Mormon History
Memories of Joe Smith - 1858
Wayne Democratic Press – May 26, 1858
Mormonism and Joe Smith.
The Book of Mormon or Golden Bible.
The story of the printing of
the first edition of the "Book of Mormon" is truthfully as follows: -- Joe
Smith, the pretended prophet, and finder of the original "metallic records."
Oliver Cowdery, amanuensis of Smith, and Martin Harris, the "chosen" dupe for
the payment of expenses, constituting, as they claimed, the "inspired" nucleus
of the dawning "Church of the Latter Day Saints," applied about the month of
June, 1829, to Mr. Egbert B. Grandin, the then publisher of the Wayne
Sentinel newspaper, and a job printer at Palmyra, for the printing of the
book referred to, commonly called the "Golden Bible." Harris, who was a
forehanded farmer at that town, an honest and respectable citizen, but noted for
his superstitious and fanatical peculiarities in religious matters, was the only
man of the party whose pecuniary responsibility was worth a dollar, and he
offered to give security by a mortgage upon his unencumbered farm for the cost
of printing and binding of the book. Grandin at once advised them against the
supposed folly of the enterprise, and with the aid of other neighbors and
friends of Harris sought to influence the latter to desist and withdraw his
countenance from the imposture. All importunity of this kind, however, was
resisted with determination by Harris, (who no doubt firm;y believed in the
genuineness of Smith's pretensions,) and resented with assumed pious indignation
by Smith. Cowdery took but little part in the conversations. After repeated
interviews and much parleying on the subject, Grandin was understood to refuse
to give it further consideration. Harris, it was thought, became for a time
somewhat staggered in his confidence, but Joe could do nothing in the matter of
printing without his aid, and so he persevered in his seductive arts, as will be
seen with ultimate success.
About this time, in the fore part of the year 1829, (as recollected,) the same
party, or a portion of them applied to Mr. Weed, of the Anti-Masonic Inquirer at
Rochester, (who by the way, seems in his reminiscences to have confused
Mormonism with Anti-Masonry.) and there met a similar repulse, as stated by the
Journal. Mr. Marshall, of Spelling Book notoriety, who was also engaged in the
printing and publishing business at Rochester, gave his terms to Smith and his
associates for the execution of their work, and his proffered acceptance of the
proposed mode of security.
The "Saints" then returned and renewed their request to Mr. Grandin, assuring
him that the printing was to be done at any rate, and explaining that they would
be saved much inconvenience and cost of travel, (as the manuscripts were to be
delivered and the proof sheets examined daily at the printing office,) by having
their work done at Palmyra, where they resided. It was upon this state of facts
and view of the case, that Mr. Grandin, after some further hesitation,
reconsidered his policy of refusal, and finally entered into a contract for the
desired printing and binding of 5,000 copies of the book, for the price of
$3,000, to be secured by mortgage as proposed; which contract was faithfully
performed on his part, completing the work in the summer of 1830, and as
faithfully fulfilled in the payment by Harris. Major Gilbert, as stated by the
Troy Times, took the foremanship of the printing, and did most of the press and
composition work of the job. He still retains an original copy of the book in
sheets as he laid them off in a file from the press in working, The manuscripts,
in Cowdery's handwriting, were carried to the printing office in daily
installments, generally by Joe or his trusty brother Hiram, and were regularly
withdrawn for security and preservation at evening. The pretension was that they
were written out by the amanuensis Cowdery from translations verbally given by
the Prophet Joe, who alone was enabled to read the hieroglyphics of the sacred
plates by means of a wonderful stone and magic spectacles that were found in the
earth with the "records." In the performance of this task the "chosen"
decypherer was always concealed in a dark room, and by special revelation
neither Cowdery or other persons than the said "chosen" was permitted to see the
plates on penalty of instant death. Such was the pretension. The hand press
which did the printing (Smith's patent) has been in continual use (in the
Sentinel office) since that important era in the rise of Mormonism, and in the
course of changes of ownership and partizan apostacy, it has finally in its
degeneracy (quite appropriately) now come to be used for the printing of a
Know Nothing newspaper!
