MORMONISM IN A NEW LIGHT.
_____

IV.
Visions.

The origin of Mormonism has been read by the world through the Spaulding romance and Anthon letter spectacles, which revealed fraud and imposture only, proving Smith and his followers knaves or fools; and yet I believe the verdict of history will be that the Spaulding manuscript never fell under the eyes of Smith, while the characters from the plates did fall under the eyes of Prof. Anthon. Still, the cry of "Fraud! fraud!" is heard on every hand, from reputable authors and liberal editors no less than from venal and bigoted writers. It is hard for the world to admit it has borne false witness against the Mormons, and that, in its attempt to put down Mormonism, it has told more lies about it than it was charged with telling about itself. But what a different complexion is given to the argument, if the Book of Mormon was not taken from the Spaulding manuscript...

Jules Remy, the French savant, and by far the ablest and fairest writer on Mormonism, does venture this one remark: "Did Smith himself find any such plates? Likely enough; he is known to have been called 'the manly [sic - money?] digger,' and there would have been nothing extraordinary had he, in his frequent diggings, been the first to find objects similar to those which we know Wiley afterwards dug up in 1843." And he says, "But what is certain is that Joseph must have known of Spaulding's romance," etc., thus crediting Smith with having found both the plates and the manuscript.... But mark that, according to the anti-Mormon theory, while prospecting with the [seer] stone, the boy finds golden plates engraved with mysterious characters, and a manuscript purporting to give a history of the ancient inhabitants of America! What philosophic mind even can say there is "nothing extraordinary" in this? ... Now, let me ask, who would not have faith in such a stone, and count it as something more than a mere geologic curiosity? And it is strange that Smith should use the stone, which had discovered the plates, in the translation of those plates? And is it surprising that he should have availed himself of the manuscript, if he found one, as affording some clew to the subject matter in the ancient record? ...


Note 1: The writer of the above essay makes the illogical assumption, that since Joseph Smith made use of what some people call a "seer stone," that he therefore discovered ancient plates containing the story of the Book of Mormon engraved upon them. This is an invalid deduction -- (1) because there is no existing proof that Smith ever found such plates by any means; and, (2) even if he did discover some metal plates in conducting money-digging searches, he need not have found those things just because he possessed such a stone; and, (3) even if he did have such plates, there is no existing proof that they bore authentic ancient engravings recording the Book of Mormon narrative. Smith's hometown newspaper, in 1821 published an account of metallic plates having been recently uncovered in upstate New York-- but they were not the product of any ancient civilization and were not located by any supernatural method. No doubt various curious metal objects were unearthed in Smith's area from time to time, having absolutely no connection with the biblical "urim and thummim" nor to prehistoric "Nephites."

Note 2: If the writer of the above item was a Mormon, the essay was obviously not intended for a Latter Day Saint audience (who would have rejected the faith-demoting notion of Smith having found the "Nephite Record" with a peepstone). The writer's changing of the term "money-digger" to "manly digger" is a not to subtle indication of an artful intent -- that is, a desire to make Joseph Smith, Jr. appear to have been a "prospector" after mineral riches, rather than the magus-director of a cult-like band of deluded, treasure-seeking followers. Though the writer may thus elevate Smith's peepstone above the level of "a mere geologic curiosity," he simultaneously reduces Solomon Spalding's "Manuscript Found," to a mere literary curiosity, susceptible to an innocent discovery by the "prospector." The result is a set of historical absurdities, unpalatable to both Saint and Gentile alike.

CORRESPONDENCE.
_____

WHY I BECAME A MORMON, AND WHY I APOSTATIZED.

Editors of The Index: --

I was born in Canada West, county of Leeds, March 6, 1809, of poor but respectable parents, who were able to give their children but the slight education attained by a few months' attendance at the public school. Books for instruction consisted of the Bible, Webster's spelling-book, the English Preceptor, a geography, and an arithmetic. There was but one newspaper in the county, and that not well patronized. My parents were strictly orthodox in their religion, belonging to the Methodist Church. In consequence, I was taught all the materiality of God and the devil, the endless joy of heaven and the eternal misery of hell.

This church I joined at the age of twenty-two years, and was a most conscientious member and advocate of their principles; attended the local and circuit preaching, and upheld the church with money and prayers. But I was puzzled to see some of my less zealous brothers repeatedly become drunk and beat their families, then come to church and pray for and get (?) forgiveness, and evince such ecstatic joy and peace of mind unattainable by myself, ever making the best endeavor to attain Christian perfection. I thought of the passage in the Bible where God says each one shall be rewarded according to his merits, and asked the minister for an explanation. He answered by referring to the parable of the prodigal son, and the words of Jesus concerning "the one sinner that repenteth." But I was not satisfied. There was evident injustice in the cases at hand.

While in this state of mind there came a man into our neighborhood named Blakesly, calling himself a Mormon, or one of the Church of the Latter Day Saints, a disciple of Joseph Smith. He claimed that Smith was a prophet of God, ordained by the hands of holy angels to bring in a new dispensation of the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, with all the gifts pertaining as described in the New Testament, where the Holy Ghost was given by the imposition of hands. He declared that the gifts of healing the sick, speaking in tongues, interpreting, prophesying, etc., which had been lost for centuries, were restored. At first I doubted his ability to sustain these claims. But soon afterward converts were made and baptized to organize a church; and when I had seen good old men whom I had known from childhood, whose veracity could not be doubted, arise and speak in unknown tongues, another immediately arise and interpret, interpret songs and sing them in the same tune as the first, and saw the sick healed, like many others, I thought God had revealed himself through his servants as in the days of the apostles, and became converted.

And why should I not, being already a firm believer in the Bible? For had not Jesus said unto his disciples, "And greater things than these shall ye do, for I go to the Father"? And, after his death and resurrection, he appeared to them, upbraiding for their unbelief, saying: "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned; and these signs shall follow them that believe. In my name, they shall east out devils, they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents, and, if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them, they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. And they went forth and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following." Elsewhere we find (Cor. xii.), "For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another faith, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discerning of spirits, to another divers kinds of tongues, to another interpretation of tongues."

Here we found them fulfilling the words of Christ and the apostles those signs following which had been said should follow the believer, all working in harmony with and exemplification of Bible teaching. How could these poor blinded Bible worshippers deny it was the true gospel and the church to uphold?

The Book of Mormon is mistakenly supposed by many to do away with the Bible. Instead, it is simply an extra addition to it, in full doctrinal harmony, teaching faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, baptism for the remission of sins, and the giving of the gifts of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands by the authority of the priesthood, and giving the history of the ten lost tribes of Israel, said to be the aborigines of this continent. It is claimed to be a revelation from God written on plates by these aborigines, hid up, to come forth by his will to restore them. Joseph Smith being God's chosen instrument of discovery, revelation, and prophecy.

One of the prime teachings of Mormonism, for which it has Biblical authority, is the gathering together of the saints from the four quarters of the globe against the coming of the Saviour. Joseph Smith, being the prophet to guide the affairs of the dispensation, appointed Kirtland, Ohio, as one of the points of gathering, another in Jackson County, Missouri. In this latter place, some of the teachings and practices so incensed the people that they drove them out across the Missouri River into counties of Clay and Caldwell. And soon they were driven from the State by force of arms by authority of the governor, the alleged reason for so doing being that they were stealing the property of their neighbors and causing insurrections among the Indians. They then settled at Nauvoo, Ill. About this time, I emigrated from the East through Kirtland to Nauvoo.

But, previous to this, doubts had begun to arise in my mind regarding "the gifts," from the fact that many of the prophecies and warnings had proven false and unwarranted; and I had become satisfied that they were not inspired of God, but perhaps from evil or ignorant spirits. And now my doubts were strengthened by the reports of the unsuccessful attempts to settle in Missouri. It was not in harmony with the perfect knowledge of God that he should have inspired that appointment. I now felt anxious to investigate the whole affair. And, for the purpose of learning as nearly the truth as possible regarding the finding of the plates and the translation of the Book of Mormon, I stopped at Kirtland and interviewed Martin Harris, he being one of the witnesses of the Book. I asked him if he saw the plates. He said, "Yes." Then, "Did you see with the natural eye?" He answered, "No: an angel of God appeared and showed them to me." I had read in a pamphlet that Harris claimed he had seen Christ and the devil. I now asked if this was a fact, and he said it was, -- that Jesus was the handsomest man he ever saw, and the devil looked like a jackass. "Yes," interrupted his wife, "and you were fool enough to get out your hounds, and follow it for half a day."

At this time, Harris was trying to establish a claim to the leadership of the Church. He was but an ordinary-looking and ignorant farmer, whose every appearance warranted him a good dupe and fit subject for assisting Joseph in his plans. It was his money procured by selling his farm that paid for the printing of the first edition of the Book of Mormon.

I also called upon Oliver Cowdery, another of the witnesses. He was then an apostate, and advised me to go no further, and referred me to another man regarding the proceedings at far west [sic - Far West?] Missouri. From that honest old man, I received an account that, together with the bad appearance of the society I found at Nauvoo, greatly increased my scepticism.

Still, I was not satisfied of entire fraud, as none had disclaimed the purity of Smith in the beginning, nor the inspiration and truth of the Book of Mormon.

After my arrival at Nauvoo, I investigated the reports of the practice of polygamy and consecration, and learned satisfactorily that Smith and the other leading men did practice polygamy, it being later publicly taught; and that there was a society of "Danites" organized for carrying on theft, -- or consecration, they termed it, -- their work not being publicity proclaimed. These things were extremely obnoxious to me; and I openly declared them to be in violation of the laws of right, and therefore not prompted of God.

Being conversant with the book of Doctrine and Covenants, a book written by Joseph, I relied upon the declaration therein found, where God said of Joseph, if he sinned, "He shall be taken away, and he shall not have power, but to appoint another in his place." I believed Joseph had sinned in these things, and therefore looked for him "to be taken away." I looked for the further fulfillment of the prophecy in the appointment of a successor; for it was one of the prime teachings of the Church that it could not live without a head. Sidney Rigdon claimed to be the rightful successor by virtue of his high office, he being one of the prophet's two councillors, -- Hiram Smith, the other councillor, having been killed with his brother. By virtue of their office as "president," the "twelve apostles" claimed the leadership. All documents drawn up by them were signed, "The Twelve Apostles, Pres."

There was still another claim made by James J. Strang, based upon the proper ground of appointment. Had he asserted his claim immediately, personally, and with the self-assurance and vigor which carries convictions, and which later characterized him; he would doubtless have won the allegiance of a large majority.

He was but slightly known, having been but a short time a member of the Church, and was not at Nauvoo at the time of Smith's death; and the other aspirants, of course, disputed his claim, and declared the letter of appointment from Joseph, which he showed, to be a forgery. A few were converted of the genuineness of the letter and his right of succession, and became his followers. Others there were who did not deny the letter being from Joseph, but claimed it was not written in expectation of his own death, but simply the appointment of Strang as the head of a new "stake," or "colony," to be "planted" at Voree.

