulty be
realized now. Barrett Wendell, speaking of the days of Bryant's early
work, says:--

"Ours was a new country...deeply and sensitively aware that it lacked a
literature. Whoever produced writings which could be pronounced adorable
was accordingly regarded by his fellow citizens as a public benefactor,
a great public figure, a personage of whom the nation could be proud."*
This feeling lends weight to the testimony of Mr. Spaulding's neighbors,
who in later years gave outlines of his work.


   * "Literary History of America."


In order to find a publisher Mr. Spaulding moved with his family to
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. A printer named Patterson spoke well of the
manuscript to its author, but no one was found willing to publish
it. The Spauldings afterward moved to Amity, Pennsylvania, where Mr.
Spaulding died in 1816. His widow and only child went to live with Mrs.
Spaulding's brother, W. H. Sabine, at Onondaga Valley, New York, taking
their effects with them. These included an old trunk containing Mr.
Spaulding's papers. "There were sermons and other papers," says his
daughter, "and I saw a manuscript about an inch thick, closely written,
tied up with some stories my father had written for me, one of which he
called 'The Frogs of Windham.' On the outside of this manuscript were
written the words 'Manuscript Found.' I did not read it, but looked
through it, and had it in my hands many times, and saw the names I
had heard at Conneaut, when my father read it to his friends." Mrs.
Spaulding next went to her father's house in Connecticut, leaving her
personal property at her brother's. She married a Mr. Davison in 1820,
and the old trunk was sent to her at her new home in Hartwick, Otsego
County, New York. The daughter was married to a Mr. McKinstry in
1828, and her mother afterward made her home with her at Monson,
Massachusetts, most of the time until her death in 1844.

When the newly announced Mormon Bible began to be talked about in Ohio,
there were immediate declarations in Spaulding's old neighborhood of a
striking similarity between the Bible story and the story that Spaulding
used to read to his acquaintances there, and these became positive
assertions after the Mormons had held a meeting at Conneaut. The opinion
was confidently expressed there that, if the manuscript could be found
and published, it would put an end to the Mormon pretence.

About the year 1834 Mrs. Davison received a visit at Monson from D.
P. Hurlbut, a man who had gone over to the Mormons from the Methodist
church, and had apostatized and been expelled. He represented that he
had been sent by a committee to secure "The Manuscript Found" in order
that it might be compared with the Mormon Bible. As he brought a letter
from her brother, Mrs. Davison, with considerable reluctance, gave him
an introduction to George Clark, in whose house at Hartwick she had left
the old trunk, directing Mr. Clark to let Hurlbut have the manuscript,
receiving his verbal pledge to return it. He obtained a manuscript from
this trunk, but did not keep his pledge.*


   * Condensed from an affidavit by Mrs. McKinstry, dated April 3,
1880, in Scribner's Magazine for August, 1880.


The Boston Recorder published in May, 1839, a detailed statement by Mrs.
Davison concerning her knowledge of "The Manuscript Found." After giving
an account of the writing of the story, her statement continued as
follows:--

"Here [in Pittsburg] Mr. Spaulding found a friend and acquaintance in
the person of Mr. Patterson, who was very much pleased with it, and
borrowed it for perusal. He retained it for a long time, and informed
Mr. Spaulding that, if he would make out a title-page and preface, he
would publish it, as it might be a source of profit. This Mr. Spaulding
refused to do. Sidney Rigdon, who has figured so largely in the history
of the Mormons, was at that time connected with the printing office of
Mr. Patterson, as is well known in that region, and, as Rigdon himself
has frequently stated, became acquainted with Mr. Spaulding's manuscript
and copied it. It was a matter of notoriety and interest to all
connected with the printing establishment. At length the manuscript was
returned to its author, and soon after we removed to Amity where Mr.
Spaulding deceased in 1816. The manuscript then fell into my hands, and
was carefully preserved."

