Part IV of 19th Century Photo of Joseph Smith’s “Caractors” Discovered

If you missed the Introduction or Part I, Part II or Part III of this Article, just click on the respective link.

With the discovery of the “Caractors” photo in the Hicks Collection in December of 2012, we now know a little bit more about the “Caractors” document than we did before. Through an analysis of the handwriting found on the original (complete) document, it is possible to make some reasonable guesses about its origins, which I will provide below.

Joseph Smith employed many scribes who helped him write his “revelations” over the years. During the Book of Mormon dictation, Smith used his wife Emma as a scribe, along with Reuben Hale (Emma’s brother), Martin Harris, Samuel H. Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and a few that were “unidentified”. According to H. Michael Marquardt,



There were a number of periods when Joseph Smith dictated or wrote the text of what became the Book of Mormon.

1. ca. January – April 1828 scribes:

Emma Hale Smith (wife of Joseph Smith Jr.)

Reuben Hale (brother of Emma Hale Smith)

2. ca. 12 April – 14 June 1828 scribe:

Martin Harris (farmer)

Note: About 116 manuscript pages were lost (ca. June – July 1828)

3. ca. September 1828 – March 1829 scribes:

Emma Hale Smith (wife of Joseph Smith Jr.)

Samuel H. Smith (brother of Joseph Smith Jr.) (farmer)

Note: Not known how many manuscript pages were written

4. ca. 7 April – 26 June 1829 scribes:

Oliver Cowdery (school teacher, printer assistant)

Unknown Scribe – Scribe 1

Unknown Scribe – Scribe 2[217]

In 1884 David Whitmer gave an interview to the Daily Missouri Republican recalling that,

The manuscript was written from the dictation of Joseph Smith by the following amanuenses: Oliver Cowdery, Emma Smith, wife of Joseph Smith; Christian Whitmer and Martin Harris, and it is supposed that Alva Hale was also employed as one of the scribes, but Hale only wrote a small portion.[218]

Joseph Smith himself stated that “John Whitmer, in particular, assisted us very much in writing during the remainder of the work.”[219] More than likely David Whitmer confused Reuben Hale with Alva Hale, but he affirmed in many interviews that his brother Christian’s handwriting was to be found on the Manuscript that he had in his possession; and since David constantly claimed that the Printer’s Manuscript in his possession was actually the Original Manuscript (the one that Joseph had placed in the foundation of the Nauvoo House), it is a good assumption that Christian Whitmer is one of the “unknown scribes” on both manuscripts. Dean Jessee wrote in 1970 that,

of the 144 pages of the Book of Mormon manuscript in the Church Historian’s Office, 124 pages are in the handwriting of Oliver Cowdery; eleven were probably written by John Whitmer; and twelve others are the work of an unidentified scribe.[220]

In a lecture given on February 26, 2013 titled “The Original and Printer’s Manuscript”, Royal Skousen proposed that the unknown scribes (from period 4) were Christian and John Whitmer. (The identification begins at the 31min mark).[221]



In analyzing the Hicks Photo two things become clear. The first is that if the Book of Mormon characters had been written first on a blank sheet of paper, then there would have been plenty of room for the copyist of those characters to transcribe all of the them without bunching them up, or making some of them smaller, because the characters are actually written at the top of the sheet. The second is that the phrase “The Book of the Generations of Adam” is from the Book of Moses.[222]

These two observations generate a lot of questions. Unfortunately there will never be any sure answers to some of them unless more discoveries come to light, so we can only make guesses or reasonable conclusions.

The Book of Moses is part of the Joseph Smith New Translation (or revision), parts of which can be found on three manuscripts. The part of the Book of Moses that has the phrase the book of the generations of Adam was written between October and December of 1830, depending on the manuscript.

In January of 1831 the Church had a Conference in Fayette, New York and on January 2, Joseph dictated a “revelation” which was later to become Doctrine and Covenants Section 38, which elaborated on a previous command for the Church to move to Ohio. This is important for a number of reasons as H. Michael Marquardt explains,

After the January 1831 conference John [Whitmer] was commanded to go to Kirtland, Ohio, to preside over church members in the area. He copied more of Joseph Smith’s revelations including all of the revision of Genesis completed in New York. [223]

The text worked on in New York that Whitmer copied included the introductory revelation of June 1830, RLDS D&C 22; LDS Moses 1 and Genesis 1:1-5:32 (KJV); LDS Moses 2:1-8:12; RLDS Holy Scriptures, Genesis 1:1-7:85. [224]

Concerning the New Translation and the Manuscript now designated OTman3, Kent Jackson writes that,

When John Whitmer traveled for the first time to the Kirtland, Ohio, area in January 1831, Joseph Smith instructed him to “carry the commandments and revelations” with him. Among them was a manuscript copy of Joseph Smith’s new text of the early chapters of Genesis. The manuscript was a transcription, in Whitmer’s hand, of all of Joseph Smith’s Bible revision that had been produced to that point. It corresponded with Genesis 1B5 and with Moses 1:1B8:12 in the current Latter-day Saint Book of Moses.

Joseph Smith had begun the process of preparing a corrected translation of the Bible in June 1830. It is now commonly called the Joseph Smith Translation, but the Prophet and his contemporaries referred to it as the New Translation. Over the course of about three years, he dictated the text to his scribes, the final product eventually totaling 446 pages. Whitmer was an important contributor to the project, both as a scribe and as a transcriber (copyist) of previously dictated pages. Altogether, his handwriting appears on 136 of the pages. The manuscript Whitmer took to Ohio is now known by the archival designation Old Testament Manuscript 3 (OT3). It was a copy of Old Testament Manuscript 1 (OT1), the original dictated text of the Genesis translation. Whitmer probably made the transcription at about the beginning of January 1831. It appears that he made it for the purpose of the trip, but it soon became his private copy, and it remained with him throughout his life. [225]

If one analyzes the Hicks photo, it is obvious that it had been folded in the same way that John Whitmer’s OTman3 was folded (into fourths). Here is a comparison of the two:

As you can see from the photos, the right hand side of OTMan3 is very frayed, as is the document in the Hicks photo.

One possibility is that the document in the Hicks photo was a cover that had been made for John Whitmer’s OTMan3; and that perhaps while Whitmer was copying other documents he added the Book of Mormon characters also.

Joseph initially misspells the word “character” (leaving out the “h”) in his 1832 History,[226], so it is possible that Joseph in 1829 may have misspelled the word when he prepared the original document, and then when John Whitmer copied it, he kept the original spelling.[227]

Another possibility is that the top portion of the document was created by Joseph Smith, and was then used as the cover for OTMan3. Why would they do so? Possibly because of the wipe erasures[228] that are in the document; that may have caused Joseph to discard it and so it was never finished. This scenario though, seems very tenuous, because Joseph Smith’s handwriting can’t be matched to the document. [229]

So why are the characters so large at the top, but then smaller at the bottom? It may be that they were originally this way on the copy made by Smith and given to Harris in 1828. In March of 1831 an article appeared in the Palmyra Reflector, which has David Whitmer describing the Book of Mormon characters:

This witness [David Whitmer] describes the book as being something like 8 inches square; (our informant did not recollect precisely,) the leaves were plates of metal of a whitish yellow color, and of the thickness of tin plate; the back was secured with three small rings of the same metal, passing through each leaf in succession; — that the leaves were divided equi-distant, between the back & edge, by cutting the plates in two parts, and united again with solder, so that the front might be opened, as it were on a hinge, while the back part remained stationary and immovable and in this manner remained to him and the other witnesses a sealed book, which would not as yet be revealed for ages to come, and that event the prophet himself was not as yet permitted to understand. On opening that portion of the book which was not secured by the seals, he discovered inscribed on the aforesaid plates, divers and wonderful characters; some of the large and some small, but beyond the wisdom of man to understand without supernatural aid.[230]

When Martin Harris showed the BOM characters to John Clark in the fall of 1827 (before his trip to New York City), Clark recalled that the paper “contained three or four lines of characters .”[231]

It may be possible then, that the smaller characters were added in later, from the document that Joseph had finished which supposedly included both columns and concentric circles as described by Orasmus Turner and Charles Anthon.

This scenario presupposes that Harris would have been showing a long piece of foolscap paper with only four lines of characters on it, which Joseph may have discarded because of mistakes in copying, and that later the other characters were added to it from the one taken to Charles Anthon, and then it was used as a cover for John Whitmer’s OTMan3. This scenario also seems very tenuous.

These (of course) are only conjectures; but one thing is certain, Joseph had his own copy of the characters that he kept with him that he showed to various people until shortly before his death.

I have often thought that like the Whitmer “Caractor” document (which was kept by John Whitmer as a cover for OTMan3), Joseph may have kept the original “Anthon Transcript” with the Original Manuscript of the Book of Mormon, and that when he placed it into the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House in 1841 it was destroyed along with a large portion of that manuscript. [232]

Charles Anthon described the document he was shown as,

a singular scrawl. It consisted of all kinds of crooked characters disposed in columns, and had evidently been prepared by some person who had before him at the time a book containing various alphabets. Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes, Roman letters inverted or placed sideways, were arranged in perpendicular columns, and the whole ended in a rude delineation of a circle divided into various compartments, decked with various strange marks, and evidently copied after the Mexican Calender given by Humboldt, but copied in such a way as not to betray the source whence it was derived.[233]

Orasmus Turner wrote that “an informant” described the document that Harris showed to them as “the manuscript title-page” and that “on it was drawn, rudely and bunglingly, concentric circles, between, above, and below, which were characters, with little resemblance to letters, apparently a miserable imitation of hieroglyphics.” [234]

This description seems to agree with the one made by Charles Anthon, but since Turner’s book was published long after the Anthon letters were written, there is a chance that he may have borrowed from them, but again, that seems very tenuous.

As for the calendar that Anthon mentions, there are actually two calendars in Alexander Von Humbolt’s books, one called the “Calendrier Lunaire des Mayseas” or the Lunar Calendar of the Muiscas, who were an ancient people that inhabited the northern Andes in Columbia, Central America, and the other the more famous Aztec Sun Stone discovered in 1790 in Mexico City.