His church grew to considerable strength on Beaver Island, where later they located; and there, in the year 1856, they disbanded at the time of the assassination of Strang, who made no appointment of a successor, but advised them each to take care of himself. Rigdon retained a small following, which were soon scattered. The majority of the people supported Brigham Young, making him their leader by a vote, and basing the selection on the fact of his being the chief of the "twelve apostles."

The non-fulfilment of the prophecy regarding the appointment shattered my remaining faith in the religion. It failed at what had become for me the testing point, and must be false I now decided; and this decision necessarily included the Bible in my renunciation, for I had found them through all to be much alike and harmonious. Thus, my eyes were opened to make clear, unprejudiced investigation of it (the Bible), which has been followed by the perfect conviction of its being but accumulated works of many men, and not of God. In the workings of "the gifts" there is now evidently nothing unusual or miraculous. Speaking in tongues and interpreting is easily explained by believers in modern Spiritualism, and for disbelievers yet to be explained by science. Healing by laying on hands is but the combined effect of faith and animal magnetism.

I will add, regarding the Mormons, that they give allegiance to no people or government except their own. They believe themselves God's chosen people, and that eventually all others will be destroyed. "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believes and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned," is essentially their motto; and, had they the power, they would destroy all disbelievers, impatient of leaving that work to the Lord.

Yet we can scarcely believe them more bloodthirsty than other Christian sects, when we think of the past persecutions of Protestants and Catholics, or even of present utterances reported from these pulpits regarding the extermination of the Mormons, and of the treatment they have received at the hands of many.

Of the Church of Joseph Smith, Jr. [sic - Joseph Smith III?], of which he is president, and not prophet, I understand there are none of the disgraceful features of the old, and it differs but slightly from other Protestant sects. They are loyal to the government, do not teach consecration, gathering, polygamy, or present prophecy.

B. G. WRIGHT.    

Note 1: Benjamin Guyal Wright, the son of George and Phoebe Whitley Wright, was born Mar. 9, 1809 in Johnstown, Leeds, Ontario. He died July 25, 1900, in Wrightsville (named after himself), Jackson Co., Wisconsin. As late as 1832 he was still living in Canada -- he was probably baptized there in about 1834. During the late 1840s he joined the Church of James J. Strang and rose in that group's ranks to become President of Strang's Voree Stake and a member of the High Council, (his brother Phineas was one of Strang's twelve apostles). Benjamin moved from Voree to St. James and married his second wife, Adaline Elizabeth Ballard, at Strang's colony on Beaver Island, Michigan, on July 9, 1853. During the 1880s (when he wrote his letter to The Index, he was living at Alma (named after the Book of Mormon prophet), Jackson Co., Wisconsin.

Note 2: Given Elder Wright's high status within the Strangite church, it seems rather remarkable that he suffered from doubt regarding the authenticity of the Mormon religion even prior to 1850 (when Oliver Cowdery died). His letter to The Index passes over the chronology of his notable Mormon career far too quickly.

Note 3: The Salt Lake City Deseret News, in the summer of 1885, took some notice of the series of "Mormonism" articles then being published by the Boston Index.

WHO  WROTE  THE  BOOK  OF  MORMON?
-- Solomon  Spaulding  Not  its  Author. --

Just how many inquiries have come to Honolulu in regard to a manuscript in the possession of Mr. L. L. Rice, who came from Ohio to this city in 1879, to reside with his daughter, Mrs. J. M. Whitney. Mr. Rice was at one time editor of the Painesville (O.) Telegraph, having in connection with his partner, Mr. P. Winchester, in 1839 bought that newspaper, with all the appurtenances of the printing office in connection with it, from Mr. Eber D. Howe, the former proprietor, In the mass of material turned over to Mr. Rice was a small parcel that was labeled in pencil "Manuscript Story -- Conneaut Creek." The parcel never had been opened till last summer, when Mr. Rice was looking over his papers, in search of memorabilia, in regard to the early anti-slavery movements in Ohio, in which he had actively engaged. He then found that it was the story written by Rev. Solomon Spaulding who, it has been claimed, wrote the "Book of Mormon," which Joseph Smith, Jr. published as an inspired translation of certain records, in regard to the American Indians and their connection with Christianity, engraved on golden plates, and found by him on the top of a hill in Palmyra, N.Y. In the rubbish of a printing office that manuscript of Mr. Spaulding's for which diligent search has hitherto been made in vain, has been as effectually lost as if it had been entombed in some forgotten Indian burial cave, to be strangely resurrected in these islands in the Pacific Ocean.

When President Fairchild of Oberlin College visited Honolulu last summer, he had the opportunity of examining this manuscript. In the Bibliotheca Sacra for January, 1885, he inserted a brief paragraph, expressing the opinion that this was not the original of the Book of Mormon, The Mormons came to the Hawaiian Islands in 184,6, seeking proselytes, and have now on Oahu quite a settlement, with fifteen "missionaries." They are anxious to secure and publish the manuscript, as the best refutation of the claim that has been made that Rev, Solomon Spaulding was the real author of the Book of Mormon. The statement of a few facts, however, will be convincing proof enough to any unprejudiced mind, both that this manuscript can not be the original of the Mormon Bible, and that Rev, Solomon Spaulding has no valid claim to have written any such book. It was through an article by Rev, D. R. Austin in the Boston Recorder for 1839, that the claim was made for Mrs. Matilda Davidson, of Monson, that the Book of Mormon was written by her former husband, Rev. Solomon Spaulding.

The facts in regard to Mr. Spaulding are briefly these: He was born in Ashford Conn., in 1761; graduated at Dartmouth, 1785; was pastor of a church in Connecticut, 1787, but; left the ministry and went into business with his brother Josiah, in Cherry Valley, N. Y. In 1809 he removed to Conneaut, O., and thence, in 1812, to Pittsburgh, Pa., where he resided two years. Thence he removed to Amity, Pa., where he died in 1816.

Conneaut and Painesville are in the northeastern corner of Ohio, not far from Kirtland, where, in 1831, Joe Smith established the Mormon Zion. He professed to have been told of the existence of the plates in 1823, but did not obtain them till 1827, nor was the translation finished till 1830. Then the first Mormon church was organized April 6th, 1830, of six members. In October four Elders set out on a mission to the Indians in the far West, and on their way, at Kirtland, O., made 130 converts to the Mormon faith, the number being increased the next spring to 1000.

This was largely through the influence of Sidney Rigdon, formerly a Campbellite preacher, then residing at Kirtland, and in acquaintance of Parley P. Pratt, one of the four Mormon Elders, who gave him a copy of the Mormon Bible that had then just been printed. Early in 1831 Rigdon visited Joe Smith, and in consequence of his representations, Smith removed to Kirtland.

Howe published, in 1834, from the office of the Painesville Telegraph, a book called Mormonism Unveiled, in refutation of the pretensions of Joe Smith. This book was prepared by Dr. D. P. Hurlbut, now or lately residing in Sturgis, Mich. He had been at one time connected with the Mormons, but had left them and wrote this expose of their foolish and absurd notions. It was in this book that it was first claimed that Rev. Solomon Spaulding was the real author of the Book of Mormon. The claim seems to have originated in the statement of Henry Lake of Conneaut, at one time a partner of Mr. Spaulding. Mr. Lake, on hearing the Mormon Bible read, exclaimed that it was the same story that Spaulding had read to him twenty years before from his Manuscript Found. John Spaulding testified that his brother Solomon, about the year 1812, was writing a book called the Manuscript Found, showing that the American Indians are descendants of the Jews. "Their arts, sciences and civilization were brought into view, in order to account for all the curious antiquities found in various parts of North and South America. [After their battles] they buried their dead in large heaps, which caused the mounds so common in this [section of the] country." His wife corroborates this testimony and says: "The names of Nephi and Lehi are yet fresh in my memory as being the principal heroes of his tale." These testimonies are confirmed by Messrs. Aaron Wright, Oliver Smith, Nahum Howard, Artemas Cunningham, John N. Miller and others, and also as has been said above, by the widow of Rev. Solomon Spaulding.

After Mrs. Spaulding's death this widow removed to her brother's, Mr. Harvey Sabine, Onondaga Hollow, N.Y. In 1820 she married Mr. Davidson and removed to Hartwick, N. Y., removing thence, [in] 1832 to Monson, Mass., to reside with her daughter, Mrs. McKinstry. She had up to this time in her possession a small trunk with some manuscripts of her husband, but left it, in 1832, with Mr. Jerome Clark, in Hartwick. At Mr. Sabine's solicitation, she authorized Dr. Hurlbut to examine this trunk, and take the manuscripts he might find for comparison with the Book of Mormon. Only one manuscript was found, which purported to be a short unfinished romance, deriving the origin of the Indians from Rome, by a ship driven to the American coast while on a voyage to Britain, before the Christian era.

It is this manuscript which, through the purchase of the Painesville printing office, fell into Mr. Rice's possession, has been kept by him all these years in ignorance of its character, and is now brought again into public notice. On the last leaf is written: "The Writings of Solomon Spalding. Proved by Aron Wright, Oliver Smith, John Miller and others. The testimonies of the above gentlemen are now in my possession. D. P. Hurlbut." The paper on which the manuscript was written is of poor quality, yellowed and softened by age, six and a half inches wide by eight inches long. One hundred and seventy-one pages are numbered and written out in full, but the threads which kept them together are broken, and pages 133 and 134 are missing. On the back of page 132 is the beginning of a letter in different handwriting. "Fond Parents I have received 2 letters this Jan 1812."

The story has not the slightest resemblance in names, incidents or style to anything in the Book of Mormon... [a description of the story with extracts follows] ...

There is no attempt whatever to imitate Bible language, and to introduce quotations from the Bible, as in the Book of Mormon. On the contrary, Rev. Solomon Spaulding seems to have been a man who had no very high regard for the Bible ... [more extracts follow] ... it would seem improbable from such avowed belief that Rev. Solomon Spaulding was an orthodox, minister, who wrote the Book of Mormon in Biblical style while in poor health, for his own amusement. The statement is more probable that he wrote this Manuscript Found with the idea of making a little money, if he could find some one to print it for him.

It is evident from an inspection of this manuscript, and from the above statements that whoever wrote the Book of Mormon, Solomon Spaulding did not. The testimony of the Conneaut people after the lapse of twenty years, as to their knowledge of the contents of Spaulding's story, the Manuscript Found, is not to be relied upon, imperfect and contradictory as it is. The supposition that Spaulding wrote another story, which he carried with him to Pittsburgh, to the office of Patterson and Lambdin, to be printed; that he left it there, where it was found in 1822 by Rigdon when he worked in that office, and that Rigdon took this manuscript with him and published it through Joe Smith in 1830 as the Book of Mormon, is a most violent supposition, unsupported by any evidence whatever; Rigdon in fact, having never met Smith till after the publication of the Mormon Bible. That Spaulding ever wrote any other romance seems to have been disproved by the date, 1812, found in the latter part of this manuscript, and by the correspondence of its contents with what it was found Spaulding had actually written, while, on the contrary, all that is known of Joe Smith, his money digging, his religious ranting, his schemes for getting a livelihood, corroborate the belief, in view of all the facts of the case, that he, and he alone, is the author of the Mormon Bible, and the founder of the Mormon Church.