This statement stirred up the Mormons greatly, and they at once
pronounced the letter a forgery, securing from Mrs. Davison a statement
in which she said that she did not write it. This was met with a counter
statement by the Rev. D. R. Austin that it was made up from notes of
a conversation with her, and was correct. In confirmation of this
the Quincy [Massachusetts] Whig printed a letter from John Haven of
Holliston, Massachusetts, giving a report of a conversation between his
son Jesse and Mrs. Davison concerning this letter, in which she stated
that the letter was substantially correct, and that some of the names
used in the Mormon Bible were like those in her husband's story. Rigdon
himself, in a letter addressed to the Boston Journal, under date of May
27, 1839, denied all knowledge of Spaulding, and declared that there
was no printer named Patterson in Pittsburg during his residence there,
although he knew a Robert Patterson who had owned a printing-office in
that city. The larger part of his letter is a coarse attack on Hurlbut
and also on E. D. Howe, the author of "Mormonism Unveiled," whose
whole family he charged with scandalous immoralities. If the use of
Spaulding's story in the preparation of the Mormon Bible could be proved
by nothing but this letter of Mrs. Davison, the demonstration would be
weak; but this is only one link in the chain.

Howe, in his painstaking efforts to obtain all probable information
about the Mormon origin from original sources, secured the affidavits of
eight of Spaulding's acquaintances in Ohio, giving their recollections
of the "Manuscript Found."* Spaulding's brother, John, testified that
he heard many passages of the manuscript read and, describing it, he
said:--


   * Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 278-287.


 "It was an historical romance of the first settlers of America,
endeavoring to show that the American Indians are the descendants of
the Jews, or the lost tribe. It gave a detailed account of their journey
from Jerusalem, by land and sea, till they arrived in America, under the
command of Nephi and Lehi. They afterwards had quarrels and contentions,
and separated into two distinct nations, one of which he denominated
Nephites, and the other Lamanites. Cruel and bloody Wars ensued, in
which great multitudes were slain.... I have recently read the "Book
of Mormon," and to my great surprise I find nearly the same historical
matter, names, etc., as they were in my brother's writings. I well
remember that he wrote in the old style, and commenced about every
sentence with 'and it came to pass,' or 'now it came to pass,' the
same as in the 'Book of Mormon,' and, according to the best of my
recollection and belief, it is the same as my brother Solomon wrote,
with the exception of the religious matter."

John Spaulding's wife testified that she had no doubt that the
historical part of the Bible and the manuscript were the same, and she
well recalled such phrases as "it came to pass."

Mr. Spaulding's business partner at Conneaut, Henry Lake, testified that
Spaulding read the manuscript to him many hours, that the story running
through it and the Bible was the same, and he recalls this circumstance:
"One time, when he was reading to me the tragic account of Laban, I
pointed out to him what I considered an inconsistency, which he promised
to correct, but by referring to the 'Book of Mormon,' I find that it
stands there just as he read it to me then.... I well recollect telling
Mr. Spaulding that the so frequent use of the words 'and it came to
pass,' 'now it came to pass,' rendered it ridiculous."

John N. Miller, an employee of Spaulding in Ohio, and a boarder in his
family for several months, testified that Spaulding had written more
than one book or pamphlet, that he had heard the author read from the
"Manuscript Found," that he recalled the story running through it, and
added: "I have recently examined the 'Book of Mormon,' and find in it
the writings of Solomon Spaulding, from beginning to end, but mixed up
with Scripture and other religious matter which I did not meet with in
the 'Manuscript Found'.... The names of Nephi, Lehi, Moroni, and in fact
all the principal names, are brought fresh to my recollection by the
'Gold Bible.'"

Practically identical testimony was given by the four other neighbors.
Important additions to this testimony have been made in later years. A
statement by Joseph Miller of Amity, Pennsylvania, a man of standing in
that community, was published in the Pittsburg Telegraph of February 6,
1879. Mr. Miller said that he was well acquainted with Spaulding when he
lived at Amity, and heard him read most of the "Manuscript Found," and
had read the Mormon Bible in late years to compare the two. On hearing
read, "he says," the account from the book of the battle between the
Amlicites (Book of Alma), in which the soldiers of one army had placed
a red mark on their foreheads to distinguish them from their enemies,
it seemed to reproduce in my mind, not only the narration, but the
very words as they had been impressed on my mind by the reading of
Spaulding's manuscript.... The longer I live, the more firmly I am
convinced that Spaulding's manuscript was appropriated and largely used
in getting up the "Book of Mormon."