A word in regard to the origin of Mormonism, whose advent has furnished so
marked an illustration of the susceptibilities of human credulity even at the
present age of boasted enlightenment, may not be without interest in this
connection, now after the lapse of some thirty years. As early as 1820, Joe
Smith, at the age of about 19 years, began to assume the gift of supernatural
endowments, and became the leader of a small party of shiftless men and boys
like himself who engaged in nocturnal money-digging operations upon the hills in
and about Palmyra. These labors were always performed in the night, and during
their continuance, many marvellous accounts and rumors in regard to them were
put afloat in the neighborhood. Joe professed from time to time to have "almost"
secured the hidden treasure, which, however, just at the instant of attempting
to grasp it, would vanish by the breaking of the spell of his magic power. --
Numbers of men and women, as was understood, were found credulous enough to
believe "there might be something in it," who were induced by their confidence
and cupidity to contribute privately towards the cost, of carrying on the
imposture, under the promise of sharing in the expected gains; and in this way
the loaferly but cunning Smith, who was too lazy to work for his living, (his
deluded followers did all the digging,) was enabled to obtain a scanty
subsistence for himself without pursuing any useful employment.
The silly imposture was persevered in by Smith and the digging performances
occasionally continued by his gang without success, for some eight or ten years,
when in 1828 or '29 the climax was reached in the discovery of the wonderful
golden record of hieroglyphics, of great antiquity, "written by the hand of
Mormon upon plates taken from the plates of Nephi," the translation and
publication of which are the foundation of Brigham Young's polygamous empire at
Salt Lake, were, according to the published testimony of Joe Smith, "found in
the township of Manchester, Ontario county, New York."
The intervening annals of the rise and progress of this Mormon imposture, and of
the career and martyrdom of Joe Smith, need no particular notice in this sketch,
for these are to be found in various forms of recorded history already extant.
The discovery of the pretended ancient plates, "resembling plates of gold," has
a significant connection with a scheme of cupidity plotted by one Sydney Rigdon,
a deposed clergyman of Pennsylvania. He had surreptitiously possessed himself of
a curious manuscript from the pen of a Rev. Mr. Spaulding, late of Ohio -- a
romance, written primarily as a pastime exercise during a lingering decline of
health, in 1812 and 1813 -- and Smith's marvellous revelation was an opportune
event in the furtherance of Rigdon's speculation. Whether the resulting
connection of these two conspiring schemes was incidental or contrived, or
whether Smith's part in the conspiracy was the invention of his own cunning or
the emanation of his co-worjer's perverted mind, are questions that have never
been satisfactorily settled in public opinion. Spaulding's production,
purporting to have been written by one of the lost nations of Israel, recovered
from the earth by some miraculous interposition of Providence, was to have been
entitled, if published, "Manuscript Found." An effort was made by the writer,
shortly before his death, to procure its publication as a source of profit, but
no printer could be found of sufficient faith in its paying expenses to
undertake the printing. He died in 1816, and Rigdon, with this manuscript
dishonestly procured, as before intimated, happening or designedly appearing in
Palmyra about the time of Smith's pretended unearthing of the mysterious plates,
the two speculations were joined together, and the two well matched schemers
conspired to start the fraud from which originated the myth of the Golden Bible
or Book of Mormon, with the attendant fame of Joe Smith, and the world renowned
belligerent power of Mormonism in Utah.
The pretended translations of Smith were no doubt transcripts from the Spaulding
romance as altered for the occasion by Rigdon. The latter was the first preacher
of the newly revealed "Gospel according to Mormon," and made his appearance at
Palmyra in that capacity immediately after the publication of the book, but his
mission was there a dead failure. Whether he is now alive or dead, or what
finally became of him, is not publicly apparent. His Mormon fame appears to have
been of short duration. Of course there were never any converts to the Mormon
gospel at the locality of its advent, beyond the cases of Harris and three or
four similar victims of fanaticism or lunacy. Where its founders were known, the
imposture was regarded as too stupid for serious notice by any body possessing a
rightful claim to common intelligence or sanity.