Note: Charles M. Hyde, D. D. was the President of the North Pacific Missionary Institute in Hawaii and an influential Protestant Minister in Honolulu in the 1880's. He was a friend of Lewis L. Rice and Rice allowed him to borrow and read the Spalding manuscript discovered in Hawaii in 1884. His article regarding that manuscript was probably written early in 1885 but was delayed in its publication in The Congregationalist..

The Book of Mormon.
_______

J. F. Peck, who became acquainted with Mormon in its inception, furnishes the following account of the finding of the "Mormon Bible" to the Springfield Republican:

"In 1829-'30 I was a stripling in a dry-goods store in the village of Palmyra, Wayne county, N. Y., in the outskirts of which miniature city Joseph Smith, Jr., familiarly and universally called 'Joe,' resided at the time, as he had done for a considerable period previously. Joe was one of those 'ne'er-do-well' persons without any regular occupation that are so often found hanging about such towns; doing odd jobs occasionally, when driven to it by sheer necessity, to keep from starving. His principal occupation seemed to be digging for gold at night and lying in bed during the day, till he would be driven to make sime effort in emplpyments of less doubtful result than money-digging to maintain an existence. Joe in his excursions after gold carried a 'divining' rod to tell him where there was hidden treasure, and he left many holes in the ground about that region which testified that he could work if the spirit moved. This, as I was informed, had been Joe's manner of life and occupation for some years prior to the time I knew him. Finally, however, he claimed to have found a veritable bonanza in the shape of heavy gold plates beautifully engraved in some ancient language or characters. He pretended to have found these on the top of a singular hill in the town of Manchester, Ontario county, N. Y., directly by the side of the road leading from Canandaigua to Palmyra, and which from that time was always called 'Gold Hill.' I call the hill singular from its shape and relation to the surrounding country, for it was entirely isolated, rising from a substantially level plain in an almost ellipse, some eighty feet high and about 200 yards long by fifty wide, while its slopes were as regular, neatly rounded and symmetrical as if constructed by the most accomplished cicil engineer. How much the peculiar features of the hill had to do with its selection by Joe as the location for his find it would be difficult to decide; but he had dug it over pretty well in search for treasure, and he might easily have imagined that it had been constructed by the hand of man in some remote age, and hence was an inviting field to a seeker after hidden gold; while I have often thought that the peculiarities of the location where Joe pretended to have found the plates had its effect in securing some of the early proselytes, who were acquainted with the spot.

The plates Joe described as being about five by eight inches in size, and very thick; but how thick he never stated. At first he did not claim that these plates were any new revelation, or that they had any religious significance, but simply that he had found a valuable treasure in the shape of a record of some ancient peoples which had been inscribed on imperishable gold for preservation. The pretended gold plates were never allowed to be seen, though I have heard Joe's mother say that she had lifted them when covered with a cloth, and that they were very heavy -- so heavy, in fact, that she could scarcely raise them, though she was a very robust woman. What Joe at that time expected to accomplish seems difficult to understand, but he soon began to exhibit what he claimed to be copies of the characters engraved on the plates, though the irreverent were disposed to think he was more indebted to the characters found on China tea-chests than to any plates he had dug up in Manchester. Before long, however, a new party appeared on the scene in the person in one Sidney Rigdon, and thenceforward a new aspect was put upon the whole matter. Rigdon was one of those keen, sharp fellows who, had he lived in our day, would have been a broker dealing with the 'lambs' on margins, or, as a 'confidence man,' hanging around in our principal cities and looking out for victims. He is the man who at a later day, it is said, directed the Mountain Meadow massacre [sic!] Very soon after his advent it was given out that the plates were a new revelation, and were a part of the original Bible, while Joe Smith was a true prophet of the Lord, to whom it was given to publish it among men. Rigdon, who from his first appearance was regarded as the 'brains' of the movement, seemed satisfied to be the power behind the throne. Not only were pretended copies of the engraved plates exhibited, but whole chapters of what were called translations were shown; meetings were held, which were addressed by Smith and Rigdon, and an active canvass for converts was inaugurated. One feature of the claim in relation to the translation from the plates was quite in character with other claims that have been from time to time set up by the Mormon Church down to the present day. Joe Smith was of course, an illiterate man, and some way must be provided for the translation of his record. But Joe (or Rigdon) was equal to the emergency, for he claimed to have found with the 'Gold Bible' (as they then always called it) a wonderful pair of spectacles, which he described as having very large round glasses -- larger than a silver dollar -- and he asserted that by placing the plates in the bottom of a hat or other deep receptacle, like a wooden grain measure, he could put on those spectacles and, looking down upon the plates, the engraved characters were all translated into good plain English, and he had only to read it off and have it recorded by a copyist.

Smith and Rigdon labored diligently to secure converts, and before long it was announced that the 'Gold Bible' was to be published in book form. Alvah Strong, then proprietor of the Wayne Sentinel, and afterward of the Rochester Democrat, took the contract to print and bind 5,000 copies for $5,000 -- Martin Harris, a farmer, mortgaging his farm for that amount to raise the funds for the work -- and business soon began in earnest. Joe, with his lieutenant, Rigdon, had a board shanty erected in a remote field, which no human being was allowed to enter except these two worthies, and from this primitive study all the manuscript for the publication of the 'Gold Bible' was brought to the printing-office. As the office was in the third story of the same block, and directly over the store where I was employed, I was allowed to come up-stairs and read from the proofs as much as I chose; though in fact I never became greatly interested in the work. The publication was pushed with spirit, but until it was completed not a copy was allowed to leave the office, but every volume was packed in an upper room, and the pile they made struck me at the time and has since been vividly in my mind as comparing in size and shape with a cord of wood, and I called it a cord of Mormon Bibles. Not long after the publication was completed they began their preparations for a removal, and ere long the parties with their converts, packed up all their belongings and left for Kirtland, Ohio."


Note 1: The date of Mr. Peck's letter's publication in the Springfield Republican has not yet been determined. The writer was Joseph Franklin Peck (c. 1810-1890), a member of the extended Peck family of Lima, Livingston Co., NY. He may have been a relative of Everard Peck, the Rochester historian. Joseph Franklin Peck evidently lived in or near Palmyra, NY in 1829-30; but his later years were spent in Springfield, MA. Some of the historical details related in the 1887 Peck letter may have been based upon authentic observations of Joseph Smith and his early associates, in and around Palmyra, but several aspects of Peck's recollections appear to be rather questionable. His reference to Chinese characters on tea-chests is similar to earlier published statements regarding the characters on the bogus "Kinderhook plates." Other parts of Peck's account read something like vague paraphrases from Pomeroy Tucker and other early writers on Mormonism. His detailed references to Sidney Rigdon, operating openly in public view, with Smith in the Palmyra area before the Book of Mormon was published, are unlikely assertions. Perhaps Mr. Peck has exaggerated actual happenings, or perhaps he has provided muddled embellishments of Rigdon's documented appearances in the Palmyra area after the Book of Mormon was published. If any of his assertions regarding Rigdon are accurate, however, they would provide additional eye witness support for the Spalding-Rigdon authorship claims.

Note 2: A good deal of the contents of the 1887 Peck recollections inexplicibly turn up as part of the alleged personal memories of a certain "Daniel Hendrix," in an article originally entitled "The Origin of Mormonism," published in various papers like the New York Buffalo Courier between 1897 and 1899. The basic story of the Hendrix article was evidently taken down in the form of an alleged interview with the deponent conducted by Henry G. Tinsley in 1893 and first published by the San Francisco Chronicle on May 14, 1893. Possibly Mr. Tinsley invented the person of "Daniel Hendrix" as a means whereby to concoct a set of false recollections critical to Joseph Smith and Mormonism. If this were actually the case, then Tinsley must have based his Hendrix fabrication upon the unique and obscure account supplied by J. F. Peck (who only claimed to have personal knowledge of the 1829-30 period in Palmyra, while the Hendrix story extends the experience there back to 1822).

Note 3: To complicate matters even more, the Washington D. C. Evening Star of Jan. 28, 1905 published an article entitled "How Mormons Began," which credits as its source a written "reminiscence" given by Hendrix, "with the help of his neice," kept in San Jacinto, California. How a transcript of this purported document reached the Star, is left unstated, save for a passing mention of its having been "seen and read recently by a visitor in San Jacinto from Washington." Because of these unusual developments (and because its unreliable, fabulous content), The various renditions of the Hendrix recollections are best consigned to the "fictional history" files.

Note 4: Henry Greenwood Tinsley was born Apr. 20, 1861 in Lyons, Wayne Co., New York and died Dec. 15, 1920 in Pamona, California. After graduating from Cornell University in 1883 he was employed briefly at his father's newspaper, the Lyons Republican. According to a report in the New York Fulton Times, he left Lyons during the last week of March, 1885, "to accept a temporary engagement on the reportorial staff of the Sun." Tinsley remained at the Sun until 1887, when he took up the editorship of the Pamona Progress in California. It might be productive to search the back files of that town's Progress and the Review to see how those papers portrayed Mormons and Mormonism under Tinsley's editorial hand.

THE  MORMON  BIBLE.

It is well to put on record all authentic statements regarding any widely published documents; and for this reason we print the following, relating to that remarkable imposition, The Mormon Bible, An additional reason for doing this exists in the fact that several different copies of the alleged Spaulding manuscript are in existence; and when the reputed Bible is compared with some of these, the discrepancies are so great as to lead disinterested persons to deny that Solomon Spaulding was the real author of the precious invention. The facts stated below give a true account of the probable fate of the real manuscript.

                                                    July 28, 1889 [Longmeadow, Mass.]

Copy of Conversation with Dr. McKinstry

by Charles R. Bliss

This afternoon I had a conversation with Dr. J. A. McKinstry of Longmeadow, Massachusetts. He is the grandson of Rev. Solomon Spaulding, the reputed author of the Mormon Bible. He told me he had heard frequent conversations of his mother and of her mother -- Mrs. Spaulding -- concerning the manuscript from which the Mormon Bible is believed to have been produced. His declaration is as follows: viz., that they had frequently told him that they had compared the manuscript in question with the Mormon Bible, and found them to be in all essential respects one in the same. The grandmother said that she used to hear the manuscript read by Mr. Spaulding, and that the words "Nephi," "Lehi," "Mormon" and many others were invented by him; that the history in its main body was found by her, on reading the Mormon Bible, to be identical with the manuscript. She was much disturbed to find that a manuscript written by her husband was so used. It was impossible for his mother, on comparing the [Mormon] Bible and the manuscript, to reach any other conclusion than that the Bible was taken from the manuscript.

