OUR  PROSPECTUS

If it were a question of the sanity of that passenger at sea, who when the vessel was in danger as being wrecked, lashed himself to the sheet