Mormon History
Memories of Joe Smith - 1869
Moore’s Rural New Yorker – January 2, 1869
Historical
THE MORMONS:
Pen and Pencil Sketches Illustrating their Early History. I.
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BY A. W. COWLES, D. D.
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MORMON HILL OR HILL CAMORA, MANCHESTER, ONTARIO CO., N. Y.
Here Joe Smith claimed that the Golden Bible was found. The above is taken
from the road a little to the North of the "Big Tree," called "Joe Smith's Willow."
THE rise of a new religion
in the midst of the nineteenth century, under the very eyes of our most
intelligent civilization and in the very center of one of the most highly
favored districts of Western New York, is an event that may well excite the
attention and interest of every thoughtful mind. The birth of a new faith, the
promulgation of a new revelation, is far more rare and strange than the
beginning of a new nation. Yet many of the first organizers of the Mormon Church
are still alive. The first preacher still lives. Many still remember the first
prophet and seer, who gravely asserted his divine commission to discover and
translate a new volume of the word of GOD, and to introduce a new and complete
dispensation of doctrines, prophecies and miracles, with new promises of earthly
prosperity and new securities for eternal salvation.
It is exceedingly desirable to gather up and record in some reliable form all
the authentic information that can be obtained concerning this strange movement
which has had such wonderful success, and which, in less than forty years has
grown into one of the most compact, efficient, ecclesiastical organizations for
self-defense, self- perpetuation, and extensive propogation. It may have in it
the seeds of its own speedy dissolution, but these do not yet appear. The
locomotive may plow through its barriers and dissipate its strange forces, but
so far as we now see its numbers and wealth, its superstitious bigotry and
fanaticism are all increasing with astonishing and alarming rapidity. Probably
one million converts and their children have given their assent to the divine
authority of the Mormon creed. Flourishing missions are established in Great
Britain, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Italy, France, Malta,
India, China, Australia, South America and the Sandwich Islands. The Mormon
Bible has been translated into German, French, Italian, Danish and Welsh
languages. Adriot, energetic missionaries -- easy, unscrupulous and Jesuitical
-- go everywhere, among the poor, ignorant, and discontented masses of the old
world and promise them a home and land of their own, with an easy religion, with
sanctified indulgences suited to every taste and passion, all covered with the
garb of both respectability and piety. All this has grown out of the efforts of
a family of shiftless, lazy, dreamy, superstitious SMITHS, to get a living
without work.
The Smith family, from its great numbers, must be acknowledged to be an ancient,
prolific, industrious and therefore unquestionably honorable family, and like
all ancient and honorable families, have some branches that are decayed and
worthless.
Yet many Smiths have forged out worthy deeds and noble names, and deserve to
have a sledge and an anvil for their armorial device. Many have made their mark
in the world; some have cut their marks so deep and broad as to turn them into
the very currents of history.
None of the world-renowned Smiths have made the family name more notorious,
famous, or infamous than the first apostle, prophet and seer of the Mormons,
JOSEPH SMITH, JR., generally and less respectfully called Joe Smith. It is not
yet clear whether his renown is owing to his genius, his impudent imposture, his
adroit shrewdness, or to a more lucky strike into a rich vein of superstitious
credulity and ignorance which runs underneath even the highest civilization.
Perhaps we shall not be far from the truth if we say that his success was owing
to all these combined, except the first. Joe Smith was not a genius. He was the
lazy son of a superstitious, visionary father -- an ignorant Vermonter, who came
to Western New York, and settled in the village of Palmyra, Wayne county. He
gained a scanty living by chance jobs of well-digging, gardening, hiring out to
farmers, and sometime after added the trafficin gingerbread, root beer and
candies. In his well-digging, he professed the most implicit confidence in the
witch-hazel wand. With a solemn air of profound mystery he would obey the magic
twig, and point out the very spot where water would surely be found. His
confidence in this also extended to other things besides water hid in the bowels
of the earth. He soon professed to discern silver mines or buried coin in the
banks and hills of the farms around the village, and many a night he
superintended excavations, with laborious digging and with large promises of
treasure which would speedily enrich them all. It is said that he nearly or
quite ruined several of his credulous neighbors through those schemes of
money-digging. It is also stated that when his credit as a seer was well nigh
exhausted, he buried a few silver coins to keep up the hopes of his victims. He
found it expedient to remove from his old neighbors to a rough, neglected wood
lot of about eight acres, in the edge of the town of Manchester, Ontario Co., N.
Y.
Joe was now about fifteen years of age and a "chip of [sic] the old block,"
inheriting a disposition to see and hear all sorts of mysterious things --
dreamy, taciturn, lazy, and fully expecting to get rich without work -- as the
height of his earthly hopes. He became, also, expert in the use of the hazel
wand, and his visions of mysterious treasure even went beyond those of his
father. All this delighted his father, who often boasted of his wonderful
powers. A new impulse was given to the superstitious visions of father and son,
by finding a piece of semi-transparent quartz in digging a well for a Mr. Chase,
of Palmyra. Smith, senior, and the elder sons were digging the well and the lazy
Joe looking on. The diggers threw out a curious looking white stone which Joe at
once appropriated. This stone he professed to use as a wonderful revealer of
lost or stolen goods or of buried treasure, and the digging was renewed with
greater enthusiasm then ever before. This was chiefly at night. The day was
spent in lounging, drinking whisky, reading novels and stories about Captain
Kidd and his buried booty. His taste for reading increased and at length took a
serious turn. He read the Bible, especially its historical narratives and
prophecies. He once made some profession of special interest in religion and
thought of joining the Methodist class. He, however, held strange and conceited
views of Scripture, and begun to dispute all the commonly received notions of
religion. From some source he adopted the theory that a former race of high
civilization and wealth inhabited this country. This again gave additional
plausibility to his wonderful promises of buried treasure, but this could not
last long with the uniform failure of all the divining and digging. His credit
was at stake. Something must be done -- something new must turn up. About this
time a stranger was seen to visit the home of the Smiths. It has been asserted
that this mysterious stranger must have been SIDNEY RIGDON, to whom has been
very generally attributed the furnishing of the manuscript from which the Mormon
Bible was printed. Rigdon, who is now living, and with whom the writer recently
had a personal interview, positively denies all knowledge of the Book of Mormon
until after it was printed. If Rigdon's denial be admitted, this stranger
remains unknown; and whoever he was, unquestionably aided in placing the
fabulous romance in the hands of the arch impostor.
Joe Smith began now with his magic white stone to utter prophecies of a buried
revelation, which, when discovered and interpreted, would tell the history of
the ancients races and usher in a new dispensation. He employed men to dig in
solemn silence, he holding the hazel wand and pointing where the spade should
strike. He asserted that on two occasions they had just reached the buried
chest, or coffer, and an unlucky word broke the charm and the chest moved itself
away from their reach. He averred that he himself seized hold of the mysterious
box and by the wiles of the devil, it was violently snatched away. He then
declared that a sacrifice would be necessary to drive away the infernal powers,
whose malicious wrath knew no bounds in prospect of a new religion so much
superior to all the old religions of all past ages, and so much more damaging to
the kingdom of Satan. A sacrifice was offered; a fine, fat, black sheep was
contributed by a farmer, and yet the digging was unsuccessful, although the
Smith family shared the greater part of the fat mutton for their own table.
At length, when alone on the sacred hill, called in the language of the Mormon
Bible, Camora, Smith succeeded, as he affirms, in seizing and holding the
refractory chest. He had before been fully informed of its sacred contents and
had been directed how to proceed. His efforts were crowned with complete success
and the golden plates of the Mormon were in his hands.