His mother affirmed that her father, on reading this manuscript from time to time to his neighbors, was advised by them to have it published; and he carried it to a printer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with that purpose in view. One of the employees in that office was Sidney Rigdon, Smith's companion and follower. After some time Mrs. Spaulding obtained the manuscript again; and it was put, with other fragmentary manuscripts, in a trunk belonging to the family.  Some years after the Mormon Bible appeared the widow of Solomon Spaulding -- Dr. McKinstry's grandmother -- was called upon by a man named Hurlbut, with recommendations by responsible persons saying that he was employed by a man who was preparing an expose of Mormonism to collect facts for him, and asked her to give him an order to take the manuscript for the purpose of examination. The lady, wishing to do all she could to repair the evil of the manuscript, gave him the order; and he obtained possession of not only that manuscript but of others in the trunk.

The manuscript was never again seen by its [owners.]...


Note: The date of this clipping is uncertain, as is the newspaper from which it came. A note on the clipping says "Palladium, Aug. 1889." The original article perhaps came from an early August issue of the Springfield Republican.

TWO  STRANGE  GODS.
________

Which Found Local Followers Early in the Century.
________

JACOB  COCHRAN'S  FAITH.
________

And the Converts Made to it in Saco -- Free Love Ideas Which Proved
Popular with Some and Unpopular with Others -- Famous Mormon Leaders
Who Won Disciples in North Saco and Buxton

Two venerable citizens of Saco who have outlived by considerable the Bible limit of three score years and ten, but whose memories are accurate and whose faculties are well preserved, recounted for the Journal last night how, in the years when they were boys or young men, many of the good citizens of staid old Saco went chasing after strange Gods and strange religions.

There are many living in the two cities who have been told of the rage which Cochranism and Mormonism had here years ago and there are a few even, who are still living, who were in their early years converts to the peculiar faiths expounded by Jacob Cochran and Joseph Smith.

The earlier, most singular, and perhaps the most interesting of these two strange religions whose disciples were recruited from this section was Cochranism.

Jacob Cochran, the founder of this faith, was a native of Enfield, N. H., a schoolmaster by profession, an able, and in many respects, a remarkable man, who made his advent in Saco in 1814 [sic - 1817?]. How Cochran came to strike Saco or how much he had succeeded in spreading his curious doctrines before coming there none of the Journal's informants seemed to know. Come he did, however, and he was not long here befpre he had gained many disciples, some of whom represented the best families of the city across the river.

Cochran was, as has been stated, an extraordinary man. He was well educated for his day, a very able and earnest speaker and a man credited with being gifted with mesmeric power in a wonderful degree. Besides his intellectual and occult endowmenrs, the founder of the Cochranite faith is said to have been a man "fair to look upon," in the prime of life and gifted with remarkable physical strength. In the latter respect, it is said, that no two ordinary men were his equal, while so agile was he that he is said to have been able to vault over the back of the tallest horse by simply putting one hand on the animal's rump.

Cochran's religious belief is said to have bordered on Universalism and he was credited with having preached the most remarkable and effective sermons ever heard in his generation, when he first came to Saco. This ability drew big congregations for him, churches and halls were opened to him and the man himself gained many disciples before he sprang the peculiarities of his religion on the public.

As far as the Journal can learn, Cochranism was a sort of combination of spiritualism and free love and though his advocacy of the latter item in his creed closed the churches to him finally, it did not decrease his congregations or his followers. After his doctrine won him the necessary number of disciples and churches had been closed to him, Cochran held his meetings in houses and even in barns. He never lacked for congregations and his peculiar doctrines and practices made converts in all quarters. His stronghold was in North Saco and across the Buxton line, though big meetings were held in town, his headquarters for those meetings being the old Floyd house which used to set near the upper Beach street entrance to Pepperell park and which was torn down when the race course was built.

Cochran's meetings were invariably held in the evening and they usually lasted until morning. Unbelievers were welcome to the early part of the ceremonies but after a certain point was passed in the program only those who "were of the faith" were allowed to remain. The unbelievers having been dismissed after witnessing ceremonies which consisted of singing the peculiar songs of the Cochranites, exhortations and a kind of walk-around dance, resembling the antics of the Shakers, Cochran and his followers would march the streets until very late singing their songs and shouting and then return to the Floyd house where the real meeting would begin, lasting until morning.

At the after part of these meetings Cochran used to manifest his mesmeric influence. It is related that his power was so great that thirty men and women would form a line in the room and that Cochran with a simple pass of his hand over each of their foreheads would have all completely under his power. When "the spirit was on" men and women would shriek, sing, dance and laugh, fall down on the floor and be, or pretend to be, entirely overcome and orresponsible. Such was Cochran's mesmeric influence, according to tradition that he could place his hand on the head of the strongest man present and cause him to fall upon the floor and froth at the mouth as though in a fit, while in reality he was experiencing the ecstasy of "the faith."

Cochran preached against matrimony. In the Cochranite heaven there was no marrying and no giving in marriage. If it so happened that his converts had taken upon themselves the chains of wedlock before they had heard him, they were admonished to forget marriage vows, though they might still live together, but be always ready to yield themselves according to the revelations which came through Cochran from the Cochranite divinity. Cochran himself was continually having it revealed to him that some one of his feminine flock was designed for his temporary, spiritual wife. He had a wife of his own with whom he lived, but his loyality to her was always subject to his inspirations and revelations. This wife evidently did not take a great amount of stock in the inspiration of her husband's free love proclivities. It is related that one evening Cochran met one of his firm disciples, whose descendants still live in North Saco, and who would not therefore relish seeing their ancestor's weaknesses in print, and told him that his God had appeared to him that day and told him that he and this particular disciple must exchange wives. His disciple believed him and went down to pay the inspired visit to Cochran's wife. When the latter met him at the door and asked him what he wanted he told her of her husband's revelation, whereupon the woman answered -- "You go back and tell Jake Cochran his God's a liar." This anecdote shows how much stock Mrs. Cochran took in her husband's revelations.

Occasionally at his meetings Cochran would be inspired to give living tableaux of Biblical incidents and characters, and one of these favorite representations was for Cochran and some one of his female converts to impersonate Adam and Ever as they are supposed to have appeared before the fig leaf apron suggested itself. This impersonation is said to have been frequently given in the Floyd house, it being the program for the rest of the converts to crouch upon the floor in a circle while the ideal Adam and Eve made their entry from another room. The knowledge of this interesting feature of Cochran's meetings having reached the ears of some of the unbelievers, Cochran is said to have been "called down," by the town authorities and after that he was forced to give tableaux and impersonations, which required a more extensive wardrobe.

Cochranism flourished among the farmers of North Saco and in that locality Cochran himself made his home, visiting from house to house among his disciples and holding meetings in one place one night and in another the next. The craze spread to such an extent that there were few of the families in that section of the city who did not have one representative at least in the Cochranite circle. Many familiar names, and many of the "old stock" whose descendants are living in these cities today, were mentioned to the Journal as among those who had followed the free-and-easy teachings of Jacob Cochran.

Various circumstances conspired to cut Cochran's religious career short after he had held sway for seven or eight years. One grand trouble was that Cochran broke up families which had before the advent of him and his doctrine been ordinarily happy in the old fashioned idea of love and matrimony. Cochran's doctrines made converts of many wives whose husbands could not swallow his free-love revelations and of many husbands whose wives were equally averse to receiving the new faith. Husbands objected to their wives becoming Cochranites and vice versa and the result was much domestic trouble and many separations for which Cochran was held responsible.

Cochran and his views had become decidedly unpopular among the unbelievers though his followers held him little below the Deity, but the exponent of free-love was shrewd enough to steer clear of open violations of the law until he had been here some seven years. Financial support had never been lacking after he had gained a foothold but Cochran became greedy and his greed landed him where there was no opportunity for him to practice his free love precepts.

Among Cochran's converts one of the most ardent was the wife of John Berry, a North Saco farmer, well to do for those days. Mr. Berry himself did not take so much stock in the founder of the new faith but on the wife's account, Cochran was welcome at the house and meetings were held there. How it happened, the Journal's informant could not recall, but by some means Cochran got into his hands quite a sum of money belonging to Mr. Berry and it was claimed that he had made arrangements to skip out into fresh fields when Mr. Berry learned of his loss. The necessary papers were secured for Cochran's arrest and Mr. Berry, Rishworth Jordan, the father of Rishworth Jordan of Saco and a third man, whose name could not be recalled, undertook to take Cochran into custody. He started to escape but was caught astride a fence somewhere between the Buxton road and the River road and after quite a tussle was brought to the "lobby." He was tried before Judge Thatcher in Saco and in addition to the crime in connection with Mr. Berry's money, other charges were brought against him and he was sent to State prison for a long term and there he died. After his death, his body was brought on to North Saco, and there was serious trouble about burying him. Some of his disciples wanted the body interred near his old haunts, while others, who had seen enough of Cochranism, refused to have even the corpse of the founder of the faith buried near them. No one seemed to know for sure what disposition was made of the body, but there was a tradition that it was secretly buried at night near the house of one of the most prominent Cochranites, who lived well up the Buxton road.

While Cochran was a prisoner at the State prison, he invented a rifle, and this invention was afterward patented by his only son and was known as the Cochran rifle.

Cochranism did not, however, die out with the imprisonment or the death of its founder. Local leaders in the faith sprang up to take his place, and the Cochranites flourished and multiplied for years, the craze continuing until about 1835, and the doctrines of Jacob Cochran being lived up to in certain families and small communities for years after that, in fact, almost up to the present time. Two of the best remembered preachers and leaders, who followed Cochran, were Timothy Ham and Benjamin Goddwin, though these are by no means the only ones who tried to keep alive the interest which the founder had aroused locally. Like him, his followers held their meetings at houses and in barns, or in the summer out of doors. They made many new converts, and their meetings had all the characteristic features of those which Cochran himself used to hold, except that none of his successors had his own mesmeric powers or his preaching ability. Timothy Ham was, however, quite a preacher and successful evangelist. Singing and the walk-around dances were features of Ham's meetings well remembered, a favorite chorus of this latter day apostle of Chochranism being:

    Though Hell may rage and vent its spite
    The Christ will save his heart's delight
        O, Glory Hallelujah.

It was not many years ago that the trial of the Aaron McKenney will case brought Cochranism in some of its details to the minds of the present generation, but in the death of the centenarian about the last active disciple of Cochranism was removed.

The Captain Skinner house in Buxton recently purchased by Jere Dearborn was for many the headquarters of the Cochranites.

The Cochranites were still flourishing in North Saco and Buxton when the apostles of a new faith appeared. The new faith was Mormonism and the apostles were no less famous persons than Joseph Smith, the founder of the doctrine, his brother, Parley Pratt, and Brigham Young himself, though the latter at the time he expounded Mormonism in this vicinity was not so high in the church as he afterward became to be and not so well fixed for wives and children as in his later life.