In 1795, Dr Jose Domingo Duquesne, a priest of the church of Gachancipa in Columbia published a paper detailing the Muisca calendar, which information he claimed to have received from the Indians themselves. His paper was later ridiculed as being nothing but an invention of his.[235]

In his description of the Muisca numbers, father Duquesne says that they used written signs to denote them, and gives a plate showing the graphic symbols for each name and number.[236]

Joseph Smith was familiar with this work and published an article in 1842 in the Times and Seasons titled ““Traits of the Mosaic History, Found among the Aztaeca Nations,” which quoted from Humboldt’s books.[237]



The Musica Calander is depicted with concentric circles divided into compartments, not unlike the magic circles on the Holiness to the Lord Parchment, one of three “lamans” inscribed with signs and names of ceremonial magic which were found among Hyrum Smith’s possessions after his death.[238] D. Michael Quinn writes in his groundbreaking work, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View that,

The three magic parchments attributed to the Joseph Smith family have three different, but interrelated, purposes. The “Holiness to the Lord” parchment is a lamen of ceremonial magic, the “Saint Peter bind them” parchment is a talisman for personal protection, and the faded “Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah” parchment is a talismanic house charm. [239]

Quinn also notes that,

At the lower right quadrant of the “Holiness to the Lord” lamen is an emblem of five points and seven internal spaces that combines the Jehovah (JHVH) “Tetragrammaton” with “Adonay”. Whoever put this symbol on the “Holiness to the Lord” lamen incorrectly drew it with seven internal compartments, for as early as 1656, an English translation of Paracelsus’ writings specified that the figure should have “six spaces, and outwardly five angles, wherein are written five syllables of the supreme name of God; to wit, Tetragrammaton” .[240]

One could describe the Smith lamans as drawn, rudely and bunglingly, with concentric circles, between, above, and below”, which were “divided into various compartments, [and] decked with various strange marks, to quote Anthon and Turner.

Another possible scenario is that Joseph gave Martin a document in the fall of 1827 with only four lines of characters on it. Harris took this to John Clark, which according to Lucy Smith were copied by his future son-in-law Flanders Dyke at the behest of his wife Lucy Harris.[241]

Reuben Hale supposedly later helped Joseph prepare the transcript that was to be presented to Charles Anthon and Samuel L. Mitchill which would have included more of the characters.[242]

Then, when Martin Harris returned to Harmony, Pennsylvania, three additional lines of characters were added to the first copy, written smaller than the first four lines. A few years later in 1831, John Whitmer made an exact copy of that document, while Joseph Smith kept the original; which he subsequently showed to various people in Kirtland and Nauvoo, from which the 1844 broadside characters were copied.

If Joseph did place the transcript shown to Anthon with the Book of Mormon manuscript in the cornerstone of the Nauvoo House in 1841, then he would have been left with a copy of the characters that was almost exactly like the Whitmer copy, and from which the 1844 Stick of Joseph Broadside was produced.

These are of course conjectures that may or may not bear out in the light of further discoveries.

In analyzing the characters from the last three lines, I noticed something peculiar. There are a lot of “stand alone” dash like characters between groups of characters. There are quite a few in between groups of characters, which I reproduce below:

These “stand alone” dash like characters do not appear to be found on the first four lines of the larger drawn characters.[243] Perhaps these smaller groups of characters were originally within the concentric circles (the two larger groups around the outside or inside edges) or were in vertical columns on the document taken to Anthon, and the dashes were inserted to separate them.

These are intriguing possibilities, and perhaps someone will someday see a pattern in the numbers. It does though, seem hard to believe that this document is one that took Joseph “a whole week to copy” as David Whitmer later recalled,[244] but it must also be remembered that Whitmer was prone to exaggerate and that he clung tenaciously to his erroneous testimony that he had both the Original Manuscript and the original Anthon Transcript .

It is very clear though, from analyzing the Hicks photo, that whoever copied the document would have had plenty of room to enlarge the bottom four lines of characters or copy more of them (if there were more), even if the document had already been folded, but only if the characters were drawn before the Cover Title.

During my study of the photo below, I noticed that the Cover Title was not written out in one line, but in three, and that it is “left justified”. This may indicate that the “Caractors” portion of the document was written first, or that the paper was folded before the Cover Title was written and Christian used the fold to the left to justify the Title. If the Cover Title was written before the “caractors”, then why not just write the Title across the entire page? This (to me) is a good indicator that the Cover Title and the “Caractors” were written after the page was folded in an effort to fit them in between the folds.

Would someone who thought those characters so important to copy and keep – only copy some of them? And why wasn’t the document that Harris took to Anthon reproduced in it’s entirety? Was Whitmer directed not to reproduce the circles? If so, why?

Or did Joseph (by 1831) only have a copy of the Book of Mormon characters that looked like the one that Whitmer copied? If so, what happened to the “Anthon Transcript”? Was it the copy that Harris took to New York that Flanders Dyke made a copy of? If so, was Joseph leery of keeping the original “Anthon Transcript” for the same reason that he did not “retranslate” the 116 pages of the Book of Mormon that were lost by Martin Harris? Could Joseph have produced another copy of the characters after this that were entirely different from the ones that Harris took to Anthon to thwart the designs of Lucy Harris?

This line of thought brings to mind what Anthon himself said, that the copy that he saw was “evidently copied after the Mexican Calender given by Humboldt, but copied in such a way as not to betray the source whence it was derived.” If this criticism was related to Joseph by Martin Harris, perhaps Joseph destroyed the document, or entombed it with the Original Manuscript to avoid having to answer such criticisms. Perhaps in the light of facing such criticism, (and the problems he might encounter because of the Flanders Dyke copy) Joseph made another copy with the changed format and absence of concentric circles and other symbols.

Also, if the ‘Caractors’ document had been folded, it would have been newly folded and so it probably would have been easy to write over the fold and include more characters if there were any – if it was created before the Cover Title had been written.

One thing that lends credence to the theory that this document was created in 1831 or later is the handwriting on the document itself. For many years those who only could analyze the top portion of the document have speculated about who may have written it.

Some, like Dean Jessee, thought it might have been Joseph Smith’s handwriting, possibly because of the spelling of the word “Caractors” which was initially misspelled by Joseph in his Summer 1832 History.[245]



Others thought it might have been John Whitmer who wrote the word. With the publication of the Book of Mormon Original Manuscript pages and other items in the Church of Christ Archives, I believe I can identify the handwriting on the document.

As I mentioned above, Royal Skousen identifies the two unknown Book of Mormon scribes from the Original Manuscript as John and Christian Whitmer.[246] Since there is a large body of evidence which identifies John Whitmer as one of the scribes, I will focus here on identifying the other one.

Christian Whitmer was born on January 18, 1879, in Pennsylvania, and was the oldest son of Peter Whitmer Sr. and Mary Musselman Whitmer. Christian moved from Pennsylvania to Seneca County New York, and in 1825 he married Anna Schott[247] and took of the trade of shoe making.

In that same year Christian joined the New York State Militia and received the commission of an Ensign with the 102 Regiment of the Seneca County Grenadiers. His brother-in-law, Daniel Schott[248] was made a Captain of the same Regiment a few days earlier. Christian’s brother David Whitmer would join the Grenadiers a month later as a Sargent.[249]



There are few accounts that mention Christian Whitmer during the New York period of the church, and most are the later reminiscences of his brother David Whitmer. In this interview from 1878, he spoke to Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith about how his family became involved with Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon:

Before I knew Joseph, I had heard about him and the plates from persons who declared they knew he had them, and swore they would get them from him. When Oliver Cowdery went to Pennsylvania, he promised to write me what he should learn about these matters, which he did. He wrote me that Joseph had told him his (Oliver’s) secret thoughts, and all he had meditated about going to see him, which no man on earth knew, as he supposed, but himself, and so he stopped to write for Joseph.[250]

In 1881 David gave a more expanded account of how Joseph came to reside at the home of Peter Whitmer, Sr.:

“I first heard of what is now termed Mormonism in the year 1828. I made a business trip to Palmyra, New York, and while there stopped with one Oliver Cowdery. A great many people in the neighborhood were talking about the finding of certain golden plates by one Joseph Smith, Jr., a young man of the neighborhood. Cowdery and I, as well as others, talked about the matter, but at that time I paid but little attention to it, supposing it to be only the idle gossip of the neighborhood. Cowdery said he was acquainted with the Smith family, and believing there must be some truth in the story of the plates, he intended to investigate the matter. I had conversation with several young men who said that Joseph Smith had certainly golden plates, and that before he had attained them he had promised to share with them, but had not done so and they were very much incensed with them. Said I, ‘how do you know that Joe Smith has the plates?’ They replied, ‘we saw the plates [sic, place] in the hill that he took them out of just as he described it to us before he obtained them.’ These parties were so positive in their statements that I began to believe there must be some foundation for the stories then in circulation all over that part of the country. I had never seen any of the Smith family up to that time, and I began to inquire of the people in regard to them, and learned that one night during the year 1827, Joseph Smith, jr., had a vision, and an angel of God appeared to him and told him where certain plates were to be found, pointing out the spot to him, and that shortly afterward he went to that place and found the plates which were still in his possession. After thinking over the matter for a long time, and talking with Cowdery, who also gave me a history of the finding of the plates, I went home, and after several months Cowdery told me he was going to Harmony, Pa. — whither Joseph Smith had gone with the plates on account of persecutions of his neighbors — and see him about the matter. He did go, and on his way he stopped at my father’s house and told me that as soon as he found out anything, either truth or untruth he would let me know. After he got there he became acquainted with Joseph Smith and shortly after, wrote to me telling me that he was convinced that Smith had the records and that he (Smith) had told him that it was the will of heaven that he (Cowdery) should be his scribe to assist in the translation of the plates. He went on, and Joseph translated from the plates and he wrote it down. Shortly after this, Cowdery wrote me another letter in which he gave me a few lines of what they had translated, and he assured me that he knew of a certainty that he had a record of a people that inhabited this continent, and that the plates they were translating gave a complete history of these people. When Cowdery wrote me these things and told me that he had revealed knowledge concerning the truth of them, I showed these letters to my parents, brothers and sisters. Soon after I received another letter from Cowdery telling me to come down into Pennsylvania and bring him and Joseph to my father’s house, giving as a reason therefore that they had received a commandment from God to that effect. I went down to Harmony and found everything just as they had written me. The next day after I got there they packed up the plates and we proceeded on our journey to my father’s house, where we arrived in due time, and the day after we commenced upon the translation of the remainder of the plates. I, as well as all of my father’s family, Smith’s wife, Oliver Cowdery, and Martin Harris, were present during the translation. The translation was by Smith and the manner was as follows: “He had two small stones of a chocolate color, nearly egg-shape and perfectly smooth, but not transparent, called interpreters, which were given him with the plates. He did not use the plates in the translation, but would hold the interpreters to his eyes and cover his face with a hat, excluding all light, and before his eyes would appear what seemed to be parchment, on which would appear the characters of the plates in a line at the top and immediately below would appear the translation, in English, which Smith would read to his scribe, who wrote it down exactly as it fell from his lips. The scribe would then read the sentence written, and if any mistake had been made the characters would remain visible to Smith until corrected, when they faded from sight to be replaced by another line. The translation at my father’s occupied about one month, that is from June 1 to July 1, 1829.”[251]



