The Story of the Mormons, from the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901 Part 3

Such an explanation of his failures was by no means original with Smith, the serious results of an untimely spoken word having been long a.s.sociated 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 Ma.n.u.script" 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 a.s.sist 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 pa.s.sing 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 a.s.serted 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) e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, '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 G.o.d, 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 b.l.o.o.d.y. 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 crus.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.sing 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.