It was something like sixty years ago that the Mormon craze raged here and Mormonism as preached by Joseph Smith then was a good deal different from the creed of the latter day saints when Salt Lake was flourishing and incidents like the Mountain Meadows massacre were of quite common occurence. Smith and his other disciples were after converts to go to Utah and join the Mormon tribe in accordance with the divine revelation he claimed to have had and poligamy was not then part of the creed, or if it was the apostles were shrewd enough not to preach it in Puritanical Saco. Smith, Pratt and the other Mormon emissaries are said to have been preachers of great power and wonderful things are related in connection with the Mormon meetings which used to be held a first at different houses and later in the so called Mormon Temple.

The Temple was a more modest structure than its name would imply. It was a small wooden building, about 15x20 feet, and it was located upon what is now part of Ira W. Milliken's farm, just across the Buxton line. After the Mormon craze had died out and there was no further use for the temple, the late John Millikin of Buxtonbought the building, sawed it [in] two and used one half for a sap camp and the other for a farm tool house.

It was in this modest temple, however, that Smith and the other latter day saints held forth and at their meetings quite a number of converts were made. Some of those who had been prominent Cochranites forsook the old faith for the new and recruits for Mormonism were received from the best families of that section. Besides having had a special revelation from God Smith found scriptural foundation and endorsement for his faith in the Bible and those who are still living who attended these Mormon meetings tell that no stronger doctrinal sermons were ever preached from and backed up by the Scriptures than Smith and his apostles preached sixty years ago in Saco and Buxton. The ordinance of baptism was administered to all converts, the baptismal waters being furnished by the Storer Milliken brook. One midwinter a number of converts were baptized through the ice at this brook.

The most remarkable feature of these Mormon meetings was the "talking in tongues," as it was then termed. Converts whom the spirit moved would get up in these meetings and rattle off a jargon which was unintelligible to everybody present, even to the Mormon apostles, who were, to let them tell it, in such close touch with the Deity. When the convert had finished, he or she had no more idea of what had been said than those who had listened. They had simply yielded to the inspiration which seized them. Before the meeting was over, however, some other convert would have an inspiration and would get up and interpret what had been said by the other "in tongue." People of limited education and ability would interpret sentences and sentiments which were lofty in thought in language most impressive and beautiful, so it is said, and when they had finished these interpretations they professed to have been as irresponsible for their utterances as had those who had first spoken "in tongues." Neighbors hearing other neighbors, whose capabilities they well knew run these remarkable rigs, were astonished to an extent which made them open to conviction, and there were many who, while they did not come out Mormons, were still much impressed by the wonderful things heard in the old "Temple."

Of the converts made by Smith, Pratt, Young and others, perhaps a score were interested to the extent that they left home to join the Mormon train which started about that time for Salt Lake City. Some of these went as far as Cleveland [sic - Kirtland?], Ohio, from whence the train started, some got as far west as Illinois and a few kept on with the Mormon train and went to the "promised" land in Utah. Perhaps half a dozen who went from Biddeford and Buxton remained at the Mormon settlement, and there are at least two of these who have lived there since as Mormons, but not in poligamy and are now, or were at last accounts, still living. Two young men left Saco for Utah, and professing the faith to a superior degree became for a time Mormon preachers and sought to win new recruits to the faith in Western towns. One of these was Sam Brannan, who finally went to California and became at one time immensely rich, though he died in poverty a few years ago. Brannan's companion forsook Mormonism and came back to Saco and was until his death one of that city's best known and most reputable business men.

One man who started out with the Mormon train was induced by a most ordinary incident to give up the faith and return home. As the great train of Mormon emigrants were leaving Cleveland for far off Utah, a team containing a woman and two children was run into by one of the Mormon teams. The woman and children were thrown out and injured, but the Mormons paid as little attention as though it had been a dog they had run down, and the great train was not halted to see what became of the woman. The Saco man's humanity had not been destroyed by fanaticism and he could not see any difference between a Gentile and a Mormon. He left the train to attend the injured woman and children, got to thinking the matter over and concluded to come back to Saco instead of going to Salt Lake. He lived a Christian life and died a Free Will Baptist, but on his death bed he told a friend that he as firmly believed in the Mormon doctrine then as he ever had and that no creed had better scriptural foundation than the one which led him to start in the wake of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young for Utah.

Among the familiar family names mentioned in connection with this Mormon revival are Burnham, Berry, Lord, Lowell, Milliken, Andrews, Dennet, and such was the admiration and reverence for some of the Mormon apostles who visited this section that children in some of these families mentioned were named after them. There are a few still living in Saco and Buxton who were converts to the faith promulgated by Joseph Smith, who received the Mormon baptism from the hands of him or some of his apostles and who used to attend the meetings at the old Temple, "talk in tongues," and interpret the inspired utterances of others.


Note 1: The above account, taken from the memories of elderly people who seem to have known very little about Cochran's activities outside of the Saco area, is probably only reliable where it gives specific information relating events occuring in northern York Co., Maine, c. 1817-36. Even these events, as told by the elderly informants, are suspect in their dating -- the informants appear to have "telescoped" Cochran's chronology in several instances, providing both longer and shorter spans of time between events than what a proper timeline would indicate. While it is possible that Joseph Smith, Jr. briefly visited York Co. in August of 1836, there is no evidence of missionary effort by him at that time (and his recorded activities in New England during the summer of 1836 place him no further north than Massachusetts). The actual Mormon Smith family visitors to York Co. would have been Samuel Harrison Smith (in 1832) and William Smith (in 1835, and perhaps again in 1843-45).

Note 2: Sam Brannan (1819-1889) is perhaps the best known Mormon convert from southern Maine. Other notable proselytes include Danile Q. Dennett (1808-1872); Susan Lowell (1804-1859) who became the wife of Apostle John F. Boynton; Samuel Lowell; Arthur Milliken (1789-1882) who married Joseph Smith, Jr.'s youngest sister, Lucy Smith; Dorcas Milliken (1801-aft.1847); Nathaniel Milliken, Jr. (1793-1874); Edward Milliken, Jr. (1802-1807); Simeon Andrews, (1798-aft. 1851); William Andrews (1752-1834); Joseph B. Hawks (1799-1862); Matilda C. Hook (1820-?); Aaron Hook (1818-aft.1870); Phebe A. Northrop (1803-aft.1846); Silas Nowell (1798-aft.1846); Mary J. Parker (1817-1901); Eunice Sevy or Seabey (1811-1900); Mary Trueworthy (1819-?); Agnes M. Coolbrith (1811-1928) who married Joseph Smith, Jr.'s brother, Don Carlos Smith; Mary F. Hayes (1799-1853); Mary Bradbury (?-1834); Richard M. Lord (1813-?); Sylvester B. Stoddard (1801-1867) cousin of Joseph Smith’s sister Sophronia Smith Stoddard's husband -- also son-in-law of Vinson Knight; Ann E. Corwin (1817-1864) who was the wife of Sam Brannan; Susan Davis (1795-1870); James Townsend (1808-1886); Moses Holmes (1815-?); George W. Boothby (1818-aft.1880); Joshua Moulton (1811-?); Freedom Moulton (1808-1857); Calvin Foss (1800-1835); Sarah E. Foss (1827-1899); Hannah K. Libbey (1786-1867); Luther Scammon (1808-1878) brother-in-law of Apostle Wilford Woodruff; Rhoda F. Carter (1809-1897), Ilus Fabyan Carter (1816-aft.1842), Shuah C. Carter (1811-1905), John Carter (1782-1852), Dominicus Carter (1806-1884), Hannah Carter (1809-1894), Sarah Brackett Carter (1800-1894) all Carter in-laws of Apostle Wilford Woodruff; and Phoebe W. Carter (1807-1885) wife of Apostle Wilford Woodruff.

MORE  ABOUT  COCHRAN.
________

A Journal Reader Gives Definite Facts as to His Burial.

A Biddeford man who does not pretend to tell where Jacob Cochran died tells the Journal some interesting facts about his burial which he can vouch for.

He is sure Cochran was sent to prison from this section, but whether or not he died there he does not know. He says that Cochran's remains were taken to Buxton for interment, and that as Cochran in life had assured his disciples that after death he would rise in nine days these remains were kept that length of time, before burial, in the door yard of the Capt. Skinner farm in Buxton. When the nine days passed and Cochran did not arise as he had agreed to do his body was buried on the John Dennett farm in that same neighborhood, now owned by Samuel Berry.

In just nine years instead of nine days, Cochran was resurrected, but not because he was possessed of immortality. His remains were exhumed and taken away by the late John Elden of Buxton, he thinks to New Yoek state, though he is not certain upon this point. Tombstones had been erected over Cochran's original grave and when it was opened these stones were put back in the grave and covered over. Sometime afterward, Jacob Dennett of Buxton, whose mother, Sarah Dennett, had been a disciple of Cichran and who was himself named for him, dug up these grave-stones, had them re-cut and erected them over his mother's grave. The Journal's informant says that these stones which marked Cochran's resting place, before his resurrection, may now be seen at Sarah Dennet's grave in the Oliver Dennet burying ground in Buxton, and that unless it has been onliterated within a few years the inscription to Jacob Cochran may now be traced on the stones.

The Journal's informant also tells of the particular act which led to Cochran's imprisonment.

John Dennett was not a Cochranite but his wife was and during the husband's absence Cochran and some of his strongest disciples held at the Dennett house what he called a "feast of the passover." At this feast he advertised to heal the sick and three young women who were hopeless victims of consumption were secretly persuaded to allow Cochran to heal them. This "feast of the passover" was the most remarkable of the many seances held by Cochran and within a few days after the three who had been brought to him were dead.


Notes: (forthcoming)

FIRST  OF  A  SERIES.
________

FULL  AND  ACCURATE  HISTORY  OF  COCHRANISM.
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To be Furnished the Journal by Joel M. Marshall,
Who is able to Give the History of this Strange Craze
More Fully than Any Other Can Give It.

Following is the first of a series of articles which Joel M. Marshall, Esq., of Buxton is to furnish the Journal upon the subject of Cochranism.

Several months ago the Journal published an article on Cochranism which provoked a good deal of discussion among those who knew anything about this strange religious craze or who had heard about the remarkable character and powers of the man who put forth the new faith. Certain of the older readers of the Journal disagreed with some of the statements published at the time and few of them agreed among themselves. One thing was agreed upon and that was that a full story of Cochrane and Cochranism which was authentic would be of much interest.

At that time it was mentioned in the Journal that Mr. Marshall was possessed of full facts in regard to Cochranism. He has always lived in the village in which Cochrane made his advent and launched his strange doctrines, and has the whole history of the man and the movement accurately. Mr. Marshall has consented to furnish the story for the Journal, and today's installment will be followed by other chapters of the story, which is sure to be of great interest. Many of the families native to this locality can find some of their ancestors and connections mixed up with Cochranism.

---

Near the close of a dark leaden day in April in the year 1816 there came to the door of the old Warren tavern at Salmon Falls, Buxton, a stranger with a satchel in his hand and asked for the entertainment of a supper and lodging.

When he entered the bar room there were about a dozen young men sitting around the great open fire chatting, not an uncommon sight at these times, and especially at this season of the year, for a country town.