When George Q. Cannon visited David Whitmer in 1884 he reported that David told him that his brother “Christian” was one of those “who assisted the Prophet Joseph” in transcribing what was dictated by Joseph.[252]

A year later in another interview for the Chicago Tribune, David related that “The work of translating the tablets consumed about eight months, Smith, acting as the seer and Cowdery, Smith’s wife, and Christian Whitmer, brother of David, performing the duties of amanuensis…”[253]



From these statements it is clear that David believed that his brother Christian was involved as a scribe for Joseph Smith during the translation of the Book of Mormon. In 1887 David wrote that while “the Book of Mormon was still in the hands of the printer” his “brother, Christian Whitmer, had copied from the manuscript the teachings and doctrine of Christ, being the things which we were commanded to preach.”[254]

Christian Whitmer and his wife Anna were baptized on April 11, 1830 according to Joseph’s 1839 History,[255] just a few days after the organization of the church. When Hiram Page was receiving “revelations” through a peep stone like Joseph did, the whole Whitmer family and Oliver Cowdery believed the revelations were of God. Joseph later declared them to be of Satan [256] and according to Joseph’s account of the matter it was Christian Whitmer that helped convince the others to side with Joseph in the matter.[257]

Christian Whitmer like his brother John, was sent to Jackson County Missouri in 1832, where he was called as President of the Elders Quorum there. With the expulsion of the Mormons in 1833 he moved into Clay County and was chosen to be one of the high council on July 3, 1834. He died there in 1835 “of severe affliction upon one of his legs, which he bore for a long time with great patience.” [258]

As I mentioned above, there are many examples of John Whitmer’s handwriting and so it is relatively easy to identify him as Unknown Scribe 1. Identifying Unknown Scribe 2 has been a bit more difficult because that handwriting is very similar to John Whitmer’s handwriting; and there are few known samples of Christian Whitmer’s handwriting. Still, the signature of Christian Whitmer from 1825 has some striking similarities with Unknown Scribe 2.

It is immediately apparent that Christian Whitmer has some common style characteristics in his signature that John Whitmer does not. For example, his ‘s’ is very elongated in his signature, he makes his “i” and “t” stand alone, and there are other unique style characteristics documented in the photo above.

Though John Whitmer has some of them, and used some of them in his handwriting, (like the elongated first “s” in his double “s” combos), he does not consistently do so as Christian Whitmer does. I am therefore very confident that the unknown scribe’s handwriting from the Book of Mormon (sampled above) is that of Christian Whitmer, and that using those handwriting samples, Christian can also be identified as the author of various “revelations” authored by Joseph Smith and the Cover Title for OTMan3.

Since this article has taken me longer than I anticipated to finish and get up on the Blog, I now know a bit more about what others who have been working on this have concluded about the document. Brent and Erin Metcalfe have concluded that the entire document was written by Christian Whitmer. [259]

In the current issue of Mormon Historical Studies, Michael Hubbard Mackay, Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, and Robin Scott Jensen have concluded that the entire document was written by John Whitmer.[260]

They write, “Upon examination, the title exhibits significant signs that it was not written by Joseph Smith but by John Whitmer.” [261]

I concur with this conclusion (in part), as my own comparison shows. This would include the characters themselves, of which they write,

Because it seems likely that there was one continuous flow of the document, the characters were also likely in John Whitmer’s handwriting. This was confirmed by x-ray florescence done in September 2012 at the Community of Christ Library – Archives by the authors. [262]

Since the bottom half of the document is not extant, no ink tests can be done, and therefore it is impossible to determine if the entire document was written at the same time. We must therefore rely on handwriting analysis for the portion of the document which contains the Cover Title, “The Book of The Generations of Adam”. It is here where I diverge with Mackay, Dirkmatt and Jensen.

When I first studied the handwriting on the Hicks photo, I thought the entire document was written by John Whitmer. The reason I thought so, was because John Whitmer always writes his capital “A” in the traditional way. Christian, on the other hand, always makes his capital “A” as a large lowercase “a”. But a document in the Community of Christ archives, (JST185) has helped to clarify this important distinction between John and his brother Christian and provide a scenario that explains my two authorship theory.

But there was another problem with identifying John Whitmer as the person who wrote “The Book of the Generations of Adam” on the “Caractors” document, which has to do with the style characteristics of the capital “G”. In all of the samples of John Whitmer’s handwriting, he never makes his capital “G” in the same way it appears on the “Caractors” document. But Christian Whitmer does, very consistently.

I was helped in my identification of the handwriting by a number of documents from the Community of Christ archives supplied by H. Michael Marquardt via Dan Vogel, who was kind enough to provide them when I asked him for anything written by the Whitmer brothers or unknown scribes that could be one of the Whitmers.

Having the phrase “The Book of the Generations of Adam” to go on, Rachel Killebrew at the Community of Christ Archives was contacted,[263] and she found a document in the Joseph Smith Translation Collection (JST185) that has two sentences written on it. On one side is written,

The bok of the Generations of adam

The Book of the generations of Adam

Analysis of the top line from the document above has yielded the following result:

I believe that John asked Christian to write the cover for OTMan3. This document (pictured above) is (I believe) the Title chosen for the cover that John Whitmer asked his brother Christian to write for OTMan3, which Christian then wrote down on this sheet of paper.

The top line is written by Christian, and below that is what I believe is the corrected way that John wanted it written. The handwriting on the top line matches the handwriting of the same phrase on the “Caractors” document, while the bottom line does not, but that line does match John’s handwriting from other documents. John’s capital “T” has a distinct style characteristic which is different from Christian’s, and John does not make his capital “G” in quite the same way as the person who wrote the top line.

In comparing the two sentences with the known handwriting samples of Christian and John Whitmer, it is obvious (to me) that Christian wrote the top line, and John the bottom one. It may be possible that John asked Christian to write the Cover Title for OTMan3, and Christian wrote it down, (the top line) and John then corrected it with what Christian eventually wrote on the Cover Page (Note that the word “book” is misspelled, and “Adam” is written with a lower case “a”, which Christian was prone to do with names). [264]

Why did John ask Christian to write the Title for the cover of his manuscript? That remains a mystery. Perhaps he was busy with other projects and so assigned this task to his brother. But I believe that both of them contributed to the document because the similarities between John’s handwriting and the word “Caractors” are significant, and John’s handwriting can’t be matched to the sentence “The Book of the Generations of Adam” that appears below (or to the right of depending on how the page is displayed) the Book of Mormon characters.

Also, When Christian wrote Titles to documents, they look nothing like the “Caractors” Line, but John Whitmer’s title lines do. If the document was entirely written by Christian Whitmer, then why are the style characteristics of the two title lines (“Caractors” and “The Book of the Generations of Adam”) so different?[265]

After Christian wrote the Cover Title, John most likely added the “Caractors” which he copied from another document to the Cover of OTMan3 so that he would have them with his personal manuscript of the Book of Moses. I believe that this was done hurriedly and on impulse by John, to preserve a copy of the “caractors” before the move to Ohio.

This seems, to me, like the most likely scenario, because the word “Caractors” is more like the style of John Whitmer’s writing, and they seem to have been made to fit in the section above the first fold of the document.

Also, Christian Whitmer’s Cover Title was justified to fit between the folds of the document, and so the manuscript was probably already folded into fourths, and the Cover Title was positioned in a way to display it within the middle fold – as was done with a later “revelation” penned by Christian Whitmer which he titled “Commandment to the Churches”. (See picture of June 15, 1831 “revelation” below).

But why would John Whitmer put the characters there, on the cover, when he had a whole blank sheet of paper that only had two sentences on it (The book of the generations of Adam), which could have easily been flipped over and used, and then inserted inside the manuscript?

It may well be that the “Caractors” part of the document was made first, and then the title was added. The smaller characters may have been copied smaller because that was the way they appeared on the document that John Whitmer was copying. I find this scenario less likely, and only present it as a possibility.

If you look closely as JST 185, (click to enlarge) you can see some faint writing that looks like it was transferred (from being kept together) from another document. H. Michael Marquardt was told by Rachel Killebrew (the Librarian at the Church of Christ) that this has been identified by Brent Metcalfe as the January 2, 1831 “revelation” that is now Doctrine and Covenants Section 38. The flip side of this “unnumbered flyleaf” (as it is catalogued by the COC) is completely blank.[266]

On December 9, 1830, Joseph Smith dictated a revelation to Edward Partridge which is now known as Doctrine and Covenants Section 35 (COC) or 36 (LDS).[267] This document was copied (as were many others) by one of Joseph’s scribes and taken to Missouri where Joseph and others traveled to “lay the foundation of Zion”. [268]

Some of those revelations were inadvertently left in Missouri or unattended for a time, and came into the hands of Symonds Ryder, possibly by way of Ezra Booth, who had been sent on a mission there with Isaac Morley.[269] Ryder was an early convert to the Church in Ohio who became disaffected with Joseph Smith after reading those revelations; then allegedly participated in an 1832 assault upon the persons of Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon.[270] In a letter written to A.S. Hayden in 1868, Ryder wrote:

“D EAR B RO . H AYDEN :

“* * * To give particulars of the Mormon excitement of 1831 would require a volume — a few words must suffice. It has been stated that from the year 1815 to 1835, a period of twenty years, ‘all sorts of doctrine by all sorts of preachers had been plead;’ and most of the people of Hiram had been disposed to turn out and hear. This went by the specious name of ‘liberal.’ The Mormons in Kirtland, being informed of this peculiar state of things, were soon prepared for the onset.