Note 1: The above article was written by Pomeroy Tucker, who had been the editor
of the Wayne Sentinel at the time the Smith family were living in
Palmyra. Although he retained an interest in the business, Tucker was succeeded
in that editorship by his partner since 1823, Egbert B. Grandin. A few years
later Tucker was elected the Representative from Wayne County to the New York
State Assembly, (Jan. 3 - May 16, 1837); he also served as the postmaster at
Palmyra between 1839 and 1841. The entry for him in Herringshaw's
Encyclopedia of American Biography reads: TUCKER, POMEROY, journalist,
author, was born Aug. 10, 1802, in Palmyra, N.Y. He was a Canandaigua journalist
who published a work on The Origin of Mormonism. He died June 30, 1870,
in Palmyra, N.Y."
Note 2: The end of Tucker's article is of interest, in that he there barely at
all develops the theme of Rigdon having visited Smith in New York on various
occasions prior to 1830, as a "mysterious stranger." The mysterious stranger
motif is more pronounced in Tucker's
1867 book. However, Tucker adds to his early thoughts on this theme somewhat
in his
follow-up article in the Press, even going so far as to insinuate
that the older Smith girl had an illegitmate child as a consequence of Rigdon's
secret visits.
Note 3: As he is generally prone to do, editor Dan Vogel eliminated the "brief
discussion of the Spaulding theory" at the end of the writer's article, when he
reprinted the May 26, 1858 text in his Early Mormon Documents III; (see
Vogel's note #12, p. 67).
Wayne Democratic Press – June 2, 1858
The Mormon Imposture
It is believed there has
never been published a particular and connected biography or description of the
chief founders of the "Church of Latter-Day Saints." or as they may be fitly
denomited, the Aborigines of Mormonism. ...
It is presumed, therefore, that as a supplement to the reminiscential sketch
given in last week's "Press," the following additional recollections on the
subject may possess a compensating interest in meeting public curiosity.
JOSEPH SMITH senior, with a family consisting of a wife and eight children,
including Joe the Prophet (as foreordained to be,) settled upon a lot of
mostly uncultivated land located on the northern border of the town of
Manchester, about two miles south of Palmyra village, (on what is called
Stafford Street,) in the year 1817 or '18. They removed there from the suburbs
of said village, where they had resided since 1815, having then emigrated to
that place from Vermont. The title of the lot was in non-resident minor heirs,
uncared for by any local attorney or agent, and Smith took possession of it only
as a "squatter sovereign;" though subsequently he purchased it by contract,
paying little or nothing thereon. The same premises are now embraced in the well
cultivated farm owned and occupied by Morgan Robinson. Smith's children, in the
order of their ages, were Hiram, (so spelled by his father,) Alvin, Samuel H.,
Sophronia, Joseph minor, William, Catharine and Carlos. They lived there
for a number of years, in a small, smoky log hut, of their own construction,
which was divided into two rooms, with a garret. The age of the junior Joe at
that time was about 17 or 18, though he did not know his own age, nor did any of
the family remember it precisely. From the oldest to the youngest, they were a
an illiterate, shiftless, indolent tribe, without any visible means of a
respectable livelihood, nor was it apparent that they earned an honest
living -- young Joe being the laziest of the crew. It was for this reason, in
part perhaps, and also because of divers petty thefts from time to time
occurring in the neighborhood; that they were so far under suspicion, (may be
undeservedly) as to suggest to the inhabitants the observance of especial
vigilance in the care of their sheep yards, smoke houses, pork barrels. &c. The
senior Smith and his elder boys (Joe generally excepted) did some work upon the
land which they occupied, in a slovenly, half-way manner, producing small crops
or corn, "taters and garding sass," which, added to limited operations in
raising pigs and poultry, with the making of maple sugar in the spring season,
contributed towards their necessary subsistence. Old Joe also gathered and sold
"rutes and yarbs" -- occasionally exchanged a load of wood in the village for
tobacco, whiskey, or other notions of trade -- and on training and anniversary
days, pocketed a few shillings from the peddling of gingerbread, boiled eggs,
and root beer. The boys, who were frequently seen lounging about the stores and
shops in the village, were distinguished only for their vagabondish appearance
and loaferly habits. The female portion of the household were pretty much ditto.