The entrance and greeting of the stranger at first caused a little moving about to make room and some gazing but nothing attracted particular attention except one little odd feature concerning his dress, which was that he wore one of his pants tucked into the leg of his boots, while the other was allowed the privilege of scraping acquaintance with the mud of the street, as the opportunity offered.

As the evening advanced, and especially as the new comer conversed with the company, other peculiarities and some very interesting facts concerning him began to enlist their attention. He had dark hazel eyes, bright and penetrating, with a glance and expression that craved a second look from the observer, while his voice was firm and distinctly toned and rather musical.

The stranger, rather an unusual circumstance, easily took the lead of the conversation of the evening and showed himself to be exceedingly well informed, with a fluent tongue and an easy and graceful talker, which in these days carried on its face its full merit of influence and respect.

When supper was announced he proceeded to the dining room where his appearance was more definitely scrutinized by the hostess and her daughter. His conversation at the table with them must have been quite prolonged as their guest ate with a zest and heartiness commensurate with his prodigious physical and mental vigor.

The hostess and daughter and most likely other members of the family, took their place at the table with the stranger, the usual custom at country towns in those times, and the opportunity then presented itself to the stranger to make some inquiries about the place, people and such other facts that were wonted to decide the question of his story and the prospect of his mission.

He seemed to be conversant with the history of the family and on one or two occasions he told them of matters relating to their domestic concerns, which they then did not know, but which older members of the family afterwards confirmed.

When the stranger had finished his supper and returned to the bar room, he had to pass through a vacant room and a long entry, the old lady whispering to her daughter, said:

"Betse, you go up to the chamber closet and get the silver and bring it down. This man is going to sleep next to this closet and I am afraid of him. He must be a fortune teller and the Lord only knows what he is."

In going to the chamber and the closet, the daughter had to pass through the bar room. As she was moving quietly through the bar room, hoping to escape the notice of the stranger, suddenly he turned in his chair and looking her full in the face, said:

"Madame, you needen't touch your silver, I don't want it. I am a gentleman."

The daughter stopped as though shocked, and then turned and went back to the kitchen and told her mother what had happened and they both said he must be a fortune teller.

This proved to be in some measure true, for it is said that he did afterwards tell their fortunes but it was not known that he made that any part of his business.

In the course of his conversation in the evening around the fire, he gave them his name as Jacob Cochrane and said he had hailed from Vermont and told them that he had just come out of the army, and had a certificate of his qualification to teach school. Afterwards it was found that he came from Enfield, N. H., near Vermont though either of them might have been true.

Nothing was ever known of his efforts to secure a school in these parts and probably that was not his intention, as he claimed his mission was in an entirely opposite direction.

The report is, that the first exhibition of his oratorical power was on the occasion of the funeral of a little child who died suddenly at Salmon Falls soon after he came here. At the close of the ministers remarks a tall, commanding looking man came forward from those assembled and placing his hand on the forehead of the child and commenced a discourse. The late Charles Runnells and a number of others who were there and heard him said they never heard anything like it before or since.

The name and fame of Cochrane began to spread from this, and from that time when it was known that Cochrane was to speak at any meeting, whether his own, or any other, he was sure to have a crowd of hearers.

At the time of Cochrane's advent here religious interest was on the increase and revivals had been going on in many of the adjoining towns, Gorham and Scarborough, Saco and Standish and other towns in the western part of York and in Cumberland counties. Elder Clement POhinney of Gorham and Elder John Buzzell of North Parsonfield, held meetings in many parts of the county and the people were wrought up to a high state of religious fervor just as Cochrane burst upon them full fledged to capture the unwary and all the supernatural and visionary subjects that were looking for a ready realization of their dreams, seemed to see in Cochrane the mediator for whom they had opened their windows, looking to the new Jerusalem.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

Notes: (forthcoming)

COCHRANE'S  POWER.
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STRONG  MEN  WERE  MOVED  AGAINST
THEIR  OWN  WILLS.
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Second Instalment of Mr. Marshall's Series -- Cochrane's Family
and Early Life -- His Oratorical Ability and Magnetic Power
Over the Converts to His Faith.

Jacob Cochrane was born on the ninth day of July, 1782, at Enfield, N. H., and was the fifth child and third son of Jacob Cochrane and his wife Rachel (Webster) Cochrane of Alenstown. Jacob Cochrane Sr., and Rachel Webster were married February 15, 1773. Jacob was married to Abigail Colcord of Enfield, date not given. The family consisted of Jacob Sr., wife and eight children. Jacob, Sr., was the proprietor of a good farm and was a well to do farmer. At that time and that place the children received about six weeks' schooling in a year. This is on authority of a Mrs. Andrews, a relative from Enfield, in a letter dated May 7, 1888. She negatives the statement that Jacob ever taught school, or that he was ever in the army. The youth of that period who could qualify himself for teaching school in that short period of time each year, must have been endowed with rare powers of concentration or else we are driven to the conclusion that examinations for such position was not conducted on the exhaustive system of the present time.

Cochrane Senior, like all farmers then and there, kept quite a hred of cattle and several cows, and it is in connection with this fact that a little incident occurred, which may be of interest to the reader, and will illustrate the fertility of his mind and the multiplication table of his expedients to avoid the drudgery that fell to the common lot of boys and young men of that time.

It is said that young Jacob, with perhaps the other brother Samuel, were detailed to do the milking, and it was always noticed that the cows that Jacob had to milk were uneasy, and would not stand still. The others did not understand what the cause of this was, and the consequent loss of the milk and the unvariable result of his attempt, caused his father to transfer the youth from that to another department of the barn work. It was soon after discovered what the real mischief was. It is said that the boy had stuck a row of pins in the front of his cap in such a way that when he leaned forward, placing his head against the cow, the method of some milkers, the pins stabbed the cows and made them kick and spill the milk.

A period of his early life, of about fifteen years, must now be passed over in which we have no definite knowledge of his whereabouts, his development, his business or other probable instances of his wild endeavors. He must have had some experience in the line of preaching somewhere before his advent in this section of the country.

An aged man of Parsonsfield relates of a neighbor seeing Cochrane at Porter and says of him: "On a Sabbath morning as he (Cochrane) approached the school house where he was to hold a meeting, he appeared to be a handsome, fashionably dressed young man. His coat was thrown back so as to show his white vest. He walked with a brish step, swinging his arms, clapping his hands, singing joyously and bowing politely to all whom he met."

Cochrane's doctrine, if indeed it had any foundational prototype outside of his fertile brain, seems to have been like the Koran in theory (and in practice like the whirling dervish of the Oriental countries.

He claimed that all his sayings were from divine inspiration and he thought that all who embraced his doctrines received direct and constant communications from the Almighty. Their usual expressions were: "The Lord tells me."

Under the influence of this self imposed delusion they could easily allow their random thoughts and desires to establish a rule of action, which was to assume the control of their minds and give license to the basest passions. He did not reject the Bible, but his interpretation of it was often silly and obscure. In carrying out the command to become as little children, he exhorted them in humility to roll in the dirt, and men and women to make mud cakes. He directed these simple and puerile antics, and they obeyed in proportion as he had gained control of their minds and become subordinated to these personal suggestions. He led them to believe in a "supernatural affinity." They were to heal the sick and even to have the power to strike down dead if they willed. They were able to enlarge the farmer's crop or to bring the housewife's soap.

A poet in the vicinity of one of the places where Cochranism had made many converts, describing a dispute with one of these zealots makes Dennis say to John:

       "If I should say -- My power to show
        That you must die, it would be so."

John replying:

       "Brim full of John takes the floor
        And shovels Dennis out of door."

He thought that to him and his followers the Deity granted special privileges and powers and that he and they were infallibly directed in every purpose and in every act of life. But this power, this influence over disease, or rather this personal magnetism seemed to be the peculiar province of Cochrane alone. No one of his proselytes was ever known to have been innoculated with this gift.

An old gentleman of Parsonfield recollects seeing, when a boy, a party of these zealots passing his father's house. They were on their way to heal a sick man, but the sick man did not have the required faith and so this miracle withered in the bud.

It is said that Cochrane made about fifty proselytes in Parsonfield and probably the mischief would have been much more extensive there and in that vicinity, had it not been for the ever vigilant eye of Elder John Buzzel, who put his whole soul into the work of battling this deceiver. Those who were led by him were generally of the ignorant and excitable kind and would often attempt the power of oratory like that of Jacob, which was conceded by all to be brilliant and sometimes very eloquent. They would mount a bench or box and then attempt to hold forth and begin confidently and with some definite ideas at first, and there would become excited and pour forth a roaring cataract of nonsense and incoherent babbling.

There were numerous exceptions, however, to the above. The strong minded likewise felt the power of Cochrane's influence. The late Jabez Haley related that he was present at one of Cochrane's meetings, when one of the strongest men of North Saco fell under the gaze of this magician, and another very strong man in Hollis said of himself in 1817 that he became as weak as a baby while he was directing his attention to him at one of these meetings.

In a sketch of his experience in 1817, written by himself, he says: "And my strength all left me; then I was willing to get down upon my knees or anything, but my strength was so far gone, and I had got in that position that I could not get out of my chair till someone took hold of my hand, and I settled upon them and fell out of my chair on the floor. Here I felt to cry to God for mercy, but soon I was carried away in the spirit, and knew nothing of the things of time and sense for some time."

Other kindred instances of this power will be afforded later on.

It is said that their religious exercises were prayer and exhortation, singing, dancing and whirling and ended by falling on the floor, and that they would go through what they called the "holy roll" by commencing to dance round in a circle with great rapidity and suddenly fall, and then others would follow in the same way, nearly exhausted. Their dancing was sometimes accompanied by clapping of hands and singing a quick, lively air. The old custom of deaconing out the solemn psalm tunes and hymns, pausing and ganging on the parts in slow long metre received a hasty quietus at the hands of Cochrane. Some account of this manner of singing, dancing and its legitimate effect, and the changes wrought by them will be treated of later on.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

Notes: (forthcoming)

THE  COCHRANE  CRAZE.
________

SOME OF THE REASONS WHY IT SPREAD RAPIDLY.

COCHRANE'S TEACHINGS AND METHODS WERE IN RADICAL
CONTRAST TO THOSE OF THE REGULAR MINISTERS --
CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY WHEN HE MADE HIS ADVENT.

[By Joel M. Marshall]

The summer of 1816 was long held in remembrance by the older men of our day, as the cold season, there was a black frost every month of the year. Farmers with a few exceptions lost their entire crop of corn, which was killed by the frost and rotted in the field. There were two adjoining farms bordering on Saco river in the town of Buxton where the vapor from the river saved the crop of corn of the owners. Mr. Stephen Palmer and Mr. Emery, who supplied their neighbors the following year with seed corn. From this circumstance this part of the town has ever since been known as Egypt.

This was, indeed, a dreary year. The crops were either very light or an entire failure: business was dull, money was scarce, the disturbed condition of the country immediately following the war had nearly paralyzed our shipping, prostrated commerce and left our credit at the mercy of other nations.

