For the Investigator.
MORMONISM -- THE "SPIRITUAL WIFE" DOCTRINE, &c. 

Mr. Editor, -- I return you my sincere thanks for your liberality in offering the use of your columns to any Mormon wishing to reply to any of my communications. In writing against the Mormons, I feel no ill will towards any of them; neither do I fear their abuse. Let them honorably defend their dictrines; prive, also, of I have made any charges unsustainted by evidence; if I have, I will "own up." It is my firm, honest belief, that Mormonism is calculated to uphold the worst vices of our frail nature, and as such, is an incubus on society. My object us, to shpw it in its true colors; and in striving to do so, I shall strictly adhere to what I know to be true, and what can be sustained by a hundred witnesses.

The "spiritual wife" doctrin,e I will explain, as taught me by Elder W____e, as taught by Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Elder Adams, William Smith, and the rest of the quorum, &c., &c. It is as follows: -- Joseph had a revelation from God that there were a number of spirits to be born into the world, before their exaltation in the next; that Christ would not come until all these spirits received or entered their "tabernacle of clay;" that these spirits were hovering around the world, and at the door of bad houses, watching a chance of getting into their tabernacles; that God had provided an honorable way for them to come forth -- that was, by the "Elders of Israel" sealing up virtuous women, and as there was no provision made for woman in the Scriptures, their only chance of heaven was to be "sealed up" to some Elder for time and eternity, and be a star in his crown forever; that those who were the cause of bringing forth these spirits would receive a reward -- the ratio of which reward should be the greater or less according to the number they were the means of bringing forth.

This, Mr. Editor, is the substance of the "Mysteries of the Kingdom," in as few words as I can use to explain it. THat it is calculated, with a little sophistry, to delude the "faithful" weak-minded, is self-evident. They reason thus: -- "That God is no such being as the Scriptures would seem to represent, and the sectarian would believe; that woman was made for man, and those seeming jealousies of the Almighty, represented in the Bible, were for the blinding of the Gentiles, that they might not indulge their propensities which God gave them, without his express permission...

(under construction)

Respectfully yours,                    
HENRY ROWE.          

Portland, Feb. 3, 1845.


Notes: (forthcoming)

THE  MORMON  TROUBLES.

Correspondence of the New York Tribune.

                                                  Nauvoo, Illinois, April 16, 1845.

The difficulties between the Mormons and Anti-Mormons, which have been so rife for a year past, still continue. Mormonism, instead of exploding here, as it was supposed it would, upon the death of the Prophet, Joe Smith, has continued as flourishing as ever. Joe's place has been supplied by "The 'Twelve Apostles," who now rule the destinies of this band of ignorant, lawless and unprincipled fanatics with the sway of despotism. The Temple is still progressing, and the outside will probably be completed this season. When completed, it will be a beautiful edifice, far surpassing anything in the State. It is one hundred and twenty feet long and eighty-eight feet wide, and is sixty feet from the basement to the eaves. They are now building a wall eight feet wide and fourteen feet high all around it, enclosing six acres. What the object of this wall is, I am not aware but the Anti-Mormons see in it a great Mormon fortification,. One thing is certain -- the Mormons are fast increasing in power and strength, and they talk openly of defending themselves against everything that does not suit their notion. Every house has arms in it, and there is scarcely a man in the city who does not carry arms on his person. 'They permit no process of law to be executed upon the inhabitants of the Holy City unless it suits the sovereign majesty of the Saints. No man is permitted to express any opinion here derogatory to the character and standing of the People. If he does so, he is immediately driven out of the city by a Mormon mob. There have been several instances of this kind lately.

The trial of the persons indicted for the murder of the Smiths last summer comes on at Carthage in this County in four weeks from Monday next. It will be a time of tremendous excitement. -- Some six or seven of the most respectable citizens of the County are indicted for the murder of the Smiths, and among the number are Hon. Jacob C. Davis, State Senator; Thomas C. Sharpe, Esq., Editor of the Warsaw Signal; W. N. Grover, Esq., counsellor at Law, and Col. Williams. All these gentlemen have strong friends who are determined they shall have fair play -- several military companies from the Anti-Mormon portions of this County and from the adjoining Counties will reconnoiter at the County seat in Court week. The "Nauvoo Legion" will probably be on hand also. If the appearance of the Mormon Legion would not put old Jack Falstaff's ragged regiment to the blush, I am mistaken.

One of Mr. Polk's nominees, a Jack-Mormon by the name of Backenstos, who resides at Carthage, is in trouble. The Mormons sent him to the Legislature last winter where he made himself busy in abusing the old citizens of the County, and when he returned from Springfield a week or two ago, the citizens of Carthage went en masse to his house and gave him notice to leave the town in a certain time. Before the time expired, he received notice of his appointment by the President to some lucrative office in the Lead Mines, and, by begging hard, the citizens, on account of his family, concluded to let him stay a week or two longer to settle up his business. They did not extend this act of grace to him, however, without pelting his house with rocks.

What will be the end of all these troubles no man can foretell, but I am apprehensive that there will be a terrible collision one of these days The Mormons and Antis can never live in peace any more -- the hatred existing between them is deep, deadly and inveterate. One party must leave; and if the old citizens of the county are driven from their homes and their firesides by Mormon persecution, a feeling of indignation will be aroused among the people of Illinois that will not be quelled, until the last vestige of Mormonism is driven from Illinois, as it was from Missouri.      Yours, &c.


Notes: (forthcoming)

 
(letter from Hancock Co., IL -- under construction)

Note: The letter is dated April 7, 1845. It tells about anti-Mormon activities, Col. Backenstoss, etc. -- mentions Mr. Elliott's escape recent from jail.

 
(letter from Hancock Co., IL -- under construction)

Note: The letter is dated June 6, 1845 -- signed "Macedonius." It tells about the murder of the Smiths and the trial for those charged in the assassination.

MORMONISM: TROUBLE IN THE HOLY CITY -- Bill Smith is making trouble for the Twelve in Nauvoo and will either quietly compel them to surrender their power and submit to him or else he will throw himself into open rebellion... in consequence of the sickness and death of his wife Smith has been comparatively quiet since his entrance in the city but there are many points in which he has disagreed with the leaders of the church which has led to coldness if not hostility...


Notes: (forthcoming)

The Warsaw Signal contains numerous statements of violence in or about Nauvoo. Wm. Backenstos, late sheriff of Hancock, has been ordered to leave the holy city. He is accused of being the correspondent of the Warsaw Signal. Patriarch Bill Smith, of Nauvoo, brother of the prophet, whose wife died about four weeks since, was again married on last Sunday week having been a widower about eighteen days. His bride is about sixteen years of age, and he is thirty-five. The split among the Nauvoo saints is growing wider. Bill Smith heads one party, the twelve disciples the other.


Notes: (forthcoming)

From the St. Louis Republican, Sept. 16.

MORE TROUBLE WITH THE MORMONS. Our correspondent at Warsaw sent us by the La Clede, which arrived this morning, the following account of serious outbreaks between the Mormons and their opponents in Hancock county:

                    Warsaw, 11th Sept., 1845 -- 10 o'clock, A. M.

Messrs. Editors: on Tuesday morning last, (9th inst.) and attack was made upon a school-house in Rocky Run Precinct, by some persons unknown, but supposed to be Mormons, in which there was at the time of the attack a convention of Anti-Mormons, or old settlers of the country. The door and windows of the house were completely riddled by the shots fired by the assailants. The attacking party approached under cover of the woods and bushes, fired one round and fled. No person was injured, but many were, I presume, much frightened and this sudden and unexpected attack. The old settlers in that section of country armed themselves for defence, and if they are backed by their friends in other parts of the country, blood will flow. By a messenger, just in, who came to purchase lead, powder, flints &c., I learn that four buildings were burned down last night, and one man shot, and very badly wounded, but not mortally. Yesterday thirteen wagons loaded with furniture, were seen wending their way to the City of Refuge, (Nauvoo.)


Note: A companion article in this same paper tells of the problems of the Saints at Morley Settlement and Hancock Settlement, makes mention of ElderDaniel Tyler, etc.

THE MORMON WAR. -- An Extra from the Illinois State Register, dated Sunday, Sept. 21st, states that the rout of the Anti-Mormons, by Sheriff Backenstos and his party, was complete, and that the recontre of the 17th, described in the Sheriff's proclamation, struck such terror to the hearts of the mob supporters, in all the surrounding country, that the people all fled from Carthage, Augusta, and other Anti-Mormon towns, and carried their families into the counties of Adams, Marquette, Schuyler, and McDonough, and were beating up for volunteers, in those counties, to recruit their forces, with which to renew the war. It was believed that, having so disgraced themselves by the incendiary mode in which they carried on the war, their success would not be very great. Before this news reached Springfield, Governor Ford had issued a call for five hundred men, to quell the disturbances. No letters have been received at Springfield from any of the Mormon party, since the commencement of the troubles, except one from a very obscure man in Nauvoo, and another from McDonough county, and no newspapers. It was rumored that the mails were stopped, and there was a story afloat that one mail-carrier had been murdered. No messenger had arrived at the Capital, from all that section of the country, until the 21st, when a committee arrived from Mt. Sterling   [Boston Atlas.


Notes: (forthcoming)

THE MORMON CIVIL WAR. The latest accounts give no further details of the destruction of property and life in the Mormon war. Up to the 26th ult. Sheriff Backenstos remained at Carthage, fortified in the court-house and surrounded by armed men. The St. Louis Republican of the 29th says: --

We received his fifth proclamation, dated Carthage, on the 25th. It is very long and not very important. He says that "there seems to be a continuance of peace throughout Hancock county. There has been no burning of houses, or other property, since a part of my force pursued the mob and fired upon them." He says that there are many complaints made to him by Mormons and anti-Mormons, about the stealing of cattle, &c., and that he has used every means to find out the truth of these reports; that the Mormons who were burnt out have been employed in removing their household furniture, other mobeables, and grain, to Nauvoo, and after they had done this, they proceeded to gather their cattle and drive them from the infected district, but could not find them, and that two hundred head are thus missing. Some fifty head of cattle, he says, are reported to him to have been stolen near Warsaw and Carthage. He is incredulous about the Mormons committing these depredations. The Governor's first proclamation, issued on the 21st, is pronounced a "forgery or fraud." He says --

"I pronounce it a base fraud. I hope no armed men will come into Hancock county, under such circumstances. I shall regard them in the character of a mob, and shall treat them accordingly. I am personally acquainted with Major Baker and Captain Merriman, and I am warranted in saying that they...


Note: The source of this incomplete text has yet to be discovered among extant files of the Missouri Republican of September, 1845. The context of Governor Ford's Sept. 21, 1845 proclamation is recorded in his 1854 book, History of Illinois.