Redick McKee, a resident of Amity, Pennsylvania, when Spaulding lived
there, and later a resident of Washington, D. C., in a letter to the
Washington [Pennsylvania] Reporter, of April 21, 1869, stated that
he heard Spaulding read from his manuscript, and added: "I have an
indistinct recollection of the passage referred to by Mr. Miller about
the Amlicites making a cross with red paint on their foreheads to
distinguish them from enemies in battle."

The Rev. Abner Judson, of Canton, Ohio, wrote for the Washington County,
Pennsylvania, Historical Society, under date of December 20, 1880, an
account of his recollections of the Spaulding manuscript, and it was
printed in the Washington [Pennsylvania] Reporter of January 7, 1881.
Spaulding read a large part of his manuscript to Mr. Judson's father
before the author moved to Pittsburg, and the son, confined to the house
with a lameness, heard the reading and the accompanying conversations.
He says: "He wrote it in the Bible style. 'And it came to pass,'
occurred so often that some called him 'Old Come-to-pass.' The 'Book of
Mormons' follows the romance too closely to be a stranger.... When it
was brought to Conneaut and read there in public, old Esquire Wright
heard it and exclaimed, 'Old Come-to-pass' has come to life again."*


   * Fuller extracts from the testimony of these later witnesses
will be found in Robert Patterson's pamphlet, "Who wrote the Book of
Mormon," reprinted from the "History of Washington County, Pa."


The testimony of so many witnesses, so specific in its details, seems
to prove the identity of Spaulding's story and the story running through
the Mormon Bible. The late President James H. Fairchild of Oberlin,
Ohio, whose pamphlet on the subject we shall next examine, admits
that "if we could accept without misgiving the testimony of the eight
witnesses brought forward in Howe's book, we should be obliged to accept
the fact of another manuscript" (than the one which President Fairchild
secured); but he thinks there is some doubt about the effect on the
memory of these witnesses of the lapse of years and the reading of
the new Bible before they recalled the original story. It must be
remembered, however, that this resemblance was recalled as soon as they
heard the story of the new Bible, and there seems no ground on which to
trace a theory that it was the Bible which originated in their minds the
story ascribed to the manuscript.

The defenders of the Mormon Bible as an original work received great
comfort some fifteen years ago by the announcement that the original
manuscript of Spaulding's "Manuscript Found" had been discovered in the
Sandwich Islands and brought to this country, and that its narrative
bore no resemblance to the Bible story. The history of this second
manuscript is as follows: E. D. Howe sold his printing establishment at
Painesville, Ohio, to L. L. Rice, who was an antislavery editor there
for many years. Mr. Rice afterward moved to the Sandwich Islands, and
there he was requested by President Fairchild to look over his old
papers to see if he could not find some antislavery matter that would be
of value to the Oberlin College library. One result of his search was
an old manuscript bearing the following certificate: 'The writings of
Solomon Spaulding,' proved by Aaron Wright, Oliver Smith, John N.
Miller and others. The testimonies of the above gentlemen are now in my
possession.

"D. P. HURLBUT."

President Fairchild in a paper on this subject which has been published*
gives a description of this manuscript (it has been printed by the
Reorganized Church at Lamoni, Iowa), which shows that it bears no
resemblance to the Bible story. But the assumption that this proves that
the Bible story is original fails immediately in view of the fact
that Mr. Howe made no concealment of his possession of this second
manuscript. Hurlbut was in Howe's service when he asked Mrs. Davison for
an order for the manuscript, and he gave to Howe, as the result of his
visit, the manuscript which Rice gave to President Fairchild. Howe
in his book (p. 288) describes this manuscript substantially as does
President Fairchild, saying:--


   * "Manuscript of Solomon Spaulding and the 'Book of Mormon,'"
Tract No. 77, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio.