The great number of unemployed, the hard times, the relaxation of discipline, and the apathy of moral vigor that followed the war, rested on the people with such pressure that all efforts to enlist them to any extent in that devotional exercise and self sacrifice, so essential in making any material religious progress, were attended with very limited success.

Burdened with the legacy of a heavy war debt, deprived in the case of nearly every family, of the luxuries and in many cases of necessaries demanded for good common living, spiritual dearth, seemed to permanent and severely a fact as the scarcity of corn and the prevailing despondency that followed.

In connection with these natural causes, in order to show the condition of the country and the people of this time, it is kindred to this subject to exhibit a brief picture of the life and surroundings of the people, of the hardships, the limitations, the every day duties, and especially of the rigid discipline connected with their style and practice of religious observance.

Imagine a large two-story barn-like building standing alone, generally on an elevated place, pierced for numerous windows with small panes of glass, weather stained from long exposure, without paint, without a spire or bell, without a shade-tree to break the isolation, with a church-yard in the rear, the inside divided off into box-pews, six feet square on the ground floor, with a gallery on three sides and the corner pews reserved for the colored population and known as the "nigger pews," with an elevated pulpit and a sounding board canopied over the head of the preacher. On the front of the house was a porch with three doors, one for the men, one for the women and the front one for the reverend minister himself. A steep flight of stairs led up to the galleries. The pew backs were high and perpendicular with a narrow, slatted railing some eight inches wide, on the tops. The best locations, those nearest the pulpit, were reserved for the wealthy members of the parish -- saving two or three pews in the front for the singers and bass-viol player.

Here the good people congregated on Sabbath morning, most of them coming from a distance and bringing their dinners with them, and sometimes their go-to-meeting shoes in their hands, and there listened to the words of their pastor.

The hour's intermission was spent on lunching and hearing the gossip or scanning the "publishments" which were posted in a frame in a conspicuous place near the door -- until the afternoon service, which being completed, they trudged home.

In these cold, unpainted, airy barracks on the cold days of the winter season the people gathered and sometimes sat for two long hours without a fire -- as still as statues, and listened to the long winded sermins and prayers -- and especially of the preacher was gifted in prayer, the latter would be longer than the sermon.

While the preacher was reading their warm destiny in the "red glare of hell" the children would be curling their feet under them to keep from freezing, while they watched the little white clouds that every breath made, and the women tried to keep comfortable with their little square tin stoves, the minister would pray for the heathen, and the uncouth millions in far off Africa, and if any faithful wife and mother with a family of eight or ten children after wrestling with poverty and exposure and drudgery, and exposed to the mercies of a drunken husband for twenty years, had at last succumbed to death's relentless grasp, the minister prayed that her death might be sanctified to the bereaved family, and especially to the inconsolable husband. They must all acknowledge the wisdom of Providence and bow to the mandates of God. The music of those times consisted principally of long meter hymns, lined or deaconed with very impressive solemnity in metrical versions of the Psalms and Watt's select hymns. The rhymed horrors became popular in the eighteenth century, and continued so well down to our day. Think of singing in solemn chorus such lines as these:

   "My thoughts on awful subjects roll
      Damnation and the dead;
   What horrors seize the guilty soul
      Upon the dying bed?"

The effect of these old pennyroyal hymns on young people of that day, as of this, is not too difficult to imagine, and Cochrane immediately seized upon this fact and lifted himself at a bound above the ramparts of these traditional and senseless methods. He at once supplanted these with a quick, lively music of the most exhilarating airs. One of these lively little airs, and the one most often quoted by those who had heard them, ran thus --

   "Come you who love the Lord indeed
      Glory, glory hallelujah --
   Who are from sin and bondage freed
      Glory hallelujah"

The writer has heard several old men who well remember Cochrane, sing this hymn to a lively air and at the same time involuntarily emphasize the music by a lively movement of their hands.

Such was the cindition, such was the life and such was the labyrinth through which all apirants for the better mental development must thread themselves, and mingled with all was a certain degree of superstition, trained in traditional rules of acknowledged sancity, and time-honored in their observance. Over all these Cochrane had thrown the glamour of his impressive personality. His commanding presence, his pleasing manners, his dark penetrating eyes, his fluent tongue and copious language, his melodious voice, his familiarity with the scripture and his untrammelled interpretation of its text, his intense earnestness and all these engineered by a supurb masculine vigor, made [by] him a dreadful rival to be encountered by his contemporaries in the tournament of debate.

The malarial influence following the appropriation and inordinate abuse of these personal endowments over the up-country virtues and wilderness moralities of the rural people of New England at that time is not difficult to understand.

Cochrane addressed himself particularly to the young. He came to Maine as a preacher of no denomination, and as he professed, withed to found [none]. From his first entrance into Maine, extreme opinions of his character were entertained. Some thought him to be the most holy man that had appeared since the apostles, while there were some even then who regarded him as the devil incarnate. He first introduced himself to the Free Will Baptists in Scarborough, where his preaching at first as it was said, attracted no particular attention, save that it was bold, visionary and dictatorial. Extending his labors into other towns, his popularity increased till he was put forward in a protracted meeting in North Saco by general consent and where for six weeks the excitement was intense. Not less than three hundred there professed to have found mercy, and from that time Cochrane was the hero of the day, admired and almost worshipped by an excited people.

At the expiration of twelve months from the commencement of this extraordinary interest, it is said that not less than two thousand in southwestern Maine made a profession of religion. Churches of all denominations shared in the work directly or indirectly and ministers generally gave it their approval, though regretting its unhealthy excitement and its great excesses

The developments of Cochranism were by rapid and successive steps and in about the following order: he professed to have received the baptism of the Holy Spirit himself and to be authorized to administer it to others, after which they would live without sin. He disapproved of church organizations, declared all sectarian names to be marks of the beast, and all church members to be in Babylon. He introduced re-baptism as a [symbolic] cleansing from sectarian stains, and afterwards came to the proposition to have all things common. Nor did he stop here. A proclamation was finally issued declaring that all marriage vows were annulled, and that spiritual ties alone were to be regarded as valid among Christians. This last announcement was as pleasing to some, as it was startling to others.


Note: The above article, the third in Joel M. Marshall's series on Jacob Cochran, was reprinted in the Biddeford Weekly Journal of Jan. 12, 1894.

JACOB  COCHRANE.
_________________

One of His Disciples Tells of his Own Conversion.
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WONDERFUL  POWER  OVER  MEN.
________

Made Them Worship Him Almost as a God.
________

A year or so ago the Journal published a series of very interesting articles on Jacob Cochrane and Cochranism which were written by Joel M. Marshall of Buxton, who has in his possession more accurate facts in relation to that subject than any other in these parts

On account of sickness and other business Mr. Marshall was obliged to discontinue those articles to the regret of many of the Journal readers.

Mr. Marshall is now able to resume his subject and the Journal expects to be able to publish from time to time a continuation of articles until the subject is exhausted.

In his previous letters Mr. Marshall had described the advent of Cochrane to Buxton and told of some of his earlier meetings and conversations. Cochranism had not yet reached the height of its rage.

Mr. Marshall tells in the following letter how men were overcome by Cochrane's preaching and gives the story of the conversions of Mr. McD____s, as written by himself in 1817.

---

The last article on this sublime subject afforded some cause of the transition from the time-honored customs and embarrassments experienced by the faithful, church-going people of the typical New England section and their natural susceptibilities to an innovation when moved by the deep earnestness and magnetic eloquence of such a man as Cochrane. Hero worship was then, as it is now, a dormant element, in almost every soul, and like every other contagious disease, found broad, level fields for infinite development when it met no organized and disciplined form of resistance.

The conversions under Cochrane were in one sense peculiar. Since Whitefield's career no man made so many converts among the masculine persuasion as he. In this respect it differs quite materially from the religious conversions of the present day. In the beginning it took its firmest hold on men, physically strong, in the prime of life, and possessed of unquestionable mental vigor. There are many persons still living who can remember distinctly the character of their men, whose names will for the most part be withheld, but who will be incidently alluded to in what will follow in this series, and the statement of these contemporaries would firmly corroborate this assertion.

The following account of one man's experience written out by himself at the time; then being a resident of Hollis, will show something of the mystic influence Cochrane had over [some?], at least, of his hearers. In this he has faithfully delineated his sensations and the state of his mind after attending Cochrane's meeting. The following is an abstract copy from this sketch, the first (of no importance to this subject) Feb. 10, 1817, "at home."

"When I went there again and worked till May, then I agreed to work seven months, but soon after this letter Jacob Cochrane preached at the town house in Hollis and I went to hear him, but I could not tell whether I liked him or not, for he brought out so many new ideas to me. I had not heard any preacher take hold of these passages which he did in Revelations, so it confounded me, but on the next Sabbath day he preached at the same place and I went to hear him again and I liked his doctrine very well but after he was done [with] his sermon I thought he had spoilt the whole for he began to tell what was about to take place. He said, "there was going to be the greatest refprmation that ever was known in this part of the world and if there was not they might say that God never sent him to preach." Among other things spake he of, that never came to pass, but apparently they will.

"When he said there was going to be a reformation and if there was not, we might say that God never sent him to preach, I immediately concluded that we should have reason to throw him away, but it went on some time and nothing took place till the last of May to the first of June when he appointed a meeting one week, all the week, and the reformation began, and on the next Sabbath the meeting was at the town house in Hollis again, and I went, and seeing many of the young converts whom I had always been acquainted with, struck me very much, and the next week the meeting was appointed at the same barn, and I had a great desire to go to the meeting, but I was hired by the month and could get no time to go, but I made an excuse that I wanted to go and settle with a man that was owing me, and I went directly to the meeting and when I got there I saw many of my companions rejoicing in the Lord. I sat down and the power of the Lord came on me and it caused me to tremble but the accursed pride of my heart kept me back, that would not let me cry to God for mercy and so I left the barn and went home.