 
(letter from Brigham Young -- under construction)

Note: The letter is dated Oct. 5, 1845, at the beginning of the LDS fall conference, the first held in the Nauvoo Temple. President Young tells about the Mormons' plans to move to Oregon, etc. President Young wrote more than one letter on the subject -- see also his Dec. 17, 1845 communication, which says: "We expect to emigrate West of the mountains next season. If we should eventually settle on Vancouver's Island, according to our calculation we shall greatly desire to have a mail route,... if Oregon should be annexed to the United States,... and Vancouver's Island incorporated in the same by our promptly paying national revenue, and taxes, we can live in peace with all men,"

The Mormons.

The Mormons have doubtless suffered gross wrong at times; but they have also themselves been very gross wrong-doers. The history of the troubles that they have occasioned is full of instruction and warning. The power of religious imposture -- the perversion and blinding of the moral sense by fanaticism -- the danger of putting into office men who are so strongly partisan as to be influenced in the discharge of official duty by a regard for the votes of law-breakers -- the necessity of an energetic and equal administration of law, so as to make it a reliable protection to life and property and a terror to all evil-doers alike -- are subjects that are urged most impressively upon the public attention by the events alluded to. We collect here a few facts by way of illustration.

In the first place we ask attention to the following extracts of a letter from the seat of war, published in the New York Observer. We have the more confidence in the writer s statements, because they are so fully confirmed from other sources. Writing from Hancock Co., Ill., Sept. 29, he says: --

"The present rupture began in a precinct called Greenplain, in the south part of the county. It was a beautiful district, with an enterprising and flourishing population of about 80 or 90 men. About the settlement was an extent of unoccupied land. Upon this the Mormons came and settled, most of them with the rights of squatters. Year after year they poured in till they were three times as numerous as the citizens. All other immigration has avoided Hancock as a district infected with the plague. We were a quiet people, no bolts or locks secured our stables or our houses. But no sooner had the Mormons come, than cattle and horses and hogs began strangely to disappear, and every description, of moveable property was I unsafe. The value of real estate was greatly depreciated. Resort for redress was had to the law with little success for the amount taken at one time was generally small. But where the amount was larger, the arrangements for concealment were so complete that property was rarely recovered: the whole settlement was found to be a mutual insurance company of thieves, and this band of a thousand souls was but a branch of the great association at Nauvoo.

"Once, in the life time of Smith, they pushed their business so hard, that Joe sent them word to stop stealing, as the citizens began to be excited. The order was obeyed; but after the death of Joe it recommenced and was carried on most unmercifully. But the stolen property was sometimes found. To meet this emergency, they had gathered in such numbers as to place the administration of the law in the hands of their chief men. Every week their numbers were increasing, and with their numbers their insolence. -- They were in the habit of swearing for each other like the members of other piratical associations. No men are so attached to "law and order" as the Mormons. Take an example, to show the meaning of law and order, as they understand it. A horse was stolen and traced to the Holy City by the owner, and found in the possession of the thief. But he proved by a Mormon oath, before a Mormon magistrate, that he had bought the horse, and it was decided that the horse belonged to the thief. The owner was then arrested for an alleged infraction of the law in the attempt to recover his horse, -- convicted, -- robbed by the judge, of the horse he rode, and of his watch, to pay his fine. Such are the men who have invaded this unhappy county. But the thriving settlement of Greenplains had suffered perhaps worse than any others, having a heavy settlement in its vicinity on the South and the general rendezvous, Nauvoo, on the North. Every night something was taken: They had lost to the value of thousands. The Mormons had destroyed the value of their farms. They could sell for nothing. No decent immigrant would come among the Mormons. To seek protection from the law was worse than vain. It added injury to injury. Application had been made to the Governor, from whom they received an insulting reply, but no aid. Gov. Ford is a devoted party man, and the Mormons cast some thousands of votes, and those votes are always sold by the head of the church to the highest bidder. In this extremity, the citizens of Greenplains met -- some sixty of them -- to consult. The law in the hand of a society of freebooters was the instrument of heavy oppression, but no relief. To crown the whole, the Mormons fired upon the house where they had met to consult. This fixed their purpose. They would drive the Mormons from the vicinity. They gave notice to the Mormons that they must leave. They were allowed full time to remove all their moveable effects, and when the shanty was clear, the torch was applied."

"The only object of the burning was to put an end to the war which had been so long waged upon their property. There was no hope but in driving them out, -- but they did not retaliate for the numerous losses they had sustained. They took no spoils, but they recovered some stolen goods."

"'But they should have waited in the hope of redress by legal means.' How long? Four or five years they had waited. They had every thing to fear from the law but nothing to hope. Our highest executive and judicial officers have been bound by their log-rolling obligations with the Mormon chiefs, who dispose of all the Mormon votes, as Bishop Hughes does of the Romish vote of your city. Here is the true secret of our whole difficulty and the strength of the Mormons. I grieve to say it; but without knowing this fact you can know nothing of our affairs."

"You will not give my name to the public, for it would seriously expose the life of any man in this county to have it known that he was the author of the above. Irvine Hodges, brother of the two Mormon murderers lately executed in Iowa, having had the imprudence to threaten some disclosures respecting the twelve at Nauvoo, was at once assassinated. Men here are very careful what they write. The Mormon spies and Danites are every where."

After these burnings, as has been already stated, an agreement was entered into with the Mormons, according to which they were to leave the country in the Spring. In the meantime, however, they seem bent on doing all the destruction and mischief in their power. -- The following extracts are from different sources: --

More Mormon Difficulties. A gentleman from the Upper Mississippi informs us, that a few days ago the Sheriff of Rock Island came to Nauvoo with a writ for one of the Reddings, charged to have been concerned in the murder of Col. Davenport. After Redding had been arrested and was about going on board a boat for Rock Island, a body of Mormons collected round the Sheriff for the purpose of rescuing the prisoner, and in the attempt Redding received a shot in the leg, and the Sheriff a wound from a pistol shot. The prisoner escaped. -- St. Louis Republican.

ROCK ISLAND, Ill., Oct. 23, 1845.          

There has been a special term of the Rock Island County Circuit Court in session here this week for the purpose of trying men concerned in the murder of Col. Davenport on the 4th of July last. William H. Redin, and his father, George Grant Redin, were put on trial on Tuesday last as accessories in the murder but the jury after being out three days were unable to agree. They stood eleven to one for conviction. Old Redin was a Mormon, and kept what is called a "station house," [i. e. a harbor for robbers, thieves, cut-throats and murderers,] on "Devil's Creek," nearly opposite Nauvoo, on the Iowa side of the Mississippi. It was at his infernal den on Devil Creek that the murder was planned -- from there they started out on the enterprise, and there returned and divided the spoils.

John Baxter, another of the murderers, was put upon trial, and the Jury last night, after an absence of half an hour, brought in a verdict of Guilty. That makes four who have been convicted. There are three more in jail awaiting their trials at the next term of the Court.

When the whole history of this murder and robbery shall be written, and its connection with the Mormon Church developed, the world will be astonished. -- N. Y. Tribune.

St. Louis, Nov. 1.          

Reding was rescued and is now secured in Nauvoo; the officers were stoned, and otherwise injured. We now learn from the Quincy Whig and other sources, that the Mormons in Nauvoo have actually defied the power of the state, and declared that no more arrests shall be made in Nauvoo. On Saturday last, the Whig says:

Col. Warren, Judge Purple and Mr. Brayman, attorney for the state, visited Nauvoo. Near the environs of the city, they saw assembled a force of about 200 armed Mormons; this being contrary to the order of Gen. Hardin, in relation to armed men assembling in the county, Col. Warren felt it his duty as an officer, to inquire into the matter. For that purpose he invited Brigham Young and others of the leading authorities to a conference. He informed them that the armed men on the prairie was contrary to orders, and wanted to know what it meant. To this Young gave an unsatisfactory reply: he said, however, that it was their intention to submit to no further arrests, and ridiculed the court, the Judge, the attorney of the state, who were present, and in substance, defied the power of the state.

After him, Elder Taylor, another of the Twelve, got up, and abused the Governor, State officers, &c. Brigham Young again got up, and said he was not very good at an apology -- but that they must not mind what Elder Taylor said -- that he was always making trouble, &c. -- offered to treat -- and called in two gallons of wine. But Col. Warren refused to drink with them; he got up and told them in a plain talk what he thought of their conduct, and that, as an officer, he should do his duty and carry out the law.

While this was going on, a deputy of the U. S. marshal arrived with a detachment of the Quincy Rifles; with a writ for Brigham Young, charged with counterfeiting the coin of the United States. This becoming known in the city, the excitement was tremendous -- the Mormons assembled in large crowds -- and a disposition was manifested by them to resist all attempts to arrest any person in Nauvoo. After a consultation with the officer, by Judge Purple and others, it was deemed advisable to postpone the execution of the writ at the time, for the personal safety of all concerned.

Col. W., with the force under his command, was to have marched into Nauvoo on Tuesday last, for the purpose of executing the writs against Reding, Brigham Young and others, but we are not advised of the result of this attempt to enforce the law. It is said that Col. W. is in possession of certain information that a bogus manufactory is now, and was, before the death of the Smiths, in operation at Nauvoo; and the twelve, or some of them, are interested in it.

The Circuit Court of Hancock county adjourned on Monday last. The trial of Backenstos, for the murder of Worrell, did not take place. Before the time of trial, Backenstos applied for a change of venue, alleging that the Judge, Purple, was prejudiced against him. The application was granted, and the case removed to Peoria County. -- Republican.

---

Flight of the Mormon Prophet from Nauvoo. William Smith, of the patriarch's family, has fled from Nauvoo. The St. Louis papers publish his "faithful warning to the Latter Day Saints," against the unrighteousness of the elders who have usurped the patriarchal chair, of which he is the only legal occupant. He counsels peace, love to all men, and a restoration of confidence between the Mormons and their neighbors; opposes emigration to Oregon, and promises further exposures of the unrighteousness of the "wicked elders." He is now in St. Louis, under the protection of some friends. His address is dated 25 October.


Note: The final item in the series presented above, was also published as "Flight of the Prophet" in the Amherst, NH, Farmers' Cabinet of Nov. 20, 1845. That version adds the information that William Smith's address in the St. Louis papers was "dated 15th Oct."

THE MORMONS. -- Mrs. Smith, the widow of the Mormon prophet, has addressed a letter to the New York Sun, declaring that it is not her intention to go to California, or any other remote place, with the Mormons. She says:

"The laws of the United States are quite good enough for me and my children, and my settled intention is to remain where I am, take care of my property, and if I cannot educate my children here, send them to New York or New England for that purpose. -- Many of the Mormons will, no doubt, remove in the spring, and many more will remain here; and nothing would give me greater pleasure than to have a mixed society in Nauvoo, as in other cities, and all exclusive religious distinctions abolished.

"I must now say, that I never, for a moment, believed in what my husband called his apparitions and revelations, as I thought him laboring under a diseased mind; yet, they may all be true, as a prophet is seldom without credence or honor, excepting in his own family or country; but as my conviction is to the contrary, I shall educate my children in a different faith, and teach them to obey and reverence the laws and institutions of their country."