"This is a romance, purporting to have been translated from the Latin,
found on twenty-four rolls of parchment in a cave on the banks of
Conneaut Creek, but written in a modern style, and giving a fabulous
account of a ship's being driven upon the American coast, while
proceeding from Rome to Britain, a short time pious to the Christian
era, this country then being inhabited by the Indians."*


   * Howe says in his book, "The fact that Spaulding in the latter
part of his life inclined to infidelity is established by a letter in
his handwriting now in our possession." This letter was given by Rice
with the other manuscript to President Fairchild (who reproduces it),
thus adding to the proof that the Rice manuscript is the one Hurlbut
delivered to Howe.

Mr. Howe adds this important statement:--

"This old manuscript has been shown to several of the foregoing
witnesses, who recognize it as Spaulding's, he having told them that he
had altered his first plan of writing, by going further back with dates,
and writing in the old scripture style, in order that it might appear
more ancient. They say that it bears no resemblance to the 'Manuscript
Found.'"

If Howe had considered this manuscript of the least importance
as invalidating the testimony showing the resemblance between the
"Manuscript Found" and the Mormon Bible, he would have destroyed it (if
he was the malignant falsifier the Mormons represented him to be), and
not have first described it in his book; and then left it to be found
by any future owner of his effects. Its rediscovery has been accepted,
however, even by some non-Mormons, as proof that the Mormon Bible is an
original production.*


   * Preface to "The Mormon Prophet," Lily Dugall.


Mrs. Ellen E. Dickenson, a great-niece of Spaulding, who has
painstakingly investigated the history of the much-discussed manuscript,
visited D. P. Hurlbut at his home near Gibsonburg, Ohio, in 1880 (he
died in 1882), taking with her Oscar Kellogg, a lawyer, as a witness to
the interview.* She says that her visit excited him greatly. He told of
getting a manuscript for Mr. Howe at Hartwick, and said he thought
it was burned with other of Mr. Howe's papers. When asked, "Was it
Spaulding's manuscript that was burned?" he replied: "Mrs. Davison
thought it was; but when I just peeked into it, here and there, and
saw the names Mormon, Moroni, Lamanite, Lephi, I thought it was all
nonsense. Why, if it had been the real one, I could have sold it for
$3000;** but I just gave it to Howe because it was of no account."
During the interview his wife was present, and when Mrs. Dickenson
pressed him with the question, "Do you know where the 'Manuscript Found'
is at the present time?" Mrs. Hurlbut went up to him and said, "Tell
her what you know." She got no satisfactory answer, but he afterward
forwarded to her an affidavit saying that he had obtained of Mrs.
Davison a manuscript supposing it to be Spaulding's "Manuscript Found,"
adding: "I did not examine the manuscript until after I got home, when
upon examination I found it to contain nothing of the kind, but being
a manuscript upon an entirely different subject. This manuscript I left
with E. D. Howe."

With this presentation of the evidence showing the similarity between
Spaulding's story and the Mormon Bible narrative, we may next examine
the grounds for believing that Sidney Rigdon was connected with the
production of the Bible.


   * A full account of this interview is given in her book, "New
Light on Mormonism" (1885).


   ** There have been surmises that Hurlbut also found the
"Manuscript Found" in the trunk and sold this to the Mormons. He sent a
specific denial of this charge to Robert Patterson in 1879.