“In the winter of 1831 Joseph Smith, with others, had an appointment in the south school-house, in Hiram. Such was the apparent piety, sincerity and humility of the speakers, that many of the hearers were greatly affected, and thought it impossible that such preachers should lie in wait to deceive.

“During the next spring and summer several converts were made, and their success seemed to indicate an immediate triumph in Hiram. But when they went to Missouri to lay the foundation of the splendid city of Zion, and also of the temple, they left their papers behind. This gave their new converts an opportunity to become acquainted with the internal arrangement of their church, which revealed to them the horrid fact that a plot was laid to take their property from them and place it under the control of Joseph Smith the prophet. This was too much for the Hiramites, and they left the Mormonites faster than they had ever joined them, and by fall the Mormon church in Hiram was a very lean concern.

“But some who had been the dupes of this deception, determined not to let it pass with impunity; and, accordingly, a company was formed of citizens from Shalersville, Garrettsville, and Hiram, in March, 1832, and proceeded to headquarters in the darkness of night, and took Smith and Rigdon from their beds, and tarred and feathered them both, and let them go. This had the desired effect, which was to get rid of them. They soon left for Kirtland.

“All who continued with the Mormons, and had any property, lost all; among whom was John Johnson, one of our most worthy men; also, Esq. Snow, of Mantua, who lost two or three thousand dollars.

“S YMONDS R YDER .” [271]

Scott Faulring believes that Ryder stole the documents himself, which were hidden by Ryder and found years later and returned to the church by Ryder’s descendants:

Ryder was in Kirtland on June 6, 1831, when he was ordained an elder by Joseph Smith. Two weeks after Symonds’s ordination, the Prophet, accompanied by many of the leading brethren in Ohio, departed from Kirtland on their ﬁrst visit to Independence, Jackson County, Missouri—the site of the prophesied city of the New Jerusalem and the land designated as Zion. Allegedly, with the Church leaders away, Symonds Ryder traveled north from his farm in Hiram, Ohio, up to the Church headquarters in Kirtland. Somehow, without being discovered, he accessed the Church records. Symonds apparently knew what he was looking for. He secured a certain group of manuscript revelations. The documents he took detailed, in one way or another, the organization, procedures, or laws of the Church. Included in these materials was Oliver Cowdery’s 1829 Articles. Ironically, also among the manuscripts was a copy of the revelation in which Ryder’s name was misspelled. More than 125 years later, in 1958, Symonds Ryder’s descendants discovered these manuscript revelations tightly rolled up in a linen handkerchief inside the drawer of a dresser that had been in the Ryder family for many years. The family believes that Ryder himself hid these documents for unknown reasons and they remained untouched until being discovered in 1958. It was his great-great-granddaughter who unrolled the precious old documents and ﬂattened them in books. Two years later, the Ryder family, assisted by a Latter-day Saint family living in the community of Ravenna, Ohio, forwarded these priceless historical revelation documents to the Church historian in Salt Lake City.[272]

Using these “revelations” that have now been identified as having been written by Christian Whitmer, one can see that they are the same handwriting as the Cover Title for John’s OTMan3.

Another mystery that begs to be solved is when the document was photographed and cut from the larger page. Mackay, Dirkmatt and Jensen write,

“…a recent discovery has helped clarify the format and content of the original “Caractors” document and provides a more likely time frame for its creation. Sometime before early 1886, a photographer from Clay County, Missouri, Jacob T. Hicks, photographed the “Caractors” manuscript in David Whitmer’s possession. His photograph reveals that the currently extant portion of the document is only between one-fourth or one-third the size of the original document it was once attached to. …The 1886 image opens the possibility that the copies of the characters were written onto the document as a secondary thought and that the original document had a completely different purpose initially than to capture a copy of the characters.[273]

To support this theory that the document was photographed in 1886, they reference George Edward Anderson’s[274] diary entry for May 12, 1907, which contains an interview Anderson had with Julia Schweich, the daughter of David Whitmer.[275] The entry reads,

Mrs. Julia [Whitmer] Schweich says they promised her father [?], David Whitmer, a nice Book of Mormon. She would like to have it. “Considerable Thomas about me. I must see before I believe.”

“Oh, he never deviated from what he told us at first. What he taught us that high [blank?]. No one could harm my father. I could knock him down and drag out.”

Reporter called. She would not admit him. Shut the door in his face. Wrote an article saying David Whitmer died in his arms.

Jacob T. Hicks, Liberty, Missouri, Clay County, photographer, made picture when he, [David Whitmer], [was] 82 years old. “The day I am at my own table am eighty-two years old and can carve my own turkey.” [p. 33]

Mrs. Josephine [Helen Schweich] Van Cleave lives in Springfield, Illinois. Josie, her daughter, has the trunk the manuscript was kept in. Mrs. Van Cleave’s mother is a relative of Lew Wallace, who wrote Ben Hur.

Parties came to purchase the manuscript and said it would help Father Whitmer in his old age and his grandchildren and others. He said, “they could work for their living as he had. I have never wanted for bread.”

“Name your price.”

“Would I sell my soul?”

The characters that Martin Harris took to Professor Anthon of New York were with the manuscript.

Once, Father WHitmer had not looked at the manuscript for a long time, and when they opened the trunk, found it was mouldy. But on examining the manuscript, it was not mold. Tied with the same yarn strings for years.[276]

Mackay, Dirkmatt and Jensen seem to be unaware that David Whitmer sat for two portraits by Jacob Hicks, one in 1867 when he was mayor and the other probably between 1880 and 1882, as you can see below, and so the document could have been photographed anytime during that period, but was most certainly not photographed by Hicks after 1884.

Why? Because there are witnesses who, well before 1886, attest that the “Caractors” document was the same size when they examined it as it is today, about 3 1/4 inches by 8 inches.[277]

One witness was James H. Hart who wrote in 1884:

I was shown the reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics, that were copied from the plates by the Prophet Joseph, and taken by Martin Harris to Profesors Anthon and Mitchell, of New York City, in Febuary, 1828. They are written on unruled paper, about three and a half inches by seven, and fill up seven lines, making about thirty-five inches of writing. [278]

Another was a reporter for the Daily Missouri Republican who interviewed Whitmer in 1884 and wrote that,

Mr. Whitmer showed those present a specimen of the characters copied from the plates. It is on a piece of strong paper about four by eight inches, and covered with one hundred or more hieroglyphics and figures. [279]

So when was the document cut? My guess is shortly after David acquired it from his brother John after his death in July of 1878.[280] Remember, P. Wilhelm Poulson interviewed John and David just a few months prior to this, and wrote that,

John Whitmer was in possession of copies from the plates with the translation below, and showed that to me, and also of other valuable records.[281]

Then, when he asked David about the engravings on the gold plates, Poulson was told that,

They were characters. We copied some, and if you visit my brother John, one of the eight witnesses, who wrote for Joseph, John can show you some of the old manuscript which he borrowed from me. I must have it returned to me again, as it belongs to the Church, in connection with other records. [282]

Two things about these statements are striking. David doesn’t relate the later claim that the characters were the original paper that Martin Harris took to Professor Anthon. If there were more than one character document in possession of the Whitmers as some have speculated, why didn’t David show him his document? David instead tells Poulson that “we copied some” (of the characters), and links them with an “old manuscript”.

He then says that John could show him “some of the old manuscript”. What manuscript? Perhaps it was OTMan3, which had the copy of the characters David spoke of written on the wrapper. If Poulson saw that, he would have seen the phrase “The Book of the Generations of Adam” which he could have mistaken for a “translation below”, and which he may have concluded was continued in the short manuscript of less than 20 pages. David Whitmer had told others that just one character could generate a whole sentence or more of translation material,[283] and this may also have been related by Whitmer to Poulson.

The evidence does not bear out that this was David’s manuscript that he “loaned” to John. It was John’s manuscript, written in his own hand. It may be that John loaned the wrapper to David for a brief time and that David had Jacob Hicks take a photo of it when he posed for his portrait in 1867.

David then returned the wrapper to John, but still thought of it as his. It was quite the feather in his cap to have both the Original Manuscript to the Book of Mormon and the original transcript of the “Caractors” in his possession, and David stuck to this story for the rest of his life, even when faced with evidence from the Utah Mormons that this was incorrect, and knowing that his copy of the characters was not the original. It may have been the reason that the document was cut, to give David’s story more credibility. John may have also promised his papers to David, as the new head of the church (Church of Christ) they had established in 1876.



It is also possible that David had Hicks take a photo of the “Caractors” document sometime after 1878, when he posed for the second portrait. So why did David cut the document? I believe that it was to bolster his story that it was the original “Anthon Transcript”. Others believe that it was done to keep people (like Poulson) from thinking that the line below the characters was translated from them. [284]

But why cut the document when it would be very easy to just explain that they were not a translation of the characters? Perhaps because Whitmer had started telling others that he had the original “Anthon Transcript” and he did not want to change his story, or have others (like Joseph F. Smith and Orson Pratt did) claim that because it was only a copy, it was less valuable than an original.[285]

It certainly must have been frustrating to Whitmer to have the Utah Mormons come to Missouri, correct him, and then devalue his Printer’s Copy of the Book of Mormon manuscript as they did in 1878.

It may be of interest to note that Hicks took two photos of the “Caractors” Document.[286] Here is the other one:

It looks as if Hicks tried to focus on the characters themselves in this photo, (perhaps at the behest of David Whitmer) but still got some of the Manuscript Cover Title in the picture. This photo is centered better, but it is darker and some of the characters on the right edge are hard to see. It is impossible to know in what order the two photos were taken.

There is also the possibility that David actually believed that Joseph Smith had authored the “Caractor” portion of the document and that it was taken to Anthon, but if this is so, why did he tell Poulson that “we copied some of them”, and how could Whitmer reconcile his copy to the description that Anthon gave of the transcript shown to him by Martin Harris, of which David was well aware of and had quoted in his Address to All Believers In Christ?[287]

David Whitmer’s own knowledge about the “Anthon Incident” and his penchant for exaggeration discredit his later statements about the “Caractors” document and give credence to the theory that he cut the document to bolster those later statements.