She also says:

"I am left here, sir, with a family of children to attend to, without any means of giving them an education, for there is not a school in the city, nor is it intended there shall be any here, or at any other place, where the men, who now govern this infatuated, simple-minded people, have sway. I have not the least objection that these petty tyrants remove to California, or any other remote place, out of the world if they wish; for they will never be of any service to the Mormons, or the human family, no  matter where they go. Their object is to keep the people over whom they rule in the greatest ignorance, and most abject religous bondage, and if these poor, confiding creatures remove with them, they will die in the wilderness."


Note 1: The Nauvoo Times & Seasons published in its issue for Jan. 15, 1846 the following note of response and refutation to the letter printed by the Sun: Nauvoo, Dec. 30th 1845. -- To the Editor of the New York Sun; Sir: I wish to inform you, and the Public through your paper, that the letter published Tuesday morning, December 9th, is a forgery, the whole of it, and I hope that this notice will put a stop to all such communications. -- EMMA SMITH.

Note 2: While the letter published by the Sun of Dec. 9, 1845, subscribed by "Emma Smith," was probably not sent to that paper by her directly, its still remains arguable that one of her close associates penned the communication and that she secretly allowed the act -- perhaps in carrying out some defensive "blackmail" against her Brighamite opponents in Nauvoo. It is, for example, not inconceivable that a confidant of Mrs. Smith (such as her brother-in-law William) might have taken her words from some other, private communication, added to them, and submitted the results for publication, hoping all the while to thus induce her to admit in public things she had thus far been saying only in private. As things turned out Emma did not follow Brigham Young west; did not raise her children to be Mormons; and did not have any respect for the motives and intentions of "The Twelve" in their subsequent leadership of the Saints.

Note 3: Oddly enough there was very little journalistic reaction to the purported Emma Smith letter. A few papers (like the Quincy Whig & Warsaw Signal) noticed the letter in passing; Sidney Rigdon's Pittsburgh Messenger & Advocate paid it some attention; but, for the most part, the strange communication went unmentioned, outside of the columns of the New York Sun, after its initial appearance there. Its partial reprinting in the Portland Transcript marks a rare exception to this tendency among the papers of the time.

Springfield, Ill., DEc. 17, 1845.    

The Grand Jury of the U. S. District Court, insession here, have for the past week been investigating the state of affairs at Nauvoo. The result is, the have found twleve indictments (mostly against the head men of the Mormon Church,) for counterfeiting the coin of the United States. Among the number indicted are Brigham Young, President of "The Twelve," and Orson Pratt, a prominent leader.

I learn that the developments are most startling. It appears that counterfeiting has been the principal part of the business there for some years, and that it has been carried on by the heads of the Church. The amount of counterfeited has been immense, and the execution has neen so nice, as in most cases to prevent its being detected. The prophet Joe Smith, used to work at the business with his own hands.

Other disclosures were made in relation to robberies and murders, which have never before been made public, but will be in due time.

Although these indictments have been found, yet no arrest will be made for reasons which will duly appear, and whether creditable or not to our Executive, the public will judge. -- Correspondence of the Tribune.


Notes: (forthcoming)

The  Mormons.

We gather from several articles in the Warsaw Signal and other quarters, that a portion, if not the whole of the Mormons, intend soon to commence their pilgrimage for California From ten to twelve hundred have already crossed the river from Nauvoo, and are encamped on Sugar Creek, Iowa, seven miles distant. Among them were the Twelve, the High Council, all the principal men in the Church, and about one hundred females. -- They were several days and nights in getting across the river. It is said to be the plan of the leaders to send this company forward as a pioneer corps. They are to proceed about five hundred miles Westward, where they are to halt, build a village, and put in a Spring crop. They are to remain there until those who follow in the Spring reach them -- when another pioneer company will start for a point five hundred miles still farther West, where they will stop, build a village and put in a Fall crop. The company remaining behind will in the Spring, move on to this second station and in this manner they hope to accomplish the long journey which is in contemplation. Many of them who now go as pioneers are to return as soon as their crop is in, for their families.

It is said in the Signal that the Twelve crossed the river on Sunday night, apparently apprehensive of some visitation from officers who might interfere with their departure. They left behind them, as agents for the sale of the remaining property, A. Babbitt, Fulmer and Haywood, formerly of Quincy.

Major Warren, who has been in command of the Illinois militia stationed during the winter in Hancock county, has issued an address to the citizens of that county. In this address he says: --

"That he has learned with much regret, that a body of men, some twelve in number have assumed the authority of notifying a number of families to make preparation to leave the county by the first of May next, on pain of being burnt out; and this, too, as they said, upon the authority of Gov. Ford. Looking forward, as I now do, to the consummation in good faith of the compromise effected last fall by Gen. Hardin, Majors Douglass McDougall and myself, and believing as I do that it is the duty of all good citizens and lovers of good order to abide by that compromise, and to avoid all cases of excitement, I feel it my duty to declare, that all persons engaged in notifying at this time to leave are violators of the peace, amenable to the law of the land, and that they ought to be punished to the utmost extent of the law. The declaration that they were authorized to give such notice by Gov. Ford is false and slanderous. And I hereby pledge myself, and the force under my command, to move at a moment's warning, to put down all violence and breaches of the peace, and to assist in the execution of all proper legal process, let it come from what party it may, either Morman or anti-Morman; and farther, advise all good citizens, (if aggressions are made upon their person or property, when there is no chance to procure the assistance of the volunteers,) to defend their persons and property with powder and lead."

The Signal also condemns any attempt to interfere with the compromise between the two parties in that county. (St. Louis Rep. 13th.)


Notes: (forthcoming)

From the Nauvoo Eagle, May 22

MORMON AFFAIRS, &c. -- A large majority of the mormons have already left the State, and those who still remain are husbanding their resources and working hard in order to procure an outfit. Most of the farmers have either disposed of their property or left it in the hands of agents. The city is half deserted, the bulk of improved property having been sold and the houses vacated. Hundreds of families are preparing to occupy the former homes of the Mormons, as soon as it becomes apparent that mobs have been suppressed and order predominates over anarchy. We know of many who are but waiting for the restoration of tranquility to move in; and under the better auspices which now begin to shed their influence upon the place, it cannot be doubted that Nauvoo will command a large population and enjoy a permanent prosperity.


Notes: (forthcoming)

THE  MORMON  WAR  RENEWED.

The Western mail received at Baltimore on tuesday night, brought information of disturbances in Nauvoo. It appears that the regulars (or Anti-Mormons) have determined that every Mormon shall leave that place, and measures have been adopted to drive off such as are not disposed to go.

The editor of the Hancock Eagle, at Nauvoo, has suspended his paper. It is said to be the intention of the assailants to destroy the Temple.

The St. Louis papers of the 15th inst. (the latest dates) state there had been no outbreak on the 12th inst. The alarm, however, continued, and a steamboat which left Nauvoo on the 13th, heard the report of five or six cannon in the direction of the city, soon after her departure.


Notes: (forthcoming)

==> The threatened renewal of hostilities against the Mormons at Nauvoo, has subsided without coming to an open fight. The anti-Mormons who gathered around that place to the number of several hundred, in a menacing attitude, have become frightened at their own valor, and retreated without carrying into execution their purposes. "The war is now over and peace is again restored," says the St. Louis Reveille of the 19th.


Notes: (forthcoming)

==> SECEDING MORMONS. -- We learn from several correspondents that a body of Mormons who have seceded from the adherents of Jo. Smith, with Sidney Rigdon at their head, have lately settled at Greencastle, Pa. Though they refuse to bear the name of Mormons, and call themselves 'the Church of Christ of the latter-day saints,' yet we are told they preach the same doctrines that others called Mormons do. They regard Rigdon as a prophet, and as the visible head of their church. one of our correspondents writes that they have purchased a large farm on Conecocheague Creek, about two miles from the village of Greencastle; that they are about to put up some kind of factory there; and report says they have contracted for the building of 40 houses. They have brought a printing press with them, and publish a paper, as we understand, monthly. They are making furious war on Perfectionism, and are laboring especially to disprove our doctrine of the Second Coming. They have even challenged a public discussion with Perfectionists.

Bro. Daniel Long, who writes us from Virginia, says that whenever the Lord opens the way for him, he is ready to go up and meet them.


Notes: (forthcoming)

Going to Take California: -- The President has determined to sent a regiment of Volunteers around Cape Horn to California. We suppose it will be annexed by force and arms. He can't wait for the Mormons to settle it and then petition Congress to be annexed. Gunpowder is quicker in its operation, and it will blow it right on to us.


Notes: (forthcoming)

THE MORMON CALIFORNIA EXPEDITION. -- The advance company of the Mormons was at Council Bluffs on the 26th ult. the twelve had a train of 1000 wagons with them, and were encamped on the East bank of the Missouri river, in the vicinity of the Bluff. The whole number of teams attached to the Mormon expedition, is about three thousand seven hundred, and it is estimated that each team will average at least three persons, and perhaps four. -- The whole number of souls now on the road may be set down in round numbers at twelve thousand. -- From two to three thousand have disappeared from Nauvoo in various directions. Many have left for Council Bluffs by way of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers -- others have dispersed to parts unknown; and almost eight hundred or less still remain in Illinois. This comprises the entire Mormon population that once flourished in Hancock County. In their palmy days they probably numbered between fifteen and sixteen thousand souls, most of whom are now scattered upon the prairies, bound for the Pacific Slope of the American Continent. The health of the travelling Mormons is good, considering the exposure to which they have been subjected. They are carrying on a small trade in provisions with the settlers in the country, with whom they mingle on the most friendly terms.


Notes: (forthcoming)

NAUVOO AND THE MORMONS. -- A messenger from the Mormon camp brings information that Col. Kearney has mustered into the service of the United States five hundred Mormons, who are probably ere this on their march to Santa Fe. -- The accounts from Nauvoo are of a distressing nature. The villains are now destroying property in all directions. The prisoners taken by the new citizens, on account of the alleged riot of Saturday last, seventeen in number, are still in custody. -- Each party holds prisoners as hostages; the Anties have only five; each demand an exchange.


Notes: (forthcoming)

By Magnetic Telegraph. -- Reported for the N. Y. Herald.

The Mormon War -- Another Battle at Nauvoo --
One of the Mormon leaders killed --
Several wounded in both sides.

By accounts received at Baltimore Monday evening, we learn that the excitement in the Mormon region was becoming more intense, and that the Anti-Mormons were flocking towards Nauvoo from both sides of the Mississippi, in great numbers, with the determination of totally expelling or exterminating the followers of the deceased prophet, Joe Smith.

Another battle had taken place at the City of the Temple, in which the Mormons were again victorious, and compelled their opponents to retreat.