The money-digging humbug soon afterwards introduced, of which the junior Joe was
the reputed inventor, was participated in more or less by all the male members
of the family.
Such were the character and circumstances of the Smith generation, when young
Joe's money-digging experiment commenced, which after a few years' continuance
grew to the magnitude of his miraculously discovered golden "plates of Nephi"
hidden in the earth by the hand of Mormon the Israelite, resulting in the
wonderful revelation and publication of the Mormon Bible. ...
JOE SMITH junior, who became the world-renowned translator of the recovered
Israelitish records or scriptures -- the publisher of the new revelation, in the
Book of Mormon or Golden Bible, and founder of the politico-religious
institution of Mormonism -- was, at the period referred to, a dull-eyed,
flaxen-haired, ragged boy. He was of taciturn habits-- seldom speaking unless
first spoken to while out among folks -- but apparently a thinking, calculating,
mischief-brewing genius, whose whole secretive mind seemed devoted to some
mysterious scheme or marvellous invention. In his mental composition the organ
of "conscientiousness" might have been marked by phrenologists as not there.
His word, by reason of his propensity for exaggeration, was never received with
confidence by any body who knew him, (excepting of course his bigoted dupes.) He
was proverbially considered by his neighbor contemporaries "the meanest boy" of
the family. Subsequent developments and results, however, have demonstrated that
he knew "some things as well as others," and that the hopping capacity of a toad
cannot be estimated by the length of its tail.
A single instance of the many anecdotes remembered, in connection with Joe's
magic pretensions and undertaking, will sufficiently illustrate his unprincipled
cunning, and the strange infatuation of his dupes. Assuming his accustomed air
of mystery, on one occasion, he pretended to know exactly where the sought-for
iron chest of gold was deposited in the earth; and in order to the glittering
prize, means must be contributed to pay for digging, and a black sheep would
also be required for a sacrifice before engaging in the labors of the
necromantic enterprise. Joe knew that his neighbor S., one of his interested
listeners -- a respectable farmer in good circumstances, now living -- had a
fine fat black wether, and that meat was scarce at home. So it was agreed that
the farmer should give the noble wether as his share of the contribution; while
others were to contribute their labor, with a small sum of money. At the
approach of the appointed hour at night, the digging gang having been rallied
and the black sheep provided, Joe led his party with a lantern to the enchanted
spot upon a hill near his residence, where he described a circle upon the
ground, within which the sacrifice was to be performed, and the prize exhumed.
Not a word was to be spoken during the entire performance. Such was the
programme. All things being ready, the throat of the animal was cut as
previously arranged, (the carcass withdrawn and reduced to mutton by the
Smiths,) and the excavation entered upon in good earnest by the expectant
diggers. For some three hours the work was continued in utter silence -- when,
tempted by the devil, one of the party spoke! The spell was broken -- and
the precious treasure, which was just within reach, vanished!
OLIVER COWDERY, the scribe or amanuensis employed by the Prophet in the
translation of the "sacred records, was an unpretending young man, of supposed
fair character, who had done some service as a county schoolmaster. He could
write a legible hand, such as might be read by the printers, by carefully
dotting his i's and crossing his t's -- an accomplishment not possessed by any
of the Smiths; but such spelling, punctuation, capitalizing and paragraphizing
as his manuscripts exhibited, awfully multiplied the perplexities of the
type-setters. He is believed to have been a native of Palmyra, as his father's
family resided there as early as 1810. His present whereabouts or destiny
(unknown to the writer hereof) may not involve a question of any moment, as his
Mormon career was never distinguished beyond his first connection with the
speculation as already explained.