CHAPTER VIII. -- SIDNEY RIGDON

The man who had more to do with founding the Mormon church than Joseph
Smith, Jr., even if we exclude any share in the production of the Mormon
Bible, and yet who is unknown even by name to most persons to whom the
names of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young are familiar, was Sidney Rigdon.
Elder John Hyde, Jr., was well within the truth when he wrote: "The
compiling genius of Mormonism was Sidney Rigdon. Smith had boisterous
impetuosity but no foresight. Polygamy was not the result of his
policy but of his passions. Sidney gave point, direction, and apparent
consistency to the Mormon system of theology. He invented its forms and
the manner of its arguments.... Had it not been for the accession of
these two men [Rigdon and Parley P. Pratt] Smith would have been lost,
and his schemes frustrated and abandoned."*


   * "Mormonism: Its Leaders and Designs" (1857). Hyde, an
Englishman, joined the Mormons in that country when a lad and began to
preach almost at once. He sailed for this country in 1853 and joined the
brethren in Salt Lake City. Brigham Young's rule upset his faith, and he
abandoned the belief in 1854. Even H. H. Bancroft concedes him to have
been "an able and honest man, sober and sincere."

Rigdon (according to the sketch of him presented in Smith's
autobiography,* which he doubtless wrote) was born in St. Clair
township, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, on February 19, 1793. His
father was a farmer, and he lived on the farm, receiving only a limited
education, until he was twenty-six years old. He then connected himself
with the Baptist church, and received a license to preach. Selecting
Ohio as his field, he continued his work in rural districts in that
state until 1821, when he accepted a call to a small Baptist church in
Pittsburg.


   * Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supt.


Twenty years before the publication of the Mormon Bible, Thomas and
Alexander Campbell, Scotchmen, had founded a congregation in Washington
County, Pennsylvania, out of which grew the religious denomination
known as Disciples of Christ, or Campbellites, whose communicants in
the United States numbered 871,017 in the year 1890. The fundamental
principle of their teaching was that every doctrine of belief, or
maxim of duty, must rest upon the authority of Scripture, expressed or
implied, all human creeds being rejected. The Campbells (who had been
first Presbyterians and then Baptists) were wonderful orators and
convincing debaters out of the pulpit, and they drew to themselves many
of the most eloquent exhorters in what was then the western border of
the United States. Among their allies was another Scotchman, Walter
Scott, a musician and schoolteacher by profession, who assisted them
in their newspaper work and became a noted evangelist in their
denomination. During a visit to Pittsburg in 1823, Scott made Rigdon's
acquaintance, and a little later the flocks to which each preached
were united. In August, 1824, Rigdon announced his withdrawal from his
church. Regarding his withdrawal the sketch in Smith's autobiography
says:--

"After he had been in that place [Pittsburg] some time, his mind was
troubled and much perplexed with the idea that the doctrines maintained
by that society were not altogether in accordance with the Scriptures.
This thing continued to agitate his mind more and more, and his
reflections on these occasions were particularly trying; for, according
to his view of the word of God, no other church with whom he could
associate, or that he was acquainted with, was right; consequently,
if he was to disavow the doctrine of the church with whom he was then
associated, he knew of no other way of obtaining a living, except by
manual labor, and at that time he had a wife and three children to
support."

For two years after he gave up his church connection he worked as a
journeyman tanner. This is all the information obtainable about this
part of his life. We next find him preaching at Bainbridge, Ohio, as
an undenominational exhorter, but following the general views of the
Campbells, advising his hearers to reject their creeds and rest their
belief solely on the Bible.

In June, 1826, Rigdon received a call to a Baptist church at Mentor,
Ohio, whose congregation he had pleased when he preached the funeral
sermon of his predecessor. His labors were not confined, however, to
this congregation. We find him acting as the "stated" minister of a
Disciples' church organized at Mantua, Ohio, in 1827, preaching with
Thomas Campbell at Shalersville, Ohio, in 1828, and thus extending the
influence he had acquired as early as 1820, when Alexander Campbell
called him "the great orator of the Mahoning Association". In 1828 he
visited his old associate Scott, was further confirmed in his faith in
the Disciples' belief, and, taking his brother-in-law Bentley back with
him, they began revival work at Mentor, which led to the conversion of
more than fifty of their hearers. They held services at Kirtland, Ohio,
with equal success, and the story of this awakening was the main subject
of discussion in all the neighborhood round about. The sketch of Rigdon
in Smith's autobiography closes with this tribute to his power as a
preacher: "The churches where he preached were no longer large enough
to contain the vast assemblies. No longer did he follow the old beaten
track,... but dared to enter on new grounds,... threw new light on the
sacred volume,... proved to a demonstration the literal fulfilment of
prophecy...and the reign of Christ with his Saints on the earth in the
Millennium."