The Mormons erected breastworks, which they mounted with six pieces of cannon.

The anties, (doubtless satisified with their disgrace for the time being,) only threw two shots into the camp of their enemies, after which they entreated for a parley.

The nauvooites refused to comply with the solicitation of the anties, and returned for answer that they were "done talking."

Upon this the action began with great desperation on both sides -- but the firing of artillery soon ceased, and the weapons were changed to muskets.

Anderson, the determined leader of the Mormons, and his son, were both shot, and fell fighting desperately in defence of the city. Two other Nauvooites were also killed, and a great many were wounded.

Six of the anties are reported to have been seriously wounded -- one of them, Capt. Smith, it is thought, mortally.

It was anticipated that anotehr battle would commence hourly. The hostility of the anties having become more inveterate than ever.

The Mormons, at Nauvoo, were much distressed, both from sickness and from the great scarcity of provisions. Their ammunition was likewose scarce. Judging fromall of which, it is not supposed that they would be able to withstand a regular charge from a force of one-third their own number of well-drilled men.

The fighting appears to be principally carried on by the mist reckless and unprincipled men of both parties -- without regard to either the tactics of war or the rules of christianity, and our readers need not be surprised to hear of still more blood-thirsty proceedings in that region by the next mail.

---

THE MORMON WAR. -- The St. Louis Republican contains a long correspondence, in relation to affairs between the Mormons and the Anti-Mormons.

Carthage, Sept. 8, 1846.     

On my arrival here, I was agreeably disappointed to find that the anticipated battle between the Mormons and Anti-Mormons had not yet taken place.

When I left Quincy yesterday morning, it was confidently reported, by a gentleman direct from Warsaw, that the battle would come off that day, but upon my arrival here, I found there was no probability of a conflict for some days to come. There are in the Anti-Mormon camp about one thousand men, eight hundred of whom are supplied with arms and equipments. They have five pieces of artillery -- six pounders, The Mormons have, as near as can be ascertained, five hundred men, with a sufficiency of small arms, and it is said they have three pieces of cannin which had been buried near the Temple, and which were resurrected for this occasion. The story is not credited, and it is not supposed they have any cannon.

A council of war was held, last evening by the officers of the Anti-Mormon forces, and their deliberations resulted in a determination to call upon Gen. Stevens of the _____ brigade Illinois militia, for more men. Accordingly, General Stevens issued orders to his subordinates, and despatched messengers with them, with instructions to rendezvous at the Anti-Mormon camp by Thursday next. So there will be no fight until the latter part of this week, and perhaps not until the first of next, if then. I am inclined to think, this will be another bloodless war.

A compromise in relation to the Mormons leaving Nauvoo has been made and broken by the anti-Mormon party, and the whole affair remains as before. Col. Singleton and Col. Chittenden, of the anti-Mormons, have resigned, because of the breaking of the terms with the Mormons, which is all the anti-Mormons could ask.


Notes: (forthcoming)

==> NEWS FROM NAUVOO. -- By the last advices from Nauvoo, we learn that the Temple had not yet been sold. The Anties having every thing now their own way, of course will act accordingly. The Mormons in the vicinity are represented as being in a most pitable condition.


Notes: (forthcoming)

The Mormons in California have laid claim to a large portion of the gold territory, and demand thirty per cent. of the ore taken therefrom. An express has been sent to the Salt Lake settlement, where about 10,000 Mormons are located. There is a rumor that equally rich mines have been discovered in that region. The thirty per cent. demand of the Mormons is expected to lead to trouble.


Notes: (forthcoming)

                    From the Rochester American.

A  MORMON  APOSTLE.

We received yesterday a visit from Martin Harris, formerly of Palmyra, who was concerned with Joe Smith, in originally proclaiming the Mormon faith. He wrote the book of Mormon from Joe Smith's dictation, the latter reading the text from the golden plates by putting his face in a hat. When the volume was written, Harris raised funds for its publication by mortgaging his farm. But he no longer goes with the Mormons, saying they "have got [sic, gone to?] the devil just like other people." He abandoned them fifteen years ago, when they assumed the appellation of "Latter Day Saints," and bore his testimony against them by declaring that "Latter Day Devils" would be a more appropriate designation.

Mr. Harris visited England some three years ago. At present he professes to have a mission from God, in fulfilment of which he wanders about preaching to "all who will feed him." When this essential condition is not performed by his hearers he shakes off the dust from his feet, and leaves for more hospitable quarters. Mr. H. is exceedingly familiar with the Scriptures, and discusses [sic, discourses?] theology, in his peculiar way, with the fluency and zeal of a devotee.


Note 1: The above article originally appeared in the Rochester Daily American of Nov. 16, 1849.

Note 2: Although the article says that Martin Harris "abandoned" the "Latter Day Saints" some "fifteen years" prior to 1849, it does not make it clear whether Harris then also abandoned his testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon. H. Michael Marquardt, in his 2002 Dialogue article, "Martin Harris: The Kirtland Years," documents the activities of Harris during the time he spent away from the Latter Day Saints, showing that he associated briefly with the Mormon Gladdenites during 1851-52, and thereafter occasionally demonstrated his allegiance to at least some of the tenets of Mormonism, in a variety of situations. If Harris ever did go through a period in his life where he placed no faith in the Book of Mormon, he evidently did not publicize that infidelity.

The Mormon Colony, Beaver Island. -- We have conversed with a gentleman who has just returned feom a visit to Beaver Island, at the head of Lake Michigan, upon which the Mormon Colony is located, headed by their prophet James Strang. They number about siz hundred and have a farm on the island, which is cultivated by them. They have also engaged to a limited extent in taking white fish and trout, which constitute their chief means of subsistence. the Temple, 100 by 60 feet, is in progress at their settlement; one-sixth of the labor of the colony being required upon it weekly. At present, this labor ois diverted to the building of a printing office, the press and materials for a weekly paper being on the ground. Semi-occasionally, the portion of the Temple which is finished is used as a theatre, Mr. G. J. Adams, one of the leaders, acting as manager. This room is also used as a ball room, where the faithful chase the giddy hours, and also as a place of worship on Sundays. Strang is at present deeply engaged in deciphering the plates found by him, as indicated by a vision, back of Kenosha, some time since. They are of copper, and are engraved with cabalistic characters, supposed to relate the interests of the "church of the latter day," by his followers. He is decribed as a hard-working, industrious man, but most of those on the island are indolent and adverse to labor. (Chicago Ill. Journal, Aug. 3)


Notes: (forthcoming)

Origin of the Mormon Imposture.

The Rochester American publishes the following from a forthcoming work by Mr. Turner, entitled "History of Philip and Gorham's Purchase. " -- Though not entirely new, it is succinct, and communicates some facts, coming within the author's personal knowledge.

"As we are now at the home of the Smith family -- in sight of 'Mormon Hill' -- a brief pioneer history will be looked for, of the strange, and singularly successful religious sect -- the Mormons; and brief it must be, merely starting it in its career, and leaving it to their especial historian to trace them to Kirtland, Nauvoo, Beaver Island, and Utah, or the Salt Lake.

Joseph Smith, the father of the prophet Joseph Smith, Jun., was from the Merrimack river, N. H. He first settled in or near Palmyra village, but as early as 1819 was the occupant of some new land on Stafford street, in the town of Manchester, near the line of Palmyra. * 'Mormon Hill' is near the plank road about half-way between the villages of Palmyra and Manchester. The elder Smith had been a Universalist, and subsequently a Methodist; was a good deal of a smatterer in scriptural knowledge, but the seed of revelation was sown on weak ground; he was a great babbler, credulous, not especially industrious, a money-digger, prone to the marvellous; and, withal, a little given to difficulties with neighbors, and petty law-suits. Not a very propitious account of the father of a prophet -- the founder of a state; but there was a 'woman in the case.'

Mrs. Smith was a woman of strong, uncultivated intellect; artful and cunning; imbued with an ill-regulated religious enthusiasm. The incipient hints, the first givings out that a prophet was to spring from her humble household, came from her; and when matters were maturing for denouement, she gave out that such and such ones -- always fixing upon those who had both money and credulity -- were to be instruments in some great work of new revelation. The old man was rather her faithful co-worker, or executive exponent. -- Their son, Alvah, was originally intended or designated, by fireside consultations and solemn and mysterious out-door hints, as the forthcoming prophet. The mother and the father said he was the chosen one; but Alvah, however spiritual he may have been, had a carnal appetite; ate too many green turnips, sickened and died. Thus the world lost a prophet, and Mormonism a leader; the designs, impiously and wickedly attributed to Providence, were defeated; and all in consequence of a surfeit of raw turnips. Who will talk of the cackling geese of Rome, or any other small and innocent causes of mighty events after this? The mantle of the prophet which Mrs. and Mr. Joseph Smith and one Oliver Cowdery had wove themselves -- every thread of it -- fell upon their next eldest son, Joseph Smith, Jr.

And a most unpromising recipient of such a trust was this same Joseph Smith, Jr., afterwards 'Jo Smith.' He was lounging, idle, (not to say vicious,) and possessed of less than ordinary intellect. The author's own recollections of him are distinct. He used to come into the village of Palmyra, with little jags of wood, from his backwoods home; sometimes patronizing a village grocery too freely; sometimes finding an odd job to do about the store of Seymour Scovell; and once a week he would stroll into the office of the old Palmyra Register for his father's paper. How impious in us young "dare devils"† to once and awhile blacken the face of the then meddling, inquisitive lounger -- but afterwards prophet -- with the old-fashioned balls, when he used to put himself in the way of the working of the old-fashioned Ramage press! The editor of the Cultivator at Albany -- esteemed as he may justly consider himself for his subsequent enterprise and usefulness -- may think of it with contrition and repentance, that he once helped thus to disfigure the face of a prophet, and, remotely, the founder of a state.

But Joseph had a little ambition, and some very laudable aspirations; the mother's intellect occasionally shone out in him feebly, especially when he used to help us to solve some portentous questions of moral or political ethics, in our juvenile debating club, which we moved down to the old red school-house on Durfee street, to get rid of the annoyance of critics that used to drop in upon us in the village; and, subsequently, after catching a spark of Methodism in the camp-meeting, away down in the woods, on the Vienna road, he was a very passable exhorter in evening meetings.

Legends of hidden treasure had long designated Mormon Hill as a repository. Old Joseph had dug there, and young Joseph had not only heard his father and mother relate the marvellous tales of buried wealth, but had accompanied his father in the midnight delvings, and incantations of the spirits that guarded it.

If a buried revelation was to be exhumed, how natural was it that the Smith family, with their credulity, and their assumed presentiment, that a prophet was to come from their household, should be connected with it; and that Mormon Hill was the place where it would be found.

