The Story of the Mormons, from the Date of Their Origin to the Year 1901 Part 6

"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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d, 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 towns.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sistance 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 a.s.sistance. 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 G.o.d 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 quant.i.ty of plaster to spread, he could not go "unless he could get a witness from G.o.d 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, a.s.suring 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 a.s.sociates 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 ma.n.u.script copy, says that, when the printing began, Smith and his a.s.sociates watched the ma.n.u.script 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 ma.n.u.script 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 penmans.h.i.+p 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 st.i.tch 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, princ.i.p.ally 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 G.o.d, 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 superst.i.tions, 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 publis.h.i.+ng 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 t.i.tle 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 a.s.sets, accepted the offer as a joke.*

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

CHAPTER VII. -- THE SPAULDING Ma.n.u.sCRIPT

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 ma.n.u.script,"

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 a.s.sociates, up to the year 1827, will fail to find any ground for the belief that he alone, or simply with their a.s.sistance, 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 ma.n.u.script" 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 t.i.tle he chose for his book was "The Ma.n.u.script 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 ma.n.u.script 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 ma.n.u.script 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 ma.n.u.script 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 ma.n.u.script were written the words 'Ma.n.u.script 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, Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 a.s.sertions after the Mormons had held a meeting at Conneaut. The opinion was confidently expressed there that, if the ma.n.u.script 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 Ma.n.u.script 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 ma.n.u.script, receiving his verbal pledge to return it. He obtained a ma.n.u.script 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 Ma.n.u.script 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 t.i.tle-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 ma.n.u.script and copied it. It was a matter of notoriety and interest to all connected with the printing establishment. At length the ma.n.u.script was returned to its author, and soon after we removed to Amity where Mr.

Spaulding deceased in 1816. The ma.n.u.script then fell into my hands, and was carefully preserved."

This statement stirred up the Mormons greatly, and they at once p.r.o.nounced 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 [Ma.s.sachusetts] Whig printed a letter from John Haven of Holliston, Ma.s.sachusetts, 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 coa.r.s.e 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 "Ma.n.u.script Found."* Spaulding's brother, John, testified that he heard many pa.s.sages of the ma.n.u.script read and, describing it, he said:--

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