In tracing Rigdon's connection with Smith's enterprise, attention must
be carefully paid both to Rigdon's personal characteristics, and to the
resemblance between the doctrines he had taught in the pulpit and those
that appear in the Mormon Bible.

Rigdon's mental and religious temperament was just of the character
to be attracted by a novelty in religious belief. He, with his
brother-in-law, Adamson Bentley, visited Alexander Campbell in 1821, and
spent a whole night in religious discussion. When they parted the next
day, Rigdon declared that "if he had within the last year promulgated
one error, he had a thousand," and Mr. Campbell, in his account of the
interview, remarked, "I found it expedient to caution them not to begin
to pull down anything they had builded until they had reviewed, again
and again, what they had heard; not even then rashly and without much
consideration."*


   * Millennial Harbinger, 1848, p. 523.


A leading member of the church at Mantua has written, "Sidney Rigdon
preached for us, and, notwithstanding his extravagantly wild freaks, he
was held in high repute by many."*


   * "Early History of the Disciples' Church in the Western
Reserve," by A: S. Hayden (1876), p. 239.


An important church discussion occurred at Warren, Ohio, in 1828.
Following out the idea of the literal interpretation of the Scriptures
taught in the Disciples' church, Rigdon sprung on the meeting an
argument in favor of a community of goods, holding that the apostles
established this system at Jerusalem, and that the modern church, which
rested on their example, must follow them. Alexander Campbell, who was
present, at once controverted this position, showing that the apostles,
as narrated in Acts, "sold their possessions" instead of combining them
for a profit, and citing Bible texts to prove that no "community system"
existed in the early church. This argument carried the meeting,
and Rigdon left the assemblage, embittered against Campbell beyond
forgiveness. To a brother in Warren, on his way home, he declared, "I
have done as much in this reformation as Campbell or Scott, and yet they
get all the honor of it." This claim is set forth specifically in the
sketch of Rigdon in Smith's autobiography. Referring to Rigdon and
Alexander Campbell, this statement is there made:--

"After they had separated from the different churches, these gentlemen
were on terms of the greatest friendship, and frequently met together to
discuss the subject of religion, being yet undetermined respecting the
principles of the doctrine of Christ or what course to pursue. However,
from this connection sprung up a new church in the world, known by the
name of 'Campbellites'; they call themselves 'Disciples.' The reason
why they were called Campbellites was in consequence of Mr. Campbell's
periodical, above mentioned [the Christian Baptist], and it being the
means through which they communicated their sentiments to the world;
other than this, Mr. Campbell was no more the originator of the sect
than Elder Rigdon."

Rigdon's bitterness against the Campbells and his old church more
than once manifested itself in his later writings. For instance, in
an article in the Messenger and Advocate (Kirtland), of June, 1837,
he said: "One thing has been done by the coming forth of the Book of
Mormon. It has puked the Campbellites effectually; no emetic could have
done so half as well.... The Book of Mormon has revealed the secrets of
Campbellism and unfolded the end of the system." In this jealousy of the
Campbells, and the discomfiture as a leader which he received at their
hands, we find a sufficient object for Rigdon's desertion of his old
church associations and desire to build up something, the discovery of
which he could claim, and the government of which he could control.

To understand the strength of the argument that the doctrinal teachings
of the Mormon Bible were the work of a Disciples' preacher rather
than of the ne'er-do-well Smith, it is only necessary to examine
the teachings of the Disciples' church in Ohio at that time. The
investigator will be startled by the resemblance between what was then
taught to and believed by Disciples' congregations and the leading
beliefs of the Mormon Bible. In the following examples of this the
illustrations of Disciples' beliefs and teachings are taken from
Hayden's "Early History of the Disciples' Church in the Western
Reserve."