It is believed by those who were best acquainted with the Smith family, and most conversant with all the Gold Bible movements, that there is no foundation for the statement that their original manuscript was written by a Mr. Spaulding, of Ohio. A supplement to the Gold Bible, 'The Book of Commandments,' in all probability was written by Rigdon, and he may have been aided by Spaulding's manuscripts; but the book itself is without doubt a production of the Smith family, aided by Oliver Cowdery, who was school teacher on Stafford street, an intimate of the Smith family, and identified with the whole matter. The production, as all will conclude who have read it, or ever. given it a cursory review, is not that of an educated man or woman. The bungling attempt to counterfeit the style of the Scriptures; the intermixture of modern phraseology; the ignorance of chronology and geography; its utter crudeness and baldness, as a whole, stamp its character, and clearly exhibit its vulgar origin. It is a strange medley of scripture, romance, and bad composition.

The primitive design of Mrs. Smith, her husband, Jo and Cowdery, was money making; blended with which perhaps was a desire for notoriety, to be obtained by a cheat and fraud. The idea of being the founders of a new sect was an after-thought in which they were aided by others.

The projectors of the humbug being destitute of means for carrying out their plans, a victim was selected to obviate that difficulty. Martin Harris was a farmer of Palmyra, the owner of a good farm, and an honest, worthy citizen; but especially given to religious enthusiasm, new creeds, the more extravagant the better; a monomaniac, in fact. Joseph Smith, upon whom the mantle of prophecy had fallen after the sad fate of Alvah, began to make demonstrations. He informed Harris of the great discovery, and that it had been revealed to him that he (Harris) was a chosen instrument to aid in the great work of surprising the world with a new revelation. They had hit upon the right man. He mortgaged his fine farm to pay for printing the book, assumed a grave, mysterious, and unearthly deportment, and made here and there among his acquaintances solemn annunciations of the great event that was transpiring. His version of the discovery, as communicated to him by the prophet Joseph himself, is well remembered by several respectable citizens of Palmyra, to whom he made early disclosures. It was in substance as follows:

The prophet Joseph was directed by an angel where to find, by excavation, at the place afterwards called Mormon Hill, the gold plates; and was compelled by an angel, much against his will, to be the interpreter of the sacred record they contained, and publish it to the world. That the plates contained a record of the ancient inhabitants of this country, 'engraved by Mormon the son of Nephi.' That on the top of the box containing the plates, 'a pair of large spectacles were found, the stones or glass set in which were opaque to all but the prophet,' -- that 'these belonged to Mormon, the engraver of the plates, arid without them the plates could not be read.' Harris assumed that himself and Cowdery were the chosen amanuenses, and that the prophet Joseph, curtained from the world and them with his spectacles, read from the gold plates what they committed to paper.

Harris exhibited to an informant of the author the manuscript title-page. On it was drawn, rudely and bunglingly, concentric circles, between, above, and below, which were characters with little resemblance to letters, apparently a miserable imitation of hieroglyphics, the writer may somewhere have seen. To guard against profane curiosity, the prophet has given out that no one but himself, not even his chosen co-operators, must be permitted to see them, on pain of instant death. Harris had never seen the plates, but the glowing account of their massive richness excited other than spiritual hopes, and he, upon one occasion, got a village silversmith to help him estimate their value, taking as a basis the prophet's account of their dimensions. It was a blending of the spiritual and utilitarian that threw a shadow of doubt upon Martin's sincerity. This, and some anticipations he indulged in as to the profits that would arise from the sale of the Gold Bible, made it then, as it is now, a mooted question whether he was altogether a dupe.

The wife of Harris was a rank infidel and heretic, touching the whole thing, and decidedly opposed to her husband's participation in it. With sacrilegious hands she seized over a hundred of the manuscript pages of the new revelation, and burned or secreted them. It was aranged by Smith and family, Cowdery and Harris, not to transcribe these again, but to let so much of the new revelation drop out, as the 'evil spirit would get up a story that the second translation did not agree with the first.' A very ingenious method, surely, of guarding against the possibility that Mrs. Harris had preserved the manuscript with which they might be confronted, should they attempt an imitation of their own miserable patchwork.

The prophet did not get his lesson well upon the start, or the household of the impostors were in fault. After he had told his story, in his absence, the rest of the family made a new version of it to one of their neighbors. They showed him such a pebble as may any day be picked up on the shore of Lake Ontario -- the common hornblende -- carefully wrapped in cotton and kept in a mysterious box. They said it was by looking at this stone, in a hat, the light excluded, that Joseph discovered the plates. This, it will be observed, differs materially from Joseph's story of the angel. It was the same stone the Smiths had used in money-digging, and in some pretended discoveries of stolen property.

Long before the Gold Bible demonstration, the Smith family had, with some sinister object in view, whispered another fraud in the ears of the credulous. They pretended that, in digging for money at Mormon Hill, they came across a chest, three by two feet in size, covered with a dark-colored stone. In the centre of the stone was a white spot about the size of a sixpence. Enlarging, the spot increased to the size of a twenty-four pound shot, and then exploded with a terrible noise. The chest vanished and all was utter darkness.

It may be safely presumed that in no other instance have prophets and the chosen and designated of angels, been quite as calculating and worldly as were those of Stafford street, Mormon Hill, and Palmyra. The only business contract -- veritable instrument in writing, that was ever executed by spiritual agents, has been preserved, and should be among the archives of the new State of Utah. It is signed by the prophet Joseph himself, and witnessed by Oliver Cowdery, and secures to Martin Harris one-half of the proceeds of the sale of the Gold Bible until he was fully reimbursed in the sum of $2,500, the cost of printing.

The after-thought which has been alluded to -- the enlarging of original intentions -- was at the suggestion of S. Rigdon, of Ohio, who made his appearance and blended himself with the poorly devised scheme of imposture, about the time the book was issued from the press. He unworthily bore the title of a Baptist elder, but had by some previous freak, if the author is rightly informed, forfeited his standing with that respectable religious denomination. Designing, ambitious and dishonest, under the semblance of sanctity and assumed spirituality, he was just the man for the use of the Smith household and their half-dupe and half-designing abettors; and they were just the fit instruments he desired. He became at once the Hamlet, or more appropriately perhaps, the Mawworm of the play.

Under the auspices of Rigdon, a new sect, the Mormons, was projected. Prophecies fell thick and fast from the lips of Joseph; old Mrs. Smith assumed all the airs of a mother of a prophet; that particular family of Smiths were singled out and became exalted above all their legion of namesakes. The bald, clumsy cheat found here and there an enthusiast, a monomaniac or a knave, in and around its primitive locality, to help it upon its start; and soon, like another scheme of imposture, (that had a little of dignity and plausibility in it,) it had its Hegira, or flight, to Kirtland, then to Nauvoo; then to a short resting-place in Missouri -- and then on and over the Rocky mountains to Utah or the Salt Lake. Banks, printing-offices, temples, cities, and finally a state, have arisen under its auspices. Converts have multiplied to tens of thousands. In several of the countries of Europe there are preachers and organized sects of Mormons; believers in the divine mission of Joseph Smith & Co.

And here the subject must be dismissed. If it has been treated lightly -- with seeming levity -- it is because it will admit of no other treatment. There is no dignity about the whole thing; nothing to entitle it to mild treatment. It deserves none of the charity extended to ordinary religious fanaticism, for knavery and fraud have been with it incipiently and progressively. It has not the poor merit of ingenuity. Its success is a slur upon the age. Fanaticism promoted it at first; then ill-advised persecution; then the designs of demagogues who wished to command the suffrage of its followers; until finally an American Congress has abetted the fraud and imposition by its acts, and we are to have a State of our proud Union -- in this boasted era of light and knowledge -- the very name of which will sanction and dignify the fraud and falsehood of Mormon Hill, the gold plates and the spurious revelation. This much, at least, might have been omitted out of decent respect to the moral and religious sense of the people of the old States.

__________
* Here the author remembers to have first seen the family, in the Winter of '19, and '20, in a rude log house, with but a small spot of underbrush around it.

† To soften the use of such an expression the reader should be reminded that apprentices in printing offices have since the days of Faust and Gottenburgh, been thus called, and sometimes it was not inappropriate.


Notes: (forthcoming)

Mormonism  Exposed  by  an  Ex-Mormon.

The late high-minded and treasonable proceedings of the Mormons in the territory of Utah, as shown by the official report of the United States officers returned therefrom, however strange and startling they may appear to the uninitiated, form no new development to those who have had an opportunity of scrutinizing and observing them, and their doctrines and practices and designs, but are in perfect keeping with the character of the sect, openly avowed by them to most of their members for some ten years or more.

The writer of this, having been one of their number, and having been personally acquainted with Brigham Young and his associates called by them the twelve apostles and having had frequent conversations with them in respect to their policy in relation to the Government of this country, is perhaps better qualified than many to submit a few hints thereon.

First, then, a word in regard to their great leading doctrine. They believe and teach that the aborigines of this continent are descendants of a branch of the house of Israel, through the seed of Joseph, the Patriarch; and consequently those remarkable blessings pronounced upon Joseph and his two sons, by Jacob his father, also by Moses, will be fulfilled upon the head of the Mormon church, and on this continent. Hence all those terrible denunciations and destructions predicted of in the Prophets against the oppressors of Ephraim and Manassah (the Indians) are to be fulfilled upon the devoted heads of the American people, the Mormons being the instruments.

The Book of Mormon -- misnamed the Mormon bible -- which Joseph Smith claimed to have found miraculously, in the shape of metallic plates inscribed upon in an unknown or lost language, but translated by him through inspiration, is the sacred and political history of this branch of Israel, the predecessors of the American Indians. The organization of the Mormon Church is the beginning of this work of returning political power to the Indians ostensibly, but in reality to the Mormon Church. In regard to the government and laws of this country, they are ready at any and all times to set them at defiance, except when they may deem it politic to do otherwise. In addition to their religious idea of vengeance on this Government, they have sworn vengeance against the States of Missouri and Illinois, from which they have been driven, and against the United States Government for not aiding with them against those States.

The Salt Lake movement was got up for the avowed purpose of placing themselves without the pale of this Government, (they, with all their prophets, little dreaming that it was so soon to be part of that government,) that they could the better manage their treasonable designs; and at that time the Mormons petitioned Queen Victoria for her aid for the Mormon emigrants from Great Britain, urging in that petition the importance of her Majesty's government counteracting the rapid emigration from the United States to California! That petetion can be seen by examining the files of the Mormon paper printed in England at that time, called the Millennial Star.

In regard to polygamy, it has been preached among them for years; and, if it were necessary, I could give you cases of the separation of husbands and wives, and breaking up of families, the demoralization of young women by some of those twelve apostles, in this city and vicinity, that would almost chill the heart's blood.

They teach and avow openly that marriages performed out of that church are null and void, and can be broken at the pleasure of either or both parties! There is no particular order or system about it. The heads of the church manage to secure to themselves the most desirable of the females that join the church; and when tired of them give them over to the laymen of the church, and not before.