"And on Friday the 13th of June, 1817, I went to my labor in the morning but my mind was to the meeting and felt such a weight of my sins that I could not work with any comfort and viewing myself lost forever without Christ and I was almost persuaded to tell the man that I was to work with that I could not work anymore, but thought that if I did this they would say that I was lazy or some such thing and so I went on that day, and to my joy and surprise, on Saturday morning my employer told me that he did not want to employ me any longer if I was afraid. On which terms I immediately complied with, and after that day there seemed to me something saying -- now what is there to hinder you from having religion. Thus I went on through the day feeling glad that I was done there and now I shall proceed to give an account of my experience and the dealing of the Lord to my soul. On Sunday, the 15th of June in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventeen, I went to the town house in Hollis. Elder Jacob Cochrane preached there that day and I concluded that I would go and see if the Lord would not appear in my relief, but when I came there my heart felt as hard as stone in comparison. I heard a goodly number speak of the goodness of the Lord to their souls, but I could not feel anything that was said, and I staid until the meeting was done feeling nothing but condemnation and horror of conscience, but there was a meeting appointed to Joel Marshall's that evening, not but a little distance from the place where it was in the day-time, and another to James Lord's in Saco, about two miles from there and Elder J. Cochrane was there, so I concluded I would go, and I went into the house feeling a dreadful weight to my heart and weighed down under sin. I seated myself and seeing many of my companions praising the Lord made me feel worse, but pretty soon there were two young women fell in the floor and began to beg for mercy in great distress, I went along where they were and stood and looked on them, and then I thinks I would not get down and make such a noise as they do, but one of them came out and befan to praise the Lord for what he had done for her own soul. There was [one] she wanted to come and praise the Lord with her and then I concluded she meant me, but I thought I would not stand there any longer, so I went back to the other part of the room. There I stood by the side of a table and the power of God fell on me, and I sat down on the table. Then the enemy told me that they would see me and all be round me talking and so I gor off the table and sat down in a chair and concluded I would set there until the meeting was done and then I would go away into some lonesome forest and there I would beg of God to have mercy on me and to show me the worst of my situation which, I believe he did, and my strength all left me. Then I was willing to get down upon my knees on anything, but then my strength was so far gone and I had got in that position that I could not get out of my chair, till somebody took hold of my hand and I settled upon them and fell out of my chair upon the floor. Here I felt to cry to God for mercy but soon I was carried away in the spirit and knew nothing more of the things of time and sense for sometime, but in this deplorable situation I saw the mercies of God. I saw myself on the steep precipice going headlong to destruction and very fast too. I saw no eye to pity and no created arm to help but was determined to cry to God for mercy until I plunged in hopeless ruin. But as I lay in this situation I looked up and at a distance I saw a field and here I saw the Redeemer of all mankind coming towards me, but it appeared to me that I should be gone before he got to me. But I was determined to cry to him till I was gone but he came towards me slowly and then I would look to see where I was going and when I would look around to see if Jesus, my Redeemer, was any nearer to me, he was still drawing nearer to me and soon I was at his right hand and he snatched me as a brand from the burning and set me in the glorious field of liberty and spake these words unto me -- 'Peace be unto you,' and immediately I was free and knew all the people around me, but had no strength, and two men took hold of me and sat me up and then they asked me if I did not want to stand up. I told them I had no strength and could not help myself, but if they would help me I wanted to stand up and so the two men took hold of me, one hold of each arm and lifted me upon my feet, but I could not stand for some time. After a while I could bear my heft but I felt so light as anything can be imagined, and "glory! glory!" then was shouted, my soul was happy and lifted above time and sense and I felt to exhort sinners to repentance and to see the Lord while he was to be found and call upon him while he was near, but the meeting was done. I did not know which way to go but the company went into the road and I followed them and went home. All things looked new."

"The next meeting was at the Hollis town house. From there we went to the house of Brother Amos Kimball, to a meeting, the spirit of God was there and the brethren and sisters were very much engaged. The meeting was dismissed, the people went away. Then the converts began to sing and praise God; sinners began to mourn. Five were converted, one of them my own brother. The meeting held until daylight. Then I went home, on the morning of the fourth of July."

The above sketch of a brief period of the writer's life, is probably the only thing of the kind that has been written and preserved. It gives a better insight into the peculiar influence which Cochrane infused into, and held over, his attentive listeners, than anything else now attainable, and it corresponds with, and corroborates the accounts given of him, many of which your contributor has oftentimes heard from the lips of different individuals both in boyhood days and confirmed by accounts learned by the investigation of later years.

It is claimed that the eloquence of Cochrane was not of a peaceful order, and not always confined to words. Some instances of muscular Christianity, which had no prototype in the average edition of the Bible, were resorted to, to secure the attention of his hearers. At one of these meetings one B____n, a wandering tinker, was present, and he did not fully appreciate the devotional spirit which was prevailing among the faithful. Cochrane grasped him by the hair and called out to him -- "You are going straight to hell." "Guess I am," responded the tinker, "for the devil has got me by the foretop."


Note: This article was subsequently reprinted in the Biddeford Weekly Journal of Jan. 18, 1895.

COCHRANE'S  WILES.
________

How He Won His Way into Public Confidence.
________

THROUGH A RIVAL PREACHER.
________

Ministers Who Enlisted in the Crusade Against Him.
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The earlier meetings of Cochrane which he led in person, were generally free from that boisterous, exciting and alarming character which become the drawing feature of those later on. The latter were the meetings of his followers for the most part.

Those held at the old town house on Brigadeer hill in Hollis, were distinguished by a deep earnestness and feeling the hearers were delighted with his eloquence. All classes attended them, and great interest was manifested, and there were some who became truly converted and remained steadfast in the faith, professing their love of Christ, and from that time lived honorable, useful and Christian lives, whose impulses were first moved by the powerful appeals and eloquent exhortations of Cochrane. The shouting, dancing, whirling and choosing their partners in the dark and those peculiar and wild excesses, those features of Cochranism which have best been remembered by those now living, were the sporatic growth of the so called "Spritiual liberty" which was given such liberal interpretation whose seed was sown by Cochrane.

The brief written accounts and allusions made to him by other writers and narrators are in harmony with the conceded [oasis] in his character.

D. M. Graham, the biographer of Rev. Clement Phinney of Gorham, who was the first minister in this section to associate with him, and who afterward denounced, shunned and dreaded Cochrane, says, "When Mr. Phinney was holding meetings in Scarborough, Cochrane was a devoted disciple, and Phinney then spoke of him as his able coadjutor. And when Phinney led the meetings Cochrane did not attempt to take the lead, but always seemed willing to follow, and eloquently confirmed what his able brother (Phinney) had said. It was the custom of that time for the minister who was holding the meetings to preach his discourse, whatever it might be, and then give the invitation to anyone of the denomination who felt in the spirit to speak. At one of these meetings Cochrane arose, apparently overwhelmed with holy emotions, and said -- "Today I have heard the gospel in its purity. God has sent this servant of his (Phinney) here for a great work of salvation, and he concluded his remarks by publicly proposing to give up his appointments to Mr. Phinney, reserving to himself simply the privilege of exhorting occasionally as the spirit might give him utterance." The biographer says, "Mr. Phinney could not decline so generous a proposal thus publicly made and when Mr. Phinney, entered upon the duties of his proposed series of meetings Cochrane accompanied him, faithfully availing himself of this reserved privilege of exhorting sinners to flee to Christ. He often wept profusely as he listened, and as he spoke, and the prophecy that he had before made, was so far fulfilled, for he won the confidence of the people."

It was claimed by those who knew them both, that Phinney was afraid of Cochrane and notwithstanding his self-sacrificing spirit and generosity in placing Phinney before him, Phinney seemed to withhold his confidence from him, and Cochrane knew it. One day he met Phinney in company with several men of the connection, and he said of him, "Brother Phinney you are very hard-hearted; you do not love me. It is as cruel as the grave, for I never before saw the man in my life I loved half as well as I do you." Phinney, raising his cane to a horizontal position, replied: "Jacob, I love you at the end of that, but I cannot receive you to my heart." Imperceptinly to the combative Phinney, all these circumstances were doing a great work to his gifted rival. The deference Cochrane paid to a man so firmly established in the confidence of the people by one, in the world's estimation, so much superior to him in natural ability of fine and imposing personality, generous and considerate, patient and seemingly as decout and sincere as he. These were the silent and insidious agents that shifted the current of popular acceptance from Phinney to Cochrane.

When Cochrane went from Scarboro back to Hollis and held meetings there, he said to his hearers --"Go to scarborough and listen to Mr. Phinney if you want to hear the precious gospel in its purity. I have traveled in ten states of this union, but never before has it been my privilege to listen to such a man of God."

In connection with the above incidents a few well authenticated instances of his skill in this part of York county which will follow will be persistent, and inasmuch as these peculiar features have never been made prominent by a number of predecessors who have told their knowledge and experience of the man, his gifts, his teachings, and his excesses we think they should be brought to an exhibition of the full share of their matirity in the unbiased delineation of his character. He had gained prominence as an eolquent orator, and won his most ardent adherents in the role of coadjutor at these meetings, in the most of which others had borne the responsibility -- thus almost unavoidably giving the impression of great reserved power and a daily expectation on the part of his hearers of a sudden and independent development of [it,] and it is a singular and almost melancholy fact, that in the monumental characters of the world's history the same traits which formed the leading characteristics of Cochrane were also a very prominent feature in theirs.

Measured on the scale of diplomatic ingenuity, he is worthy of a place by the side of Machiavelli, and for successful flattery finds its best historical parallel in the famous tournaments of adulation between Voltaire and Frederick the great.

To such an extent had the "Cochrane spirit" as it was called prevailed through York and Cumberland counties in 1817 and 1818 that the Baptist denomination especially had become justly alarmed and some of the leading ministers in the society were either sent or volunteered their services to follow him and go among those who had gone over to the delusion and formed a kind of vigilance mission or crusade against further inroads of this heresy.

Clement Phinney of Gorham, Ephraim Stinchfield of New Glouster, John Buzzell of Parsonfield and George Parcher of Saco were selected for this mission. The foremost and boldest and probably the best equipped of these was Elder John Buzzell, the subsequent editor of the Morning Star and editor of the first denominational magazine. He had been an itinerant preacher in many parts of Maine and through New England, a forcible speaker and fearless in the denunciation of sin and error. He was then 52 years old in the prime of his life and had a strong influence with his own and other denominations. He was on the war path for the dangerous orator, and seemed anxious to meet him face to face, an opportunity which he soon after secured.

About June in 1818, Buzzell was to hold a meeting at the old Congregational church at Buxton lower corner, in the interest of all denominations, but which it was supposed to be directed against the teachings of Cochrane. Cochrane was then in the zenith of his popularity, with a large following, some of whom were of an undesirable character, and he had become emboldened by a series of successes in capturing these meetings, and by some accidental design he happened to be there.

A large audience had assembled an Buzzell was in the stilted pulpit and had just given out his text -- Mark 13:37 -- "And what I say unto you I say unto all, watch."

Just then Cochrane stepped in the door and heard the text. He took the full meaning and recognized himself as the target, and immediately replied, "Behold I stand at the door and preach. If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and I will sup with him, and he with me." "I come, the everlasting gospel to knock, to everyone that heareth, and all that I want here is my bigness on the floor." The silence that followed was ominous: the two men stood and faced each other, and anyone of an imaginative turn of mind would associate this scene with Scott's thrilling Clan-Alpine lrgend in the "Combat," and the words of Roderick -- "Have then thy wish."

But the sturdy faith of Buzzell did not forsake him; he finished the sermon and Cochrane got some hard bits, but he had the grace and courtesy to remain and listen, and it is not known whether Cochrane made any more extended reply that time or not. Stinchfield followed after Cochrane and aroused the people against his dangerous innovations and through Scarboro, Saco and Kennebunk threw his whole force into a series of denunciations and maledictions and afterwards in 1819 published a small pamphlet entitled "Cochranism delineated" wh