The literal interpretation of the Scriptures, on which the Mormon
defenders of their faith so largely depend,--as for explanations of
modern revelations, miracles, and signs,--was preached to so extreme a
point by Ohio Disciples that Alexander Campbell had to combat them in
his Millennial Harbinger. An outcome of this literal interpretation was
a belief in a speedy millennium, another fundamental belief of the early
Mormon church. "The hope of the millennial glory," says Hayden, "was
based on many passages of the Holy Scriptures.... Millennial hymns were
learned and sung with a joyful fervor.... It is surprising even now,
as memory returns to gather up these interesting remains of that mighty
work, to recall the thorough and extensive knowledge which the convert
quickly obtained. Nebuchadnezzar's vision... many portions of the
Revelation were so thoroughly studied that they became the staple of
the common talk." Rigdon's old Pittsburg friend, Scott, in his report
as evangelist to the church association at Warren in 1828, said:
"Individuals eminently skilled in the word of God, the history of the
world, and the progress of human improvements see reasons to expect
great changes, much greater than have yet occurred, and which shall give
to political society and to the church a different, a very different,
complexion from what many anticipate. The millennium--the millennium
described in the Scriptures--will doubtless be a wonder, a terrible
wonder, to all."

Disciples' preachers understood that they spoke directly for God, just
as Smith assumed to do in his "revelations." Referring to the preaching
of Rigdon and Bentley, after a visit to Scott in March, 1828, Hayden
says, "They spoke with authority, for the word which they delivered was
not theirs, but that of Jesus Christ." The Disciples, like the Mormons,
at that time looked for the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. Scott* was
an enthusiastic preacher of this. "The fourteenth chapter of Zechariah,"
says Hayden, "was brought forward in proof--all considered as
literal--that the most marvellous and stupendous physical and climatic
changes were to be wrought in Palestine; and that Jesus Christ the
Messiah was to reign literally in Jerusalem, and in Mount Zion, and
before his ancients, gloriously."


   * "In a letter to Dr. Richardson, written in 1830, he [Scott]
says the book of Elias Smith on the prophecies is the only sensible
work on that subject he had seen. He thinks this and Crowley on the
Apocalypse all the student of the Bible wants. He strongly commends
Smith's book to the doctor. This seems to be the origin of millennial
views among us. Rigdon, who always caught and proclaimed the last word
that fell from the lips of Scott or Campbell, seized these views (about
the millennium and the Jews) and, with the wildness of his extravagant
nature, heralded them everywhere."--"Early History of the Disciples'
Church in the Western Reserve," p. 186.


Campbell taught that "creeds are but statements, with few exceptions,
of doctrinal opinion or speculators' views of philosophical or dogmatic
subjects, and tended to confusion, disunion, and weakness." Orson Pratt,
in his "Divine Authenticity of the Book of Mormon," thus stated the
early Mormon view on the same subject: "If any man or council, without
the aid of immediate revelation, shall undertake to decide upon such
subjects, and prescribe 'articles of faith' or 'creeds' to govern the
belief or views of others, there will be thousands of well-meaning
people who will not have confidence in the productions of these
fallible men, and, therefore, frame creeds of their own.... In this way
contentions arise."

Finally, attention may be directed to the emphatic declarations of the
Disciples' doctrine of baptism in the Mormon Bible:--

"Ye shall go down and stand in the water, and in my name shall ye
baptize them.... And then shall ye immerse them in the water, and come
forth again out of the water."--3 Nephi Xi. 23, 26.

"I know that it is solemn mockery before God that ye should baptize
little children.... He that supposeth that little children need baptism
is in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity; for he hath
neither faith, hope, nor charity; wherefore, should he be cut off while
in the thought, he must go down to hell. For awful is the wickedness to
suppose that God saveth one child because of baptism, and the other must
perish because he hath no baptism."--Moroni viii. 9, xc, 15.