CONCLUSION

Understanding the history behind the characters supposedly copied from the gold plates that Joseph Smith claimed to have found in the fall of 1827 has been difficult, but also of great importance to many.

This was well understood by Mark Hoffman who created his famous forgery of the “Anthon Transcript” in 1980. For almost two centuries historians have been trying to add pieces to the puzzle of historical accounts left behind; and discover more evidence that will bring answers to the many questions that still linger about the “Caractors” that Jospeh Smith claimed were “Reformed Egyptian” writing.

We now know that the document that was in the possession of John and David Whitmer was not the original transcript that was taken to Charles Anthon in 1828 by Martin Harris, but that it was a copy made by John and Christian Whitmer a few years later.

What we still don’t know is what happened to the original “Anthon Transcript”, or some of the other copies that are mentioned in various accounts during the lifetime of Joseph Smith, and how they relate to the reproductions produced after his death.

The Hicks Photos are important pieces of evidence that answer some of those questions; but as with other discoveries generate even more. Still, finds like this one give hope to future historians that answers can be found, and that more discoveries are still out there waiting to be uncovered by diligent researchers and students of Mormon History.

NOTES

[217] Online here, accessed August 30, 2013.



[218] Daily Missouri Republican, July 16, 1884. Online here, accessed August 30, 2013. In an interview with by her son in February, 1879, Emma Smith answered some questions about the Book of Mormon scribes,

Q. Who were scribes for father when translating the Book of Mormon?

A. Myself, Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and my brother, Reuben Hale.

Q. Was Alva Hale one?

A. I think not. He may have written some; but if he did, I do not remember it.… (Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, p. 541).

In another interview with the Chicago Times in November 1881 David Whitmer said,

“Christian Whitmer, his brother, occasionally assisted Cowdery in writing, as did Mrs. Joseph Smith, [Jr.], who was a Miss Hale before she was married.”

[219] History of the Church, 1:49.

[220] Dean C. Jessee, “The Original Book of Mormon Manuscript,” Brigham Young University Studies, 10:3, Spring 1970, page 276.

[221] Royal Skousen, “The Original and Printer’s Manuscripts” (Book of Lecture, 1 of 3), The Maxwell Institute YouTube Page, published on July 17, 2013. Online here, accessed August 20, 2013.

[222] Moses 6:8

[223] H. Michael Marquardt, “John Whitmer and the Revelations of Joseph Smith”, Web Version © 2009 by H. Michael Marquardt, Online here, accessed August 20, 2013.

[224] ibid, note 11.

[225] Kent P. Jackson, “The Sword of My Indignation”: John Whitmer’s Genesis Manuscript and 1861 Revelation, Mormon Historical Studies, Spring 2008, page 119. Online here, (PDF), accessed August 30, 2013.

[226] Revelation Book 1, page 11, Online here, accessed August 30, 2013.

[227] For more on the spelling issue and its possible ramifications about who may have authored the document, see note #259.

[228] Dan Vogel brought this to my attention during our email discussions about the document last summer, which was pointed out to him by Brent Metcalfe. He wrote,

Those are called wipe erasures and are done while the ink is still wet. Note that one of them is an erasure of a repeated character. These tend to show that the document was visually copied from another document. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t JS copying his own material. It may be because of these erasures that the document was discarded and restarted and when complete included the circle. Although Anthon says the characters were arranged in columns, he adds that the “whole ended” with the circle. (Email, July 7, 2013)

Note: at this time we were discussing possible scenarios for the authorship of the document before all of the handwriting samples were analyzed; therefore it doesn’t mean that Dan thinks that Joseph authored the document.

[229] See “The ‘Caractors’ Document: New Light on an Early Transcription of the Book of Mormon Characters, by Michael Hubbard MacKay, Gerrit J. Dirkmatt, and Robin Scott Jensen, Mormon Historical Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, Spring 2013, pp. 140-141.

[230] “Gold Bible No. 6”, The Reflector, Palmyra, New York, March 19, 1831.

[231] Gleanings by the Way, p. 227.

[232] There is an amazing amount of historical documents that were kept, copied and saved by the efforts of Joseph Smith and those that he put in charge of Church records during his time. Smith himself developed a theology which made the saving of documents imperative, (See D&C 127), and Joseph had always stressed the importance of writing down the minutes of meetings as he explained to the Kirtland High Council in 1835:

Here is another important idea. If you assemble from time to time, and proceed to discuss important questions, and pass decisions upon the same, and fail to note them down, by & by you will be driven to straits, from which you will not be able to extricate yourselves because you may be in a situation not to bring your faith to bear with sufficient perfection or power to obtain the desired information, or perhaps, for neglecting to write these things, when God revealed them, not esteeming them of sufficient worth the Spirit may withdraw and God may be angry, and here is or was a vast knowledge of infinite importance, which is now lost. What was the cause of this? It came in consequence of Slothfulness, or a neglect to appoint a man to occupy a few moments in writing all these decisions. Here let me prophesy. The time will come, when, if you neglect to do this thing, you will fall by the hands of unrighteous men. Were you to be brought before the authorities, and, be accused of any crime or misdemeanor, and be as innocent as the angels of God, unless you can prove yourselves to have been somewhere else, your enemies will prevail over you, but if you can bring twelve men to testify that you were in a certain place at that time, you will escape their hands. Now, if you will be careful to keep minutes of these things, as I have said, it will be one of the most important records ever seen for every such decision will, ever after remain as items of doctrine and covenants. I have now placed before you these items, for your consideration, and you are left to act according to your own judgments. The council then expressed their approbation, concerning the foregoing remarks of President Smith, and proceeded to appoint Elders, Orson Hyde & Wm. E. McLelin, to serve as clerks for the meeting. (Kirtland Council Minute Book, February 27, 1835)

Still, Joseph was not above having church records destroyed, as William Clayton records in a diary entry from June of 1844:

Joseph whispered and told me either to put the r[ecords] of K[ingdom] into the hands of some faithful man and send them away, or burn them, or bury them. I concluded to bury them, which I did immediately on my return home. (George D. Smith, An Intimate Chronicle; The Journals of William Clayton, p.135, June 22, 1844).

The next day, Clayton recorded that “ I went to Joseph and got all the public and private records together and buried them.” (ibid, June 23, 1844).

Concerning the Book of Mormon Original Manuscript, Ebeneezer Robinson would later write that,

The foundation [of the Nauvoo House] was prepared, and the ceremony of laying the corner stone was attended to on the 2nd day of October, 1841. One thing transpired on that occasion worthy of note.

After the brethren had assembled at the southeast corner of the foundation, where the corner stone was to be laid, President Joseph Smith said: ‘Wait, brethren, I have a document I wish to put in that stone,’ and started for his house, which was only a few rods away, across Main Street. I went with him to the house, and also one or two other brethren. He got a manuscript copy of the Book of Mormon, and brought it into the room where we were standing, and said: “I will examine to see if it is all here,” and as he did so I stood near him, at his left side, and saw distinctly the writing, as he turned up the pages until he hastily went through the book and satisfied himself that it was all there, when he said: “I have [had] trouble enough with this thing,” which remark struck me with amasement, as I looked upon it as a sacred treasure.

It was written on foolscap paper, and formed a package, as the sheets lay flat, of about two or two and a half inches thick, I should judge. It was written mostly in Oliver Cowdery’s handwriting, with which I was intimately acquainted, having set many pages of type from his handwriting, in the church printing office at Kirtland, Ohio. Some parts of it were written in other handwriting.

He took the manuscript and deposited it in the corner stone of the Nauvoo House, together with other papers and things, including different pieces of United States’ coin. I put in some copies of the Times and Seasons; all were carefully encased in sheet lead to protect the contents from moisture, and a stone had been cut to closely fit into the cavity which had been made in the corner stone to receive these things, which stone was fitted in its place and cemented, when it was thought the papers and other articles would be preserved without decay or injury for ages, if not disturbed.

From this circumstance we know there must have been at least two manuscript copies of the Book of Mormon, which necesssarily must have been the case, as the printer who printed the first edition of the book had to have a copy, as they would not put the original copy into his hands for fear of it being altered. This accounts for David Whitmer having a copy and Joseph Smith having one. They were both mostly written in Oliver Cowdery’s hand writing, as I have seen both. He was scribe for Joseph most of the time he was translating the Book of Mormon. (Ebeneezer Robinson, The Return, Vol. 2, No. 8, August, 1890, pp. 314-315, online here, accessed August 20, 2013, bolded italics mine).

Dean Jessee in his article “The Original Book of Mormon Manuscript” for some reason does not quote Robinson in full, but leaves off before Joseph’s statement that he had “had enough trouble” with the manuscript. He does quote Warren Foote who wrote in his diary that,

“I was standing very near the cornerstone, when Joseph Smith came up with the manuscript of the Book of Mormon and said he wanted to put that in there, as he had had trouble enough with it. It was the size of common foolscap paper, and about three inches thick.” (Dean C. Jessee, “The Original Book of Mormon Manuscript”, B. Y. U. Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3, 1970, pg. 4. Online here, accessed August 20, 2013.)

In his footnote to the Foote citation Jessee writes,

This statement agrees with that of John Brown, who also witnessed the proceedings. He quoted Joseph Smith as saying: “I have had a great deal of trouble to preserve it. I now deliver it up to the Lord and will not have the care of it any longer.” (ibid, pg. 14)

Unfortunately, these two statements do not agree, for Foote and Robinson say nothing about Joseph having trouble preserving the manuscript or that he wanted to “deliver it up to the Lord”. Brown’s statement was written in a letter to John Taylor on December 20, 1879 and seems to want to interpret the event in a different, or more faith promoting light. If Joseph had actually placed the manuscript in the cornerstone of the Nauvoo house with the intention of simply “delivering it up to the Lord” to preserve it, Ebeneezer Robinson’s account surely would have reflected this, as would Warren Foote’s journal entry for that date. One also wonders why Joseph could not have simply given it to an angel to “preserve”, as he claimed to have done with the gold plates. (See, Joseph Fielding Smith, Essentials In Church History, p. 68).

[233] See Note #92.

