The recent publication of the journals and histories of Newel Knight in “The Rise of the Latter-day Saints: The Journals and Histories of Newel Knight” offers readers a fresh glimpse into the earliest history of the Restoration. Newel was the third of seven children born to Joseph and Polly Knight; the Knights were among the first outside the Smith family itself to hear and to accept the claims of the Restoration.

By 1826, when he hired the 20-year-old Joseph Smith, Joseph Knight Sr. had settled in Colesville (today’s Nineveh), New York, roughly 150 miles from Palmyra. Along with his farm, Father Knight owned a gristmill and a carding machine, a device for processing wool and other fibers.

“He was not rich,” Newel recalls, “yet possessed enough of this worlds goods to secure to him Self and family the necessaries and Comforts of life.” (I retain Newel’s original spelling, punctuation and capitalization.) “My Father was a Sober, honest man, generally beloved and respected by his neighbors and acquaintances.”

Among the valuable elements of Newel Knight’s account are his firsthand perceptions of the young Joseph Smith, and eventually of Joseph’s older brother Hyrum, gathered over years of close personal relationship.

“Oweing to the business my Father was engaged in he often had hired help. Among the many he from time to time hired was a young man by the name of Joseph Smith Junior. To him I was particularly attached: his noble deportment, his faithfulness, his kind address, could not fail to gain the esteem of those who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. One thing in particular I will mention seemed to be peculiar Characteristic with him. In all his boyish sports or amusements. I never knew any one to gain advantage over him, and yet he was allways kind and kept the good will of his playmates.”

When Joseph and Hyrum Smith were assassinated on June 27, 1844, Newel’s grief was almost inconsolable.

“O,” he wrote in his journal, “how I loved those men, and rejoiced under their teachings! It seems as if all is gone, and as if my very heart strings will break; and were it not for my beloved wife and dear children I feel as if I have nothing to live for, and would rejoice to be with them in the Courts of Glory.”

He had been close to Joseph Smith, at least, for very nearly two decades, since well before the translation of the Book of Mormon and the establishment of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“I have known them from boyhood, — have been associated with Joseph from the time before he received the first revelation until the present, and Hyrum has been his constant companion since the Church has been organized.

“I have shared in the blessings of the Gospel which they have enjoyed, and been a partaker of the sorrows and troubles, and fierce persecutions which they have endured. I have seen them at home and abroad, — in the discharge of their religious duties; and I have known them as the founders of a great City, and seen their administration of its government. In every circumstance of life they have ever been true men of God, — humane, upright and just in all their dealings; they loved righteousness and taught it to their followers; their friends loved them for the good they did, and their enemies hated them, because they reproved their sins and wickedness. They died as they had ever lived — faithful and true to that God who has used them as his servants to build up the Church and Kingdom of the Last Days. In the hour of prosperity they taught the people humility and meekness; in the hour of persecution, they practiced these virtues ... and their names will ever be held in honorable remembrance by all lovers of truth, virtue, integrity, justice and righteousness.”

After all these years spent with them, Newel Knight still regarded Joseph and Hyrum Smith as “two of the best men that ever lived.”

Newel left Nauvoo, Illinois, with his family for the west in 1846. He died in 1847, in what is today northern Nebraska. Seven months later, his widow, Lydia, bore his ninth child, Jesse Knight. The family finally arrived in Salt Lake City in 1850.

“The Rise of the Latter-day Saints: The Journals and Histories of Newel Knight” is edited by Michael Hubbard MacKay and William G. Hartley and published by Brigham Young University Religious Studies Center and Deseret Book.

Daniel Peterson teaches Arabic studies, founded BYU’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative, directs MormonScholarsTestify.org, chairs mormoninterpreter.com, blogs daily at patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson, and speaks only for himself.