Roswell Nichols Statement on Joseph Smith, Jr.
Manchester, Ontario County, N. Y. Dec 1st, 1833.
I, Roswell Nichols, first became acquainted with the family of
Joseph Smith, Sen. nearly five years ago, and I lived a neighbor to the said
family about two years. My acquaintance with the family has enabled me to know
something of its character for good citizenship, probity and veracity -- For
breach of contracts, for the non-payment of debts and borrowed money, and for
duplicity with their neighbors, the family was notorious. Once, since the Gold
Bible speculation commenced, the old man was sued; and while the sheriff was at
his house, he lied to him and was detected in the falsehood. Before he left the
house, he confessed that it was sometimes necessary for him to tell an honest
lie, in order to live. At another time, he told me that he had received an
express command for me to repent and believe as he did, or I must be damned. I
refused to comply, and at the same time told him of the various impositions of
his family. He then stated their digging was not for money but it was for the
obtaining of a Gold Bible. Thus contradicting what he had told me before: for he
had often said, that the hills in our neighborhood were nearly all erected by
human hands -- that they were all full of gold and silver. And one time, when we
were talking on the subject, he pointed to a small hill on my farm, and said,
"in that hill there is a stone which is full of gold and silver. I know it to be
so, for I have been to the hole, and God said unto me, go not in now, but at
a future day you shall go in and find the book open, and then you shall have the
treasures." He said that gold and silver was once as plenty as the stones in
the field are now -- that the ancients, half of them melted the ore and made the
gold and silver, while the other half buried it deeper in the earth, which
accounted for these hills. Upon my enquiring who furnished the food for the
whole, he flew into a passion, and called me a sinner, and said he, "you must be
eternally damned."
I mention these facts, not because of their intrinsic importance, but simply to
show the weak mindedness and low character of the man.
ROSWELL NICHOLS.