[234] Orasmus Turner, History of Pioneer Settlement of Phelps And Gorham’s Purchase, 1849, page 215.

[235]“Cracking the Muisca Calendar”, online here, accessed, August 25, 2013.

See also, Manuel Arturo Izquierdo Pe~na, “The Muisca Calendar: An approximation to the timekeeping system of the ancient native people of the northeastern Andes of Colombia,” Dissertation presented to the Departament d’Anthropologie, Faculte des etudes superierures, Universite de Montreal, as prerequisite to obtain the diploma of Maitre es Sciences en Anthropologie, v. 3, 2008. Online here, accessed August 25, 2013.

[236] ibid, pp. 28-29. These are the Hieroglyphs given in Humboldt’s Researches Concerning The Institutions & Monuments of The Ancient Inhabitants of America, published in 1814.

[237] Times and Seasons 3, no. 16, June 15, 1842, 818–20, See also, “An Analysis of Joseph Smith’s Statements Associated with the Origins of the Aztecs in the Country of Aztlan”, by Ted Dee Stoddard, Online here, accessed, August 25, 2013.

[238] D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, Chapter 4. An excerpt from this book may be found here, accessed, August 30, 2013.

[239] ibid, p.97.

[240] ibid. The page taken from “The Discoverie of Witchcraft” by Reginald Scot, first published in 1584 may be found here. Part of the ritual for conjuring the dead reads,

“And about eleven a clocke in the night, go to the place where he was buried, and saie with a bold faith & hartie desire, to have the spirit come and thou doost call for, thy fellow having a candle in his left hand, and in his right hand a CHRISTALL STONE, and saie these words following

…

And I will sweare to thee an o[a]th, by the perill of my soule, that if thou wilt come to me, and appeare to me this night, AND SHEW ME TRUE VISIONS IN THIS CHRISTALL STONE, …

[241] Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, Vol. I, pg. 352. See Note 64. Vogel writes,

Lucy Harris (?-c. 1841), oldest daughter of Martin and Lucy Harris, was evidently born in Palmyra, New York. She married Flanders Dyke, probably in the late 1820s. She had seven children (Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine 26 [July 1935]: 108).

According to Lavina Fielding Anderson, Dyke was reported to have died in the Civil War. (Lucy’s Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith’s family memoir, Signature Books, 2001, pg. 814.)

[242] See Note #53.

[243] There are four possible instances of the dash like character that appear in the first four lines, but they all appear to be part of another character (except perhaps No. 2), not “stand alone” characters. I include them here for study.

[244] See Note #212.

[245] See Note #259. Stanley B. Kimball wrote in 1970:

One interesting, and possibly very meaningful, detail about the RLDS transcript is the word “Charactors” written across the top. Four students of early Church history, R.D. Webb, Ariel Crowley, Dean Jessee of the LDS Church Historian’s Office, and the anti-Mormon writer, I. Woodbridge Riley, think that this word is in the hand of Joseph Smith. If so, the authenticity of the RLDS transcript would be strengthened greatly. (Stanley B. Kimball, “The Anthon Transcript: People, Primary Sources, and Problems,” B.Y.U. Studies, Vol. 10, No. 3, Spring, 1970, p. 349).

[246] See Note #221.

[247] The Geneva Gazette, March 9, 1825.

Anne [Anna] Schott was probably born at Fayette, Seneca, New York about 1804. She was the daughter of Frederick Schott and his wife Anne. They had moved from the vicinity of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania in 1802 to Fayette. Anne married Christian Whitmer on 22 Feb 1825 in Seneca County. Anne was baptized on 11 Apr 1830 at Seneca Lake by Oliver Cowdery, along with her husband. Moved to Ohio and then Missouri in 1831, settling in Jackson County. From there the couple moved to Clay County where Anne’s husband died 27 Nov 1835. After this Anne returned to New York to live with her parents. She married Francis Hulett, but later divorced him. She died in Seneca County, New York. There is no indication in any records of any children being born to Anne and Christian. (Lyman D. Platt, “Members of th Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints baptized by September 26, 1830,” (PDF) p. 23, Online here, accessed August 20, 2013.

At the time of Christian Whitmer’s marriage, he was spelling his name “Witmer” without the “h”. I am grateful to Brent Metcalfe who informed me that he has seen the signature of Christian’s grandfather and that he also spelled his last name without the “h”. I discovered the marriage notice of Christian and Anna Witmer while doing research for this article.

[248] Frederick Schott (1766-1858) was married to Anna Rathfon, (1752-1853) and had 7 children, Mary Esther, Anna, Elizabeth, Edwin, Sally, Vincent, and Daniel who was born in 1799 and died the same year as John Whitmer, in 1878. He joined the Seneca County Grenadiers in 1825 and became a Justice of the Peace in 1829. (See the Geneva Mercantile Advertiser, Dec. 9, 1829)

[249] The Seneca Farmer, March 23, 1825.

[250] “Report of Elders Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith, Millennial Star 40 (9 Dec 1878):771-7.

[251] Kansas City Daily Journal, June 5, 1881.

[252] Juvenile Instructor 19 (1884):107

[253] Chicago Tribune, 15 Dec 1885.

[254] David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, p.33.

[255] Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents Vol. 1, p. 99.

[256] Hiram Page was,

Born in the state of Vermont in 1800, little has been Iearned of his earlier life. He became a physician, traveling through New York and Canada before locating in Seneca County, New York. Here he married Katherine Whitmer 10 Nov 1825. He became one of the Eight Witnesses to the Book of Mormon. He and his wife were baptized by Oliver Cowdery at Seneca Lake on 11 Apr 1830. They moved to Kirtland in 1831 and to Jackson County, Missouri in 1832. During the persecutions in Jackson County, Hiram was brutally whipped by the mob. In 1836 he was one of the settlers at Far West. In 1838 he left the church and moved to Ray County. He died near the present site of Exelsior Springs, some fourteen miles northwest of Richmond, 12 Aug 1852. He and Katherine were the parents of nine children. (Platt, op. cited, p. 22-23)

Michael Quinn writes,

The Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon were also involved in folk magic. Oliver Cowdery was a rodsman before he met Smith in 1829 and was soon authorized by divine revelation to continue the revelatory use of his “rod of nature.” David Whitmer revered Smith’s use of a seer stone, may have possessed one of his own, and authorized a later spokesman for his own religious organization to obtain revelations through a stone (figs. 11-12). Martin Harris endorsed Smith’s use of a seer stone for divination and treasure seeking, and participated in treasure digging himself after the discovery of the gold plates. Of the remaining Eight Witnesses, John Whitmer possessed a seer stone which his descendants preserved (fig. 13), his brothers Christian, Jacob, and Peter were included in their pastor’s accusation of magic belief, and Hiram Page, their brother-in-law, had a stone for revelations.

The influence of magic was equally pervasive among the twelve men [p.195] who comprised the first quorum of apostles in 1835. As will be seen, almost half of the first apostles—Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Orson Hyde, Luke S. Johnson, and Orson Pratt—gave specific evidence of a belief in various magical practices, while William Smith, Parley P. Pratt, and Lyman E. Johnson may have shared the views that their brothers expressed and implemented. Thus, at least two-thirds of Mormonism’s first apostles may have had some affinity for magic. (D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, pp. 194-195).

Page’s continued use of his stone created a problem for Joseph in September 1830 when Page claimed that he was receiving “revelations” about Zion and other matters concerning the new church. In 1864, George A. Smith recounted that,

When the Church was organized, persons came into it bringing along some of these enthusiastic notions individuals who professed to have revelations on every subject, and who were ready to banish every moral principle under the guidance of false spirits. Joseph the Prophet had also to learn by experience, and to teach the Elders and the early members of the Church, how they should judge of the manifestation of spirits. (Book of Doctrine and Covenants, Sec. 17, Par. 7.)

“Wherefore it shall come to pass, that if you behold a spirit manifested that you cannot understand, and you receive not that spirit, ye shall ask of the Father in the name of Jesus, and if he give not unto you that spirit, that you may know that it is not of God: and it shall be given unto you power over that spirit, and you shall proclaim against that spirit with a loud voice, that it is not of God; not with railing accusation, that ye be not overcome; neither with boasting, nor rejoicing, lest you be seized therewith,” and refers to Hiram Page who began to get revelations through the medium of a black stone, certain characters appearing on that stone which he wrote down.

Joseph Smith in his history wrote thus:

“To our great grief, however, we soon found that Satan had been lying in wait to deceive, and seeking whom he might devour. Brother Hyrum Page had got in his possession a certain stone, by which he had obtained revelations concerning the up-building of Zion, the order of the Church, &c., &c., all of which were entirely at variance with the order of God’s house, as laid down in the New Testament, as well as our late revelations. As a Conference had been appointed for the first day of September, I thought it wisdom not to do much more than to converse with the brethren on the subject, until the Conference should meet. Finding, however, that many, especially the Whitmer family and Oliver Cowdery, were believing much in the things set forth by this stone, we thought best to inquire of the Lord concerning so important a matter; and before Conference convened, we received the revelation to Oliver Cowdery given at Fayette, New York, September, 1830, in the 4th paragraph of which the Lord says:[p.3] “And again, thou shalt take thy brother, Hyrum Page, between him and thee alone, and tell him that those things which he hath written from that stone are not of me, and that Satan deceived him; for, behold, these things have not been appointed unto him, neither shall anything be appointed unto any of this Church contrary to the Church covenants, for all things must be done in order, and by common consent in the Church, by the prayer of faith.”

Joseph’s history continues:

“At length our Conference assembled. The subject of the stone previously mentioned, was discussed, and after considerable investigation, brother Page, as well as the whole Church who were present, renounced the said stone, and all things connected therewith, much to our mutual satisfaction and happiness.” (Journal of Discourses Vol. 11, p.3, November 15, 1864).

Emer Harris brother of Martin Harris, would later recount that,

…the Apostle said we have to fight against principalities and powers in high places. Bro. Hiram Page dug out of the earth a black stone [and] put it in his pocket. When he got home, he looked at it. It contained a sentence on paper to befit it. As soon as he wrote one sentence, another sentence came on the stone, until he wrote 16 pages. Bro. Joseph was told of the fact. One person asked Joseph if it is right. He said he did not know, but he prayed and got revelation that the stone was of the devil. Then it was broke to powder and the writings burnt. It was a work of the power of darkness. Amen.” (Emer Harris statement, 6 Apr. 1856, Utah Stake general minutes, archives, Historical Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah).