SIDNEY RIGDON who furnished the literary contributions, and MARTIN HARRIS who
supplied the fiscal means for carrying forward the imposture were indispensable
spokes in the great driving wheel of the Mormon car. The former had been a
clergyman of the Baptist persuasion in Pennsylvania -- had fallen from grace and
been deposed from his clerical estate -- and he "understood the ropes" to be
used in the infamous scheme of deception. He was the first "messenger appointed
of God," (as he styled himself,) to proclaim the Mormon revelation, and preached
his first sermon as such to a general public audience, in the room of the
Palmyra Young Men's Association, in the third story of "Exchange Row," in that
village. This was in the winter of 1830-'31, soon after the Mormon book was
printed. The several churches had been applied to for the desecration of their
pulpits, but were very properly refused. It was especially by the importunity of
Harris, whose sincerity was unquestioned, that the use of the Association's room
was granted. Holding the Book of Mormon in his right hand, and the Holy Bible in
his left, the hardened impostor solemnly declared that both were equally true as
the word of God -- that they were inseparably necessary to complete the
everlasting gospel -- and that he himself was the called minister of Heaven to
proclaim the new revelation for the salvation of sinful man! The discourse was a
disgustingly blasphemous tirade, though evincing some talent and ingenuity in
the speaker, and was received with such manifestations of disfavor that a
repetition of the performance was never attempted there.
Up to this time, Rigdon had played his part behind the curtain. The policy seems
to have been to keep him in concealment until all things were ready for the
blowing of the Mormon trumpet. An unexpected birth occurring in the Smith
family, where Rigdon had been a frequent incog. visitor for a year or so,
was said to have been accounted for only as a miracle!"
MARTIN HARRIS was the son of Nathan Harris, now deceased, an early settler in
Palmyra, and was universally esteemed as an honest man. He was a prosperous
farmer, possessing a benevolent disposition, and good judgment in ordinary
business affairs. His mind was overbalanced by "marvellousness," and was very
much exercised on the subject of religion; and his betrayal of vague
superstitions, with a belief in "special providences," and in the terrestrial
visits of angels, ghosts, &c., brought upon him the imputation of being "crazy."
He was possessed of a sort of Bible monomania, and could probably repeat from
memory every line of the scriptures, quoting chapter and verse in each instance.
His family consisted of a wife, (from whom he was separated by mutual
arrangement on account of her persistent unbelief in Mormonism,) and one son and
two daughters. The farm mortgaged and sacrificed by him in the printing
speculation is the same now owned and occupied by William Chapman, about a mile
and a half north of Palmyra village He long since abandoned Joe Smith and the
Mormons, though he bigotedly adheres to Mormonism, and obstinately
refuses to acknowledge his deception in the Bogus Bible! His present residence
is in some part of Ohio, and his condition that of extreme poverty.
Old Joe Smith, with his family, including the Prophet Joe (under whose spiritual
direction the profanity was perpetrated,) were baptized by Rigdon in the
immersion form, into the Mormon "Church of Latter Day Saints," about the date
last mentioned. And so also were Harris, Cowdery, the Whitmers, and a number of
other fanatical followers. -- By "special revelation," the senior Joe was
ordained the first Patriarch and President of the Church; and by like authority
he was appointed to sell the Mormon Bible at a fixed price, and appropriate a
certain percentage of the proceeds to his own use. This was a changed
revelation, for in the first instance the "command from above" was that Harris
alone should be permitted to sell and receive money for the book until he should
be reimbursed the cost of printing.
The exodus of the Smith family, first to some part of Pennsylvania --
preparatory to taking possession of the "Promise Land" at Kirtland, Ohio --
occurred in 1831 or '32. -- The Prophet went first, with Cowdery and a few other
followers, and married a wife in Pennsylvania -- Rigdon having been instrumental
in the match-making of this affair and was the officiating "clergyman" at its
celebration. ...
Note 1: This piece is Pomeroy Tucker's follow-up to his article in the Press
issue of
May 26, 1858. The expurgated text is taken from Dan Vogel's Early Mormon
Documents III.