I know of one instance of a family from this city, where the mother and two daughters (mere children) were used as wives of one of these apostles, Heber Kimball, he at the same time living with his lawful wife! I know of another case, in which P. P. Pratt, another of these twelve, took the young wife of Mr. Hum, of this city, unbeknown to him, and they have lived as husband and wife since. But your space will not permit to begin to enumerate instances of that kind that have come to my personal knowledge. Instead of polygamy, it should be termed licentiousness run mad. Any and all of these charges I stand ready to sunstantiate by their own documents, and by unimpeachable witnesses.   JOHN HARDY.


Notes: The above letter first appeared in the Boston Transcript.

==> William Smith, brother of the Mormon prophet Joe, has some peculiar notions about spiritual wife-ism. He is now before the Circuit Court of Illinois, sitting in Lee County, on a charge of having more wives than the law allows. One of the members of the church has made affidavit that she had been induced to believe that it was necessary for her salvation that she should become his spiritual wife; the result of which was just the same as usually accompanies cases where no spiritualism is claimed. Smith has himself now pending, in the same court, an application for a divorce, on the ground that his wife, while...


Note: The lower half of this 1853 news item is missing.

The Mormons: -- [Brigham Young and Orson Hyde say:] "Remember, that God our heavenly Father was perhaps once a child and mortal like we ourselves, and rose step by step in the scale of progress, in the school of advancement; has moved forward aond overcome until he has arrived at the point where he now is. 'Is this really possible?' Why, my dear friends, how would you like to be governed by a ruler who had not been through all the vicissitudes of life that is common to mortals? ..."


Notes: Apostle Orson Hyde promoted this teaching in his Discourse, delivered before the LDS General Conference at Great Salt Lake City in 1853. The above quote was taken from a published report of the proceedings of that conference.

MORMON  POLYGAMY.

[Belinda Pratt says:] "...I know these are good and worthy women, and that my husband is a good and worthy man -- one who keeps the commandments of Jesus Christ and presides in his family like an Abraham"...


Note: (forthcoming)

Tenets  of  Mormonism.

... It has been lately revealed by President Brigham that the God of our earth is Adam, who was only another form of the Archangel Michael. And to prove that polygamy has a heavenly sanction, Brigham Young shrewdly says, "when our father Adam came into the garden, he bro't Eve, one of his wives, with him!"...

It is not possible that these absurd and degrading doctrines will long continue to delude even the most ignorant. There will be a reaction. Those who have resided in Utah tell us that the younger citizens do not inherit the faith of their fathers. A race is growing up which laughs at the plates and prophecies of Joseph. These will naturally grow up in complete scepticism, opening a new field for Christian missionaries. Mormonism may itself, shorn of its absurdities, gradually subside into a Christian sect, or become peaceably metamorphosed into a form of civil government....

Another point of their belief is that God is a "material personage, possessing both body and parts. He eats, he drinks, he loves, he hates, and he cannot occupy two distinct places at once." He has a local residence "in the planet Kolob." He is not the Creator, but literally the Father of mankind. He was himself once a man, and has attained his present superiority by continual progression. Man may thus also progress, until he becomes what God now is, who will then be still further advanced in power and glory. In proof that man will ultimately possess the power of God, Parley Pratt says—

"What will man do when this world is filled up? Why, he will make more worlds, and swarm out like bees from the old world. And when a farmer has cultivated his farm and raised numerous children, so that the space is beginning to be too strait for them, he will say, My sons, yonder is plenty of matter, go and organise a world and people it."

This doctrine of indefinite development naturally passes into Polytheism. Accordingly the Mormon theology teaches that these are Gods innumerable, with different degrees of dignity and power....


Note: Incomplete text -- additional article contents will be posted here when they become available. See the 1850, July 15 and July 22 issues of Littell's Living Age, for the original text generally quoted by the Transcript editor.

A Mormon ball. -- The Arrow, printed at Omaha, the capital of Nebraska Territory, gives a glowing account of "a Mormon Party" given at Council Bluff. The amusements opened with prayer, by Rev. Mr. Folsom, after which dancing followed! Choice viands and wine were served. The editor seems to have been captivated by the ladies, who, he declares, "presented the greatest array of beauty we have ever seen." We are not surprised, after this, that he adds, "There is a great revival, and many are joining the Mormons."


Note: This was in the days before the Mormon "Word of Wisdom" was strictly enforced by the church leaders.

Those Four Hundred Mormons. --The Cleveland papers notice the arrival there of the four hundred Mormons who recently arrived from England on the ship Enoch Train, which, it will be remembered, was followed to sea from Liverpool by a distracted father, who succeeded in carrying back on a steam tug a portion of his family. Two daughters who remained with the Mormons are among this party, and are noticed by the Clevelander as beautiful girls. The party was closely watched, one of the faithful being constantly stationed outside each car, to prevent their communication with the worldly-minded.


Notes: (forthcoming)

BRIGHAM YOUNG A NEW YORKER. -- Both Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball are New Yorkers. Brigham lived near the line dividing Ontario and Monroe counties, in the town of Victor, at the time he became a Mormon. He had always manifested a proclivity to religious fanaticism, or rather he was a lazy rapscallion, good for nothing except to howl at a camp meeting. He lived in a log shanty, with a dilapidated, patient, suffering wife, surrounded by a host of tow headed children. Occasionally he made up a lot of axe helves and traded them off for sugar and tea; in other fits of industry he would do a day's work in the hay-field for a neighbor, hoe the potatoes in his own little patch, or pound clothes for his wife on a washing day. But his special mission was to go camp meetings and revivals, where he managed to get his daily bread out of the more wealthy brethren, in consideration of the unction with which he shouted "ga-lo-rah!" On such occasions Brigham took no thought of the morrow, but cheerfully putting on his old wool hat, would leave his family without flour in the barrel or wood at the door, and telling his wife that the "Lord would provide," he would put off for a week's absence.

Poor Mrs. Brigham managed by borrowing from her neighbors with the small hope of paying, chopped the wood herself, with an old sun-bonnet -- Navarino style -- went to the spring for water, thoroughly convinced that her lot was not of the easiest, and that her husband was, to use a western expression, an "ornary cuss;" in which sentiment all who knew him joined. People were getting very tired of Brigham when Mormonism turned up. He was just the man for the religion and the religion seemed expressly adapted to him. He became an exhorter, held neighborhood meetings, ranted and howled his doctrines into the minds of others as weak as himself, and finally went West, with the rest of them, where he has developed his powers until the poor, miserable rustic loafer is Governor of a Territory and the chief prophet of a great religious sect. He has just the mixture of shrewdness and folly which is required for success in fanaticism or quackery. A wiser man could not hold his place. A man must be half fool and half knave to be a successful quack.

Heber C. Kimball was a man of more respectability. He was born a fanatic, and if he were not a Mormon would be something else just like it. In his church -- he was a Baptist originally -- he was one of those pestilent fellows who want resolutions passed at church meetings withholding fellowship from somebody else, and insist on having a political codicil added to the Bible. We believe he had some property. He has much more talent than Brigham Young, but is inferior to him in the elements of quackery. He has very respectable relatives now living in the part of Monroe county from which he started. -- Buffalo Com. Adn.


Note: For a contemporary account of Brigham Young's baptism into Mormonism, see the Apr. 14, 1832 issue of the Rochester Liberal Advocate.

From the Los Angeles Star.

...I take this opportunity of informing you of the murder of an entire train of emigrants, on their way from Missouri and Arkansas to this State, via Great Salt Lake City; which took place at the Mountain Meadows, which are at or near the Rim of Great Basin... about 130 or 135 men, women and children... attacked about daylight in the morning, by the combined forces of all the various tribes immediately in that section of the country. The majority of them were slain at the first onset... They... sent out a flag of truce, by a little girl, and gave themselves up to the mercy of the savages, who immediately rushed in and slaughtered all of them, with the exception of fifteen infant children, that have since been purchased with much difficulty, by the Mormon interpreters....


Note: The above is from is the important Oct. 4, 1857 letter of Mr. J. Ward Christian to Mr. G. N. Whitman, as published in the Los Angeles Star of Oct. 10th.

The Mormons are destroying the supply wagons for Johnston's Army, and Brigham Young has issued a proclamation defying the troops and the United States Government. "He says that if they desire to remain until spring they may do so, provided they give up arms and ammunition. -- Col Alexander in reply stated to Young that the troops were there by order of the President, and would be disposed of as the Commanding General saw proper.


Notes: (forthcoming)

Mormon Fanaticism. -- ...President Filmore's plan, viz., appointing Young Governor, would have been excellent, if Young had been a demagogue, and not a fanatic. But he was the latter, and therefore peace is impossible with him, except on his own terms. Lying and falsehood are sanctified in the eyes of a fanatic, if they aid his purpose. In virtue of being a fanatic, he dispises all law except what his fanatical idea sanctions. No treaty will bind him; no morality will guide him. And when organized into a community, it is for the very purpose of keeping distinct from and living in opposition to all other communities. What can be done? The organization must be annihilated, at all hazards. The nuisance is too horrible to be tolerated....


Note: Incomplete text -- additional article contents will be posted here when they become available.

The Policy of Our Government Towards the Mormons. -- ... Hitherto Young's policy has been to profess obedience to the laws of the United States, and whilst the Government had no official notice of any overt act of rebellion against its authority, its policy has not only been right, wise and prudent, but masterly and energetic. It has not only planned, but carried into execution a peaceful policy which deserves the hearty commendation of the whole United States. And now that the arch fanatic Young has struck the blow which makes him an outlaw and a traitor, we have no doubt that the same prudence, energy and determination will characterize Buchanan's future Mormon policy. Under that policy we confidently expect to see the utter annihilation of that terrible fanaticism which has so long been a curse to our nation....


Note: Incomplete text -- additional article contents will be posted here when they become available.

The  Peaceful  News  from  Utah.

Brigham young and his followers have tempered their valor with discretion, and the president is doubtless correct in announcing to Congress and the country that the Mormon war is over. What the Mormons propose to do -- whether they will retain any degree their hold on Salt Lake City and the other settlements in the territory -- or, deserting all, concentrate elsewhereoutside our present limits; and whether, or not, we are fully and forever rid of them, are all points of public interest. They receive little or no elucidation either in the president's message or Gov. Cumming's dispatches. The governor seems to have been greatly impressed with the ovations in his honor from the Saints, and his dispatches are occupied more with details of these, than with an intelligent statement of the terms of the capitulation of the Mormons, and their and his own future purposes. We gather from the dispatches, in addition to what has been already published, that the people themselves seemed cordially to approve of their leader's course and recognize Gov. Cumming with all the honors and respect due to his authority. Complaints were made that the Indian Agent, Mr. Hart, in that region had incited some of the Indian tribes to acts of hostility against the Mormons, and Gov. Cumming promises to investigate and redress these. He gave notice that people in Salt Lake City, who deemed themselves aggrieved by the government of Brigham Young, or illegally restrained of their liberty among the Mormons, should receive protection from him; and in response 56 men, 33 women and 71 children came forward, and evinced a disposition to be separated from the Mormons and become citizens of the United States. They were mostly English people, some of the late emigrants to Salt Lake.