Quinn writes that,

In this instance, Smith’s move away from instruments of folk magic as church president contributed to the apostasy of early Mormon folk believers. Members of the Whitmer family were so devoted to the importance of seer stones that David Whitmer, John Whitmer, and Hiram Page later dated the beginning of ,their own disenchantment with Mormonism at the time when Joseph Smith stopped using the seer stone as an instrument of revelation. (D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, p.201).

For more on Page’s stone see “Hiram Page’s Seer Stone and Checking Your Sources,” found here, accessed August 20, 2013.

[257] Dan Vogel, Early Mormon Documents Vol. I, p. 129, see also Times and Seasons, Vol.4, No.7, p.109, which account reads,

Shortly after we had received the above revelations, Oliver Cowdery returned to Mr. Whitmer’s, and I began to arrange and copy the revelations which we had received from time to time; in which I was assisted by John Whitmer, who now resided with me. Whilst thus (and otherwise at intervals) employed in the work appointed me, by my heavenly father, I received a letter from Oliver Cowdery, the contents of which gave me both sorrow and uneasiness. Not having that letter now in my possession, I cannot, of course, give it here in full, but merely an extract of the most prominent parts, which I can yet, and expect long to remember. He wrote to inform me that he had discovered an error in one of the commandments: Book of Doctrine and Covenants, Sect. 2d, page 7th-“And truly manifested by their works that they have received of the Spirit of Christ unto the remission of sins.” The above quotation, he said, was erroneous, and added, I command you in the name of God to erase these words, that no priestcraft be amongst us!! I immediately wrote to him in reply, in which I asked him by what authority he took upon him to command me to alter or erase, to add or diminish to or from a revelation or commandment from Almighty God. In a few days afterwards I visited him and Mr. Whitmer’s family, were I found the family, in general, of his opinion concerning the words above quoted; and it was not without both labor and perseverence that I could prevail with any of them to reason calmly on the subject. However Christian Whitmer at length got convinced that it was reasonable, and according to Scripture, and, finally, with his assistance, I succeded in bringing, not only the Whitmer family, but also Oliver Cowdery, to acknowledge they had been in error, and that the sentence in dispute was in accordance with the rest of the commandments. And thus was their error rooted out, which having its rise in presumption and rash judgment, was the more particularly calculated (when once fairly understood) to teach each and all of us the necessity of humility and meekness before the Lord, that he might teach us of his ways, that we might walk in his paths, and live by every word that proceedeth forth from his mouth.

In an interview given in 1881 David Whitmer related that “The first good suit of clothes he [Joseph Smith, Jr.] had ever worn was presented to him by (my brother) Christian Whitmer.” (“David Whitmer Interviewed,” Saints’ Herald, November 15, 1881, 347.)

It may also be of interest that in 1829 Solomon Chamberlain published A Sketch of the Experience of Solomon Chamberlin, and mentioned that he had stopped in Palmyra and visited the Smith Farm where he met Christian Whitmer and Hyrum Smith:

I soon arrived at the [Smith] house, and found Hyrum walking the floor; as I entered the room, I said peace be to this house; he looked at me and said “I hope it will be peace.” I then said is there any one here that believes in visions and revelations. He [Hyrum] said yes, we are a visionary house. I then said I will give you one of my pamphlets, (which was visionary and of my own composition). . . .

* * *

They then called the people together, which consisted of five or six men who were out at the door. Father Smith was one and some of the Whitmer’s. They then sat down and read my pamphlet. Hyrum read first, but was so affected he could not read it, He then gave it to a man, which I learned was Christian Whitmer, he finished reading it. I then opened my mouth and began to preach to them, in the words that the angel had made known to me in the vision, that all Churches and Denominations on the earth had become corrupt, and [that] no Church of God [was] on earth but that he would shortly raise up a Church, that would never be confounded nor brought down and be like unto the Apostolic Church. They wondered greatly who had been telling me these things, for said they we have the same things wrote down in our house, taken from the Gold record, that you are preaching to us. (Marquardt & Walters, Inventing Mormonism, Ch.6, p.129).

This incident would probably have made a strong impression on Christian Whitmer and may have helped him overcome any doubts raised about Joseph Smith by others.

But Smith was to have further problems and challenges to his desire to be the president and spokesman for the Church. A year before the Church was organized, Joseph penned a “revelation” to Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer and Martin Harris which stated that they should not go “beyond things which are written; for in them are all things written, concerning my church, my gospel, and my rock,” and that they “had received the same power, the same faith, and the same gift like unto him [Joseph Smith].” (Book of Commandments, Chapter XV:1,3, History of the Church, Vol. I., p. 53)

David Whitmer later wrote that,

I was present when Brother Joseph received it [the above “revelation”] through the stone. It is Chapter 15 Book of Commandments, Sec. 16 Doctrine and Convenants. In the Book of Commandments it reads thus:

“Behold I give unto you a commandment, that you rely upon the things which are written; for in them are all things written, concerning my church, my gospel, and my rock. Wherefore if you shall build up my church, and my gospel, and my rock, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you.”

But in the Book of Doctrine and Convenants it has been changed and reads thus: “Behold I give unto you a commandment, that you rely “upon the things which are written; for in them are all things written, concerning `the foundation of’ my church, my gospel, and my rock; wherefore, if you shall build up my church `upon the foundation of’ my gospel and my rock, the gates of hell shall not prevail against you.”

The change in this revelation is of great importance; the word “them” refers to the plates–the Book of Mormon: We were commanded to rely upon it in building up the church; that is, in establishing the doctrine, the order of offices, etc.: “FOR IN THEM ARE ALL THINGS WRITTEN CONCERNING MY CHURCH, my gospel, and my rock.” But this revelation has been changed by man to mean as follows: That therein is not all things written concerning the church, but only all things concerning “the foundation of” the church–or the beginning of the church: that you must build up the church, beginning according to the written word, and add new offices, new ordinances, and new doctrines as I (the Lord) reveal them to you from year to year: As a Seer to the Church; High Priests; Three of the First Presidency; Baptism for the Dead; Polygamy, etc., etc. When the Book of Doctrine and Convenants was compiled in 1834, the church had then received many revelations to establish new offices and doctrines that are not even mentioned in the New Convenant of either of the two sacred books. They changed this revelation in order to sustain these new doctrines: If they had not made this change, the plain language of the original revelation would have condemned the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. I want to repeat that I was present when Brother Joseph received this revelation through the stone: I am one of the persons to whom it was given, therefore I know of a surety that it was changed when printed in the Doctrine and Convenants in 1834. Likewise concerning all these changes of which I will speak, I know that these changes were made. I was present when nearly all the early revelations were received. There are several of the old Books of Commandments yet in the land; bring them to light and see for yourselves that these revelations were changed just as I tell you.

These changes were made by the leaders of the church, who had drifted into error and spiritual blindness. Through the influence of Sydney Rigdon, Brother Joseph was led on and on into receiving revelations every year, to establish offices and doctrines which are not even mentioned in the teachings of Christ in the written word. In a few years they had gone away ahead of the written word, so that they had to change these revelations, as you will understand when I have finished. (David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, p.58-59).

[258] The Latter-day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate, Vol.2, No.3, December, 1835, p.240.

[259] Brent and Erin Metcalfe have discovered another signature of Christian Whitmer from a petition that he signed in 1834, which Brent assure me “exhibits an evolution in style that even more closely resembles” the “Caractors” ms. and Scribe 3 in the Book of Mormon Original Manuscript and other documents. Since I have not seen this discovery, I can’t make any kind of determination about it, other than to give some evidence of what I feel may bolster the fact that Christian may have written the word “Caractors” in addition to the Cover Title. One strong reason that bolsters Brent and Erin’s conclusion (without their additional discovery) is that Christian Whitmer was a notorious bad speller. Below are some examples, (and this is only from four pages of material and it isn’t all of them):

The reason I bring this up, is that I feel it is a weak spot in my analysis. John Whitmer also had misspellings, but not near as many as Christian Whitmer did. When Joseph Smith initially misspelled the word characters in his 1832 Summer History, he did not do so with an “o” in it. He merely left out the “h”. Now, it is possible that by 1832 his spelling had improved, and that he may have had problems misspelling the word. But this is not definitive proof, and my conclusion that it is John Whitmer who wrote the word “Caractors” depends on him copying a misspelling, which even I have problems with, given that John corrected Christians rendering of the Cover Title (JST 185).

But the handwriting analysis to me, still weighs in the favor of John Whitmer for the word “Caractors” and Christian Whitmer for the Cover Title.

[260] Mormon Historical Studies, Vol. 14, No. 1, Spring 2013, p. 138.

[261] ibid.

[262] ibid, p. 144.

[263] I would like to thank Don Bradley for his help with this, and his encouragement and interest in this project.

[264] See Note #259.

[265] Even though I have great confidence in Brent and Erin Metcalfe’s research and conclusions, I am still troubled by the obvious differences in those style characteristics. The word “Caractors” and the fact that it is misspelled seem to point towards Christian Whitmer, yet the style of writing seems to point to his brother John. One possible explanation may be that there was an original document with that spelling on it penned by Joseph Smith himself, and John Whitmer wanted to preserve the original as it was written (which I’m not entirely convinced of, but have no better explanation at this time).

If Christian penned the entire “Caractors” document, why would John not have his brother write it out first and spell check it (if he did not want to preserve an original spelling of the word that way), when he went to the trouble to do so with the Cover Title? If the whole document was indeed penned by Christian Whitmer at the same time, then why is the word “Caractors” not included with the Cover Title on JST185?

[266] The identification of D&C 38 was related by H. Michael Marquardt to Dan Vogel, who gave me this information in an Email on July 22, 2013.

[267] For more on Edward Partridge, see D. Brent Collette, “In Search of Zion: A Description of Early Mormon Millennial Utopianism as Revealed Through the Life of Edward Partridge.” M.A., Brigham Young University, 1977, Online here, accessed August 20, 2013.