There are but three conclusions possible from all this: that the Mormon
Bible was a work of inspiration, and that the agreement of its doctrines
with Disciples' belief only proves the correctness of the latter; that
Smith, in writing his doctrinal views, hit on the Disciples' tenets by
chance (he had had no opportunity whatever to study them); or, finally,
that some Disciple, learned in the church, supplied these doctrines to
him.

Advancing another step in the examination of Rigdon's connection with
the scheme, we find that even the idea of a new Bible was common belief
among the Ohio Disciples who listened to Scott's teaching. Describing
Scott's preaching in the winter of 1827-1828, Hayden says:--

"He contended ably for the restoration of the true, original apostolic
order which would restore to the church the ancient gospel as preached
by the apostles. The interest became an excitement;... the air was thick
with rumors of a 'new religion,' a 'new Bible.'"

Next we may cite two witnesses to show that Rigdon had a knowledge
of Smith's Bible in advance of its publication. His brother-in-law,
Bentley, in a letter to Walter Scott dated January 22, 1841, said,
"I know that Sidney Rigdon told me there was a book coming out, the
manuscript of which had been found engraved on gold plates, as much as
two years before the Mormon book made its appearance or had been heard
of by me."*


   * Millennial Harbinger, 1844, p. 39. The Rev. Alexander Campbell
testified that this conversation took place in his presence.


One of the elders of the Disciples' church was Darwin Atwater, a
farmer, who afterward occupied the pulpit, and of whom Hayden says,
"The uniformity of his life, his undeviating devotion, his high and
consistent manliness and superiority of judgment, gave him an undisputed
preeminence in the church." In a letter to Hayden, dated April 26,
1873, Mr. Atwater said of Rigdon: "For a few months before his professed
conversion to Mormonism it was noticed that his wild extravagant
propensities had been more marked. That he knew before the coming of the
Book of Mormon is to me certain from what he said during the first
of his visits at my father's, some years before. He gave a wonderful
description of the mounds and other antiquities found in some parts of
America, and said that they must have been made by the aborigines. He
said there was a book to be published containing an account of those
things. He spoke of these in his eloquent, enthusiastic style, as being
a thing most extraordinary. Though a youth then, I took him to task for
expending so much enthusiasm on such a subject instead of things of
the Gospel. In all my intercourse with him afterward he never spoke of
antiquities, or of the wonderful book that should give account of them,
till the Book of Mormon really was published. He must have thought I was
not the man to reveal that to."*


   * "Early History of the Disciples' Church in the Western
Reserve," p. 239.


Dr. Storm Rosa, a leading physician of Ohio, in, a letter to the Rev.
John Hall of Ashtabula, written in 1841, said: "In the early part of
the year 1830 I was in company with Sidney Rigdon, and rode with him on
horseback for a few miles.... He remarked to me that it was time for
a new religion to spring up; that mankind were all right and ready for
it."*


   * "Gleanings by the Way," p. 315.


Having thus established the identity of the story running through the
Spaulding manuscript and the historical part of the Mormon Bible, the
agreement of the doctrinal part of the latter with what was taught at
the time by Rigdon and his fellow-workers in Ohio, and Rigdon's previous
knowledge of the coming book, we are brought to the query: How did the
Spaulding manuscript become incorporated in the Mormon Bible?

It could have been so incorporated in two ways: either by coming into
the possession of Rigdon and being by him copied and placed in Smith's
hands for "translation," with the theological parts added;* or by coming
into possession of Smith in his wanderings around the neighborhood of
Hartwick, and being shown by him to Rigdon. Every aspect of this matter
has been discussed by Mormon and non-Mormon writers, and it can only be
said that definite proof is lacking. Mormon disputants set forth that
Spaulding moved from Pittsburg to Amity in 1814, and that Rigdon's first
visit to Pittsburg occurred in 1822. On the other hand, evidence is
offered that Rigdon was a "hanger around" Patterson's printing-office,
where Spaulding offered his manuscript, before the year 1816, and the
Rev. John Winter, M.D., who taught school in Pittsburg when Rigdon
preached there, and knew him well, recalled that Rigdon showed him a
large manuscri

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