Gov. Cumming says his visit to the Tabernacle will never be forgotten. There were between three and four thousand persons assembled for the purpose of public worship, and there was a most profound silence when he appeared. Brigham Young introduced him by name as governor of Utah, and he (Cumming) addressed them for half an hour, telling them his purpose to uphold the constitution and the laws, and that he would expect their obedience to all lawful authority, at the same time assuring them of his determination to administer equal and exact justice, etc. He was listened to respectfully. He invited responses to his speech and several spoke, referring in excited tones to the murder of Joseph Smith, to the service rendered by the Mormon battallion in the Mexican war, and recapitulating long chapters of their wrongs. The tumult fearfully increased as they progressed, but an appeal from Young restored calmness. Several afterwards expressed regret for their behavior.

Governor Cumming describes the exodus of the Mormons, saying the people, including the inhabitants of Salt Lake, in the northern part of the territory, are leaving. The roads everywhere are filled with wagons loaded with provisions and household furniture. Wimen and children often without shoes or hats, are driving their flocks they know not where, seeming not only content, but cheerful. It is the will of the Lord, they say, and they rejoice to change the comforts of home for the trails of the wilderness. Their ultimate destination was not fixed on. Going south seemed to be sufficient to designate the place; but from private remarks of Young in the Tabernacle, Gov. Cumming thinks they are going to Sonora. Young, Kimball, and most of the influential men had left their commodious houses to swell the ranks of the emigrants.

The masses everywhere announced to Gov. Cumming that the torch will be applied to every house, indiscriminately throughout the country, as soon as the troops attempt to cross the mountains, and that, although their people are scattered they would take every means to rally them. Gov Cumming says that some of the Mormons are yet in arms, and speaks of the mischief they are capable of rendering as guerillas.

Gov. Cumming would leave for the South on the 3d of May. He says that he will restrain all the proceedings of the military for the present, and until he shall receive additional instructions from the president.


Note: The article appeared in the daily edition of the Republican, and probably also in the weekly edition.

More Knavery -- At the last session of Congress Senator Johnson of Arkansas smuggled into some bill as appropriation of $10,000 for removing from Utah to Arkansas several children of emigrants who had been slain by Indians on the route. Before this grant was passed, arangements had been privately made for removing them at an expense of about $600, but Johnson's Democratic backers at home wanted a job and so the treasury had to "suffer some." Commisioners have been appointed to expend this appropriation and they have already pocketed $2200 as an outfit for the journey. Thus to help the disunion negro democracy of Arkansas pay their electioneering expense the whole nation is taxed $10,000 for the performance of a $600 job that humane persons are willing to do for nothing.


Note: See also the Daily National Intelligencer for March 10, 1858.

Republicanism  in  Missouri --

Speech of Frank P. Blair, Jr.

...After declaring that Douglas is playing the part of a decoy duck, for the purpose of betraying the North into the hands of the Southern owners of the party, Mr. B. says.... I am not one of those, however, who deny the existence of Judge Douglas's "great principle." I have known for a long time that there was one of our Territories in which popular sovereignty flourished in all its glory... I refer to the Territory of Utah, where the saints reside, and where they have "formed and regulated their own domestic institutions in their own way," where Brigham Young has enjoyed not only his domestic institutions, but his "peculiar institution," "with none to molest or make him afraid." It is true that the President sent Governors and Judges there as elsewhere in the Territories, but Brigham Young desired to give Douglas's great principle a fair shake, and so he dismissed the Governors and Judges, telling them he would "send them to hell cross lots" if they interfered with popular sovereignty in Utah. He caused Gunnison and his men to be murdered. He destroyed a hundred American citizens at the Mountain Meadow Spring, only sparing children under seven years, who were not supposed at their tender age to have imbibed any prejudice against the domestic institutions of the saints. The perpetrators of these outrages are well known, but under the system of popular savereignty which prevails there, they defy punishment, and hold justice at arm's length...


Notes: (forthcoming)

From  Utah.

(From the New York Journal of Commerce.)

WASHINGTON, Saturday, Nov. 12.    

More attention than usual is now directed to affairs in Utah. Several of the government officers, civil and judicial, of that Territory are now here, or on their way here. Judge Cradlebaugh is soon to arrive here. These officers left Utah without leave of absence, and for the purpose of resigning their posts, or effecting, through their representations, some policy of the government, as they say, in regard to the factious and unmanageable Mormons. They represent that the authority of the federal government and its officers is annihilated, and the Territory is subject only to the authority of Brigham Young, and his agents. It is impossiblr to preserve order or protect life and property in the Territory. Murder and robbery are common, and the perpetrators cannot be brought to justice. The country is not safe for travelers. Few of the emigrants passing on that rpute escape from the Mormon banditti, who are organized under the name of Danites, and have become formidable from numbers, and desperation, and immunity from punishment. The aemy is represented as useless and inactive, because of the stringent instructions to General Johnston, the commanding officer. He cannot interfere for the protection of persons and property at the instance of the judicial authorities.

The numbers of the Mormons are not much increased by immigration. The late troubles between them and the federal government have checked immigration to a considerable degree. The Mormon population is said not to exceed fifty-five thousand. The order of Danites is said to be in some measure independent of the Mormon hierarchy, and "Gentiles" are admitted into it. Young men from the States who are led to that region by any adventures, though not designing to become Mormons, find ready resource from starvation by the Danites, a band that subsists by plunder....

The presence of the army is a great boon to them. It gives them a ready market for all that they can supply in products and industry. The army consists of nearly three thousand men. The Mormons are now so independent and so comfortably situated, that they appear to have relinquished the idea which they formerly entertained, of abandoning the country, and seeking a home beyond the limits of the United States.


Notes: (forthcoming)

HOW TO CIRCUMVENT THE MORMONS. -- Judge Cradlebaugh, who is on his way home from Utah, by way of California, had a plan for getting the upper hands of the Mormons, which he will lay before the administration. He will urge the extention of the preemption laws over the territory, so as to secure a large Gentile emigration at once, sufficient within a year to out-vote the Mormons. A Gentile Legislature would take from Young the power of marriage and divorce, and secure the supremacy of law. The gentile population in the territory is already large, and five or six thousand more voters would be sufficient to carry Judge Cradlebaugh's plan into effect. It is believed that the Mormons will retire into Mexico, or some island in the Pacific Ocean, as soon as their supremacy in Utah is broken. They are now engaged in a movement of importance, the object of which they keep to themselves. By orders from Young all the Mormon settlements are organizing military companies, which are supplied with arms and ammunition from Salt Lake City. It is now believed that they intend to renew the war with the United States, but the more general supposition os that they forsee that they must eventually leave Utah, and are preparing to take possession of some of northern Mexico. The annual message of Governor Cumming to the Mormon Legislature, treats the Mormon outrages in a very mild and gingerly manner, to the great disgust of the Gentiles.


Notes: (forthcoming)

                                    For the Boston Investigator.
A Letter from B. F. Underwood.

Strawberry Point, (Iowa,) Dec. 20, 1870.    

Mr. Editor: -- I have just finished a series of lectures at Elkader, (Iowa). I commenced the course on Monday evening, and gave the last lecture on the afternoon of the Sunday following....

Among the gentlemen who called on me while I was at Elkader, was Mr. William Snith, a brother of Joseph Smith, the Founder and Prophet of the Mormon religion. He is a gentleman under sixty years of age, a well-informed man, and a citizen highly esteemed for his integrity. Before the Mormon settlement was broken up at Nauvoo, he was one of the twelve apostles of the Mormon Church. From twenty-five to thorty years ago he was President of the Eastern branch of the Mormon Church, and he preached the Gospel "according to the Prophet Joseph" in most of the Eastern and Middle States. He was preaching to a Mormon congregation assembled in a hall on the Bowery, New York city, when news came of the murder of his brothers Joseph and Hiram. In 1843, he states he preached a sermon in the Melodeon, in Boston. He says that the Presidency of the entire church after the death of Joseph belonged to him, during the minority of Joseph Smith, Jr. [sic - Joseph Smith III?]; but that Brigham Young determined to secure the position and fearing him as a rival, resolved on putting him out of the way by violence. He says that his assassination was agreed upon in a Mormon Council, held in Nauvoo, of which Young was the leading member. He was informed of the intentions of his false brethren by two friends who preferred violating the oath of secrecy which they had taken to being a party to the crime upon which the Council had determined. He fled from the city in great haste. The property which he had left behind was seized and confiscated by the Mormon Church. A published statement of these facts appeared at the time in a Galena (Ill.) paper, over his own signature, and was generally copied by other papers throughout the country.

Although Mr. Smith brings heavy accusations against the Mormons that accepted the leadership of Young, and says that the religion which prevails in Utah, including its polygamous doctrines and practices, is a perversion or corruption of the system founded by his brother, yet he is a form believer that Joseph Smith was a prophet raised up by God; and that the Mormon Bible is a genuine, authentic revelation from Heaven. He defends his brother's character and claims with much ability. His account of Joseph's early career is very interesting. He intends to lecture some this winter. A number who have heard him lecture, informed me that he is a very good public speaker. Of his sincerity and honesty no one entertains a doubt....


Notes: (forthcoming)

The Origin of Mormonism.
(Springfield Republican.)

Remarkable local testimony has been discovered by the Republican sustaining the charge that the religion of Joe Smith and Brigham Young had its origin in a romance written by Rev. Solomon Spaulding of Ohio of half a century or more ago. the story is furnished by Mr. J. A. McKinstry of Longmeadow, a son of the late Dr. McKinstry of Monson, and grandson of Rev. Mr. Spaulding. Mr. McKinstry is employed in the Main street store of Newsdealer Brace. Rev. Mr. Spaulding's widow, who afterward became Mrs. Davison, came east from Ohio to live with her daughter at Monson many years ago, bringing the manuscript of his romance with her. She died some twenty-five years ago, but before her death a plausible young man from Boston came to Monson to see and get the Spaulding writing. It was a time of considerable excitement concerning the Mormons, and he claimed to represent some Christian people who wanted to expose Mormonism, He therefore begged the loan of the manuscript for publication. Much against the wishes of Mrs. Dr. McKinstry, Mrs. Davison consented to let her husband's unpublished romance go. Nothing was ever heard from it again, and the family have always considered that the bland young gentleman was an agent of Brigham Young's to destroy the convicting evidence that Joe Smith's Mormon Bible was of earthly origin.

The story of how Rev. Mr. Spaulding came to prepare his romance, which Mr. McKinstry remembers as a child to have seen, is fresh and interesting. He was out of the active ministry in Ohio -- the name of the place Mr. McKinstry does not recollect, but it was near Palmyra, we believe -- running a small iron foundry, and being a man of literary tastes, employed his leisure moments in weaving a romance. It was a time when the work of the mound-builders was creating wild interest, the implements of cookery and war being unearthed showing the existence of a forgotten race. This furnished the inspiration for the chronicles of the story-writer. He entitled his production "Manuscript Found," the idea being that the romance woven by the ex-preacher was dug up out of one of the mounds in the region. It was a history of ancient America, not all written at once, but as leisure spells and the fancy fell to him Mr. Spaulding would add to it. His writing was no secret in the neighborhood. In that then frontier region, with few opportunities for literary enjoyment. Rev. Mr. Spaulding was prevailed upon to read his production to his neighbors as it progressed. It was written in Bible phraseology, and made as quaintly olden as possible, so as to carry out the conceit of its alleged mound origin. Among the attentive listeners at these readings were Joe Smith and Sidney Rigdon, the same who founded Mormonism. Not only did Smith hear the manuscript read, but on one occasion, as Mrs. Davison frequently testified before her death, he borrowed it for a week or so, giving as a reason that he wanted to read it to his family, who had been unable to attend on Mr. Spaulding's readings. Not long afterward it will be remembered, Smith claimed that an angel had revealed to him the existence of a buried history of aboriginal America, the plates of which it is alleged were dug up, and the book of Mormon made as a translation of their inscriptions. the widow of Mr. Spaulding and her daughter, Mrs. Dr. McKinstry of Monson, compared the Smith Bible with the parson's romance, and they were essentially the same. The similarity was so overwhelming as to leave no doubt that Smith copied in full Rev. Mr. Spaulding's writing, and made out of it bodily his divine "revelation."

The character of the minister's romance was such, and his elaboration of it so thorough, as to strike the fancy of Smith, who was given to the mysterious. His family had been noted for divination, treasure-seeking, etc., and so Joe found Mr. Spaulding's work just in his line. That the results of his appropriation of it have been so stupendous was always a great cross to Mr. Spaulding's good widow, Mrs. Davison. She mourned that, even innocently, her husband should have been the means of foisting upon the world so great an evil. This was the real reason of her willingness to allow the manuscript to be taken to Boston for publication. It is to be regretted that her family have not better preserved Mrs. Davison's recollections of her husband's writing, now forever lost to the world. Enough has been handed down, however, to establish beyond doubt the truth of the claim that here was a source of Joe Smith's "inspiration." Mrs. Davison's story has long been familiar to leading en of Monson, and so impressed was the late Rev. Dr. Ely with it that he prepared a considerable account of it years ago.


Note 1: The interviewed person in this article was Dr. John Alexander McKinstry (1831-1900), the son of Matilda Spalding McKinstry. Dr. McKinstry had only recently moved back to his boyhood Hampden county when the Springfield Republican stopped by his office in Longmeadow to conduct an interview. Very little is said about John's new medical practice -- almost the entire article is taken up with his recollections about his mother's family, the writings of Solomon Spalding, etc.

Note 2: This article originally appeared in the Massachusetts Springfield Republican during the last week of August, 1877. It was subsequently reprinted in the New York Sun of Sept. 2, 1877 as "How Mormonism was Invented." The Sun mistakenly calls John A. McKinstry "a son of the Rev. Mr. Spaulding." The McKinstry interview was also reproduced in the Syracuse Journal of Sept. 3, 1877, among other papers. A copy of the original article has not yet been located, but the text from the Sept. 3rd New Haven Palladium reprint is supposed to be the same as that in the Springfield Republican.

Note 3: The substance of the interview with the son of Spalding's adopted daughter, Matilda, was published while Matilda McKinstry was still alive and when John was about 50 years old. The article writer gives the impression that some Solomon Spalding's writings were taken from his widow in Massachusetts sometime not too long before her death in 1846, by a Mormon "agent" visiting her from Boston and acting for President of the Twelve Apostles, Brigham Young. The "plausible young man from Boston" who "claimed to represent some Christian people" was Elder Jesse Haven, exactly the Mormon "agent" that the widow eventually suspected him to be. Elder Haven (a first cousin of Brigham Young), may indeed have left the McKinstry home in 1839 with samples of Spalding's writings, but it seems doubtful that the "bland young gentleman" took any thing substantial away with him. The reporter's suggestion that Spalding's widow, near the end of her life, insisted that Joseph Smith, Jr. had once borrowed a Spalding manuscript from her appears to be an entirely mistaken notion -- though the elderly widow might have said such a thing to her family prior to her death.

The reporter's story is obviously a confused conflation of John A. McKinstry's memories concerning the 1833 visit of ex-Mormon Elder D. P. Hurlbut and the late 1839 visit of Mormon missionary Jesse Haven. John was too young at the time of Hurlbut's 1833 visit to have remembered the event well. He may have been present during the 1839 visit of Elder Haven, but he does not speak of that event as an eye-witness in the interview It appears that Haven did not identify himself as being a Mormon. Although Brigham Young was Haven's ultimate ecclesiastical superior in the New York and New England region at the time, it is more likely that the young LDS missionary visited Spalding's widow on orders from LDS Apostle Parley P. Pratt (then in New York City).  

Note 4: Dr. John A. McKinstry later became better informed upon past events in the Spalding family; this can be seen by reading John's Sept. 2 1879 letter to James T. Cobb of Salt Lake City. Reproduced below is the report of yet another interview with John A. McKinstry. This newspaper article was probably clipped from an early August 1889 issue of the Springfield Republican (uncited clipping in the Dale R. Broadhurst Papers, Marriott Library, Salt Lake City):

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.]

THE  BOOK  OF  MORMON.
______

BY REV. TYRON EDWARDS, DD., PHILADELPHIA.
______

The death of the late Brigham Young suggests that the real origin of the Mormon imposture ought to be kept fresh in the memory of the people, and especially that the rising generation should know the utter want of foundation for its false and absurd claims.

The Mormon claim is, that the 'Book of Mormon,' or rather the golden plates from which they say it was copied, were found in 1827...The real fact is, that the Book of Mormon was in substance written by Rev. Solomon Spaulding, who was a graduate of Dartmouth college and a Presbyterian minister, once settled in Cherry Valley, New York, and afterwards living in New Salem, Ohio. He was broken down in health and out of the active ministry, some say in business, but others that he was melancholy, and shattered in mind and thought, though not violently insane. Being a man of literary tastes and vivid imagination, and becoming greatly interested, as so many were, in the newly discovered mounds and fortifications then exciting such wide-spread attention throughout the West, he amused himself by writing a fictitious history of the early settlement of America, so as to cover the times of the mounf-builders and of the nations or races that had long before preceded them and passed away. His work was a sort of religious romance, written in the style of the Bible. It contained several different books, showing how this continent was originally settled by a colony from the dispersed peoples of Babel, who dwelt in America till about sixteen hundred years before Christ, when they were destroyed for their great wickedness; that afterward a second colony, descendants from the tribe of Joseph, came from Jerusalem to this country, about six hundred years before the time of our Saviour; that this last people was afterwards divided into two nations, one of which, the Lamanites, were, for their sinfulness, condemned to have dark skins, and were the ancestirs of our Indians; and that the other nation, the Nephites, were highly favored of God, enjoyed the visits of angels, had the gifts of prophecy, were blessed with a persinal visit by Christ after his resurrection, and continued to prosper till the third or fourth century, when, yielding to temptation and falling from their high estate, they were left of God to be destroyed by the Lamanites.

Mr. Spaulding entitled his book, "The Manuscript Found," as if it had been found in one of the mounds of that region. Beginning in 1809, and writing at intervals as he did, he often read parts of the work to his neighbors, and among the listeners was Joseph Smith, who not only attended the readings, but borrowed the manuscript, as he said, to read to his family at home. In 1812 the completed manuscript was placed in the hands of a printer in Pittsburg, Pa., by the name of Patterson, with a view to its publication. While the printing was delayed, Mr. Spaulding left Pittsburg, for Washington county, Pa., where he died in 1816. While the manuscript was in the hands of Patterson, Sidney Rigdon was working for him as a journeyman printer, and being a versatile character, to whom no trade came amiss, and withal fond of religious discussion, it is supposed that he, having copied the manuscript, with Smith concocted the idea of the new religion. Smith afterward removed to Palmyra, N.Y., where he was noted for both cunning and shiftlessness; and while there he brought out the "Book of Mormon." Mrs. Spaulding and her daughter, Mrs. McKinstry, who is still living in Longmeadow, Mass., carefully compared the "Book" after it was published with the manuscript of Mr. Spaulding which they then had, and found the two so essentially the same, as to leave no doubt whatever that the former was copied from the latter, though with some alterations and additions, and that thus the "Book of Mormon" was made up.

For several years Mrs. Spaulding kept this manuscript of her husband's romance. But before her death, which took place about twenty-five years ago, a plausible young man came, as he said, from Boston, to Monson, Mass., where she was then living with her daughter, and asked the loan of the manuscript, saying that he represented some Christian people who wished to expose the stories of the Mormon leaders. Against the decided wishes of her daughter, Mrs. Spaulding allowed the manuscript to be taken; and that was the last ever seen of it. And the family have always since believed that the young man was an agent of Brigham Young's, sent to obtain and destroy this convincing evidence that Joe Smith's "Book of Mormon" was of very earthly origin, and that his story of the golden plates was an unmitigated and palpable falsehood.

It ought in conclusion to be added that the "Book of Mormon" and the "Mormon Bible" are two entirely different works. The "Book of Mormon" consists of sixteen different books, in one hundred and fourteen chapters, making a closely printed octavo volume of three hundred and eighty pages. The "Mormon Bible," however, is almost exactly the same as our ordinary English version of the Bible, except that the Song of Solomon is omitted, and there are some variations and additions chiefly to the book of Genesis. Neither of these books inculcate the abominable doctrines and practices of the Mormons, most of which were brought in by what their leaders have claimed were special revelations to themselves.


Note: A highly garbled and essentially useless attempt at re-telling the Spalding-Rigdon authorship claims for the Book of Mormon. It is highly unlikely that Joseph Smith, Sr. (1771-1840) would have been "among the listeners" when Solomon Spalding read from his manuscript writings. Assuming that Spalding did indeed write fictional stories and "read parts" of them "to his neighbors" in Otsego co., New York, between 1795 and 1809, Joseph Smith, Sr. was then living in Vermont and is not known to have been any where near Spalding's residences in Cherry Valley and Richfield. When Spalding moved to Ohio in 1809, Smith was still living in Vermont; likewise for the period between 1812 and 1816 when Spalding lived in or near Pittsburgh. In fact, the only time that Solomon Spalding is known to have been any where near the Smith family, in time and space, was when he attended Dartmouth College, at Hanover, New Hampshire, between 1783 and 1785. The possibility of Joseph Smith, Jr. (1805-1844) being one of Spalding's auditors during such a public reading is, of course, practically zero.