[268] Thomas G. Alexander writes,

In August 1831 Joseph Smith and a group of Mormon converts originally from Colesville, New York, met near Independence, Jackson County, Missouri, to lay the foundation for an American Zion. Designated as a place of refuge where church members could escape the tribulations preceding Jesus Christ’s second coming, Jackson County was to be the location of a communitarian enterprise called The Law of Consecration and Stewardship or the United Order of Enoch and as a site for a temple for the most sacred rites associated with Mormon worship. (Thomas G. Alexander, Things in Heaven and Earth, The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff, a Mormon Prophet, p.26).

The Smith family was to be immortalized and instrumental in bringing this to pass, as a portion of a blessing by Church Patriarch John Smith to his son George A. Smith emphasizes, according to Irene Bates and E. Gary Smith:

In a blessing to his eldest son, George A., on September 20, 1853, he promised that “all the inhabitants of the earth shall know that the Lord did choose the Smith family to build up Zion & did by them lay the foundation of this Church which shall never be overthrown neither shall the name of the Smith family be blotted out under Heaven.” (Irene M. Bates, E. Gary Smith, Lost Legacy: The Mormon Office of Presiding Patriarch, p.117).

Concerning the events that took place in Jackson County Missouri in August 1831, John Whitmer wrote,

I hereby give a copy of the proceedings of the laying of the first logs of the City of Zion. As written by Oliver Cowdery. “After many struggles and afflictions, being persecuted by our enemies, we received inteligence by letter from our brethren, who were at the East. That br[others] Joseph and Sidney, and many others elders, were commanded to take their journey to this land, the Land of Missouri. Which was promised unto us should be the land of the inheritance of the Saints, and the place of the gathering in these last days. Which inteligenc cheered our hearts, and caused us to rejoice exceedingly. And by the special direction protection of the Lord, br Joseph Smith Jr. and Sidney Rigdon, in company with eight other elders, with the church from Colesville New York, consisting of about sixty souls, arivd in the month of July and by Revelation the place was made known where the Temple shall stand, and the City should commence. And by commandment twelve of us assembled ourselves together Viz. Elder Joseph Smith Jr. the Seer, Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, Newel Knight,4 William W. Phelps, and Ezra Booth who denied the faith.

On the second day of August 1831, Brother Sidny [p. 32] Rigdon stood up and asked saying: Do you receive this land for the land of your inheritance with thankful hearts from the Lord? answer from all we do, Do you pledge yourselves to keep the laws of God on this land, which you have never have kept in your own land? We do. Do you pledge yourselves to see that others of your brethren, who shall come hither do keep the laws of God? We do. After prayer he arose and said, I now pronounce this land consecrated and dedicated to the Lord for a possession and inheritance for the Saints, (in the name of Jesus Christ having authority from him.) And for all the faithful Servants of the Lord to the rimotest ages of time Amen.

The day following eight Elders viz. Joseph Smith Jr., Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, Peter Whitmer Jr., Frederick G. Williams,6 Wm. W. Phelps, Martin Harris, and Joseph Coe. assembled together where the temple is to be erected. Sidney Rigdon dedicated the ground where the city is to Stand: and Joseph Smith Jr. laid a stone at the North east corner of the contemplated Temple in the name of the Lord Jesus of Nazareth. After all present had rendered thanks to the great ruler of the universe. Sidney Rigdon pronounced this Spot of ground wholy dedicated unto the Lord forever: Amen.

Some of the Elders who travelled to the land of Missouri and preached by the way tarried here in this land, among whom is the Bishop E[dward] Partridge[,] Isaac Morley[,] and John Corrill. Some were sick on their way to this land but all were restored to health[.] among those who were sick was John Murdock Parley P. Pratt and Thomas B. Marsh—They all tarried until after they attended a conference in this land. They have since all gone to preach [p. 33] the gospel and call sinners to repentance.

There were some churches built by the way as they journeyed to this land (Mo.) and the people were warned of the danger they were in, if they did not repent.

And now when the Elders had returned to their homes in Ohio,9 the churches needed much exortation in the absence of the Elders[.] many apostitized: but many have returned again to from the fold from whence they have strayed—And many mighty miracles were wrought by the Elders—one in particular which I shall here notice—which was wrought by Elders Emer10 Harris Joseph Bracke[r]berry11 and Wheeler Baldwin.12 [This] Is [an incident regarding] an infirmity in an old lady who had been helpless for the space of eight years confined to her bed. she did not belong to this church but sent her request to the Elders who immediately attended to her call, and after their arrival praid [prayed] for her and laid their hands on her, and she was immediately made whole and magnified and praised God. and is now enjoying perfect health[.]

And thus the churches again prospered and the work of the Lord spread[.]

Shortly after Joseph Smith Jr[,] Oliver Cowdery[,] and Sidney Rigdon Returned [to Ohio] Sidney wrote a discription and an epistle according to commandment.13 And Oliver Cowdery and Newel K. Whitney14—were commanded to go and visit the churches speedily—as you will see by reading the Revelation given August thirty at Kirtland15— The following is a copy of the Epistle written by S. Rigdons own hand.

I sidney a servant of Jesus Christ by the will of God the Father and through the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ unto the Saints who are scattered abroad in the last days, may grace [p. 34] mer[c]y and peace, rest upon you from God the father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who is greatly to be feared, among his saints and to be had in reverance of all them who obey him.

Beloved brethren,

It has pleased God even the Father to make known unto us m these last days, the good pleasure of his will concerning his Saints; and to make known unto us, the things which he has decreed upon the nations even wasting and destruction until they are utterly destroyed, and the earth made desolate by reason of the wickedness of its inhabitants according as he has made known in times past by prophits and apostles, that such calamities should befall the inhabitants of the earth in the last days, unless they should repent and turn to the living God. And as the time is now near at hand, for the accomplishment of his purposes and the fulfilment of his prophesies, which have been spoken by all the holy prophets, ever since the world began, he has sent and signified, unto us by the mouths of his holy prophets, that. he has raised up in these last days—the speedy accomplishment of his accomplish ment purposes which shall be accomplished, on the heads of the rebellious of this generation—among whom he has been pleased in much mercy and goodness, to send forth the fulness of his gospel in order that [p.89] they might repent and turn to the living God, and be made partakers of his Holy Spirit[.]

But by reason of their wickedness and rebellion against him and wicked and unbelieving hearts the Lord withdrew his spirit from them, and gives them up to work all uncleanness with greediness, and to bring swift destruction on themselves—[p. 35] and through their wickedness to hasten the day of their calamity, that they may be left without excuse in the day of vengeance.

But it has pleased our heavenly Father to make known some better things, concerning his Saints and those who serve him in f[e]ar and rejoice in meekness, before him, even things which pertain to life everlasting, for godliness has the life promise of the life, that now is, and that which is to come; Even so it has pleased our heavenly Father to make provisions for his saints in these last days of tribulation that they through faith and patience, and by continuing in well doing may preserve their lives; and attain unto rest and endless felicity—but by no other means, than that of a strict observance of his commandments and teachings in all things as there is and can be no ruler nor lawgiver in the Kingdom of God save it be God our Saviour himself—and before him he requires that all his saints & those who have named the name of Jesus, should be carful to depart from iniquity—and serve him with fe[a]r and rejoicing and trembling least he be angry and they perish from their way.

According to the prediction of the ancient profits that the Lord would send his messengers in the last days, and gather his elect. (which is the elect according to the covenant, viz. those who like Abraham are faithful to God and the word of his Grace.) from the four winds even from one end of the earth to the other as testified of by the Savior himself—so in these last days he has commenced to gather together, into a place provided before of God and had in reserve in days of old, being kept by the power and providence of of God, for this purpose and which he now holds in his own hands, that they through faith, and patience may inherit the blessings promises—A land which God by his own [p. 36] commandment has consecrated to him self where he has said, that his laws shall be kept, and where his saints can dwell in safety, through their perseverance in well doing and their unfeigned repentance of all their sins, our heavenly Father has provided this land himself because it was the one which was [best] adapted, for his children, where Jew and Gentile might dwell together: for God has the same respect to all those who call upon him in truth and righteousness whether they be Jew or Gentile; for there is no respect of persons with him.

This land being situated in the center of the continent on which we dwell with an exceeding fertile soil and ready cleared for the hand of the cultivator bespeaks the goodness of our God, in providing so goodly a heritage, and its climate suited [to] persons from every quarter of this continent. wither East West North or South yea I think I may say, for all constitutions from every part of the world and its productions nearly all varieties of both grain and vegitables which are common in this country together with all means, [for] clothing: in addition to this it abounds with fountains of pure water[,] the soil climate and surface all adapted to health[.] indeed I may say that the whole properties of the country invite the Saints to come and partake their blessings[.] but what more need I say about a country. which our Heavenly Father holds in his own hands[,] for if it were unhealthy he could make it healthy and if barren he could make it fruitful. Such is the land which God has provided for us, in these last days for an inheritance, and truly it is a goodly land, and none other as well suited for all the saints as this and all those who have faith and confidence in God who has ever seen this land will bear the same testimony. In order that you may understand the will of God respecting this land and the way and means [p. 37] of possessing it, I can only refer you to commandments which the Lord has delivered by the mouth of his Prophet which will be read, to you, by our brethren Oliver Cowdry and Newel K. Whitney whom the Lord has appointed, to visit the churches and obtain means for purchasing this land of our inheritance that we may escape in the day of tribulation which is coming on the earth. I conclude by exhorting you to hear the voice of the Lord your God, who is speaking to you in much mercy and who is sending forth, his word and his revelation in these last days, in order that we may escape impending vengeance; and the Judgements which await this generation, and which will speedily overtake them—Brethren pray for me, that I may be counted worthy to obtain an inheritance in the land of Zion and to over come, the World through faith, and dwell with the sanctified, forever, and ever Amen.

Written at Kirtland Ohio Aug. 31, 1831. (Bruce N. Westergren, From Historian to Dissident:The Book of John Whitmer, pp. 86-91).

[269] For more on Ezra Booth, see H. Michael Marquardt, Ezra Booth on Early Mormonism: A Look at His 1831 Letters , John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 28 (2008):65-87. He writes,

Ezra Booth was an early convert in the Church of Christ. At the June 3, 1831, church conference he was ordained to the high priesthood. Called by revelation to go to Missouri he witnessed the laying of the foundation of the latter-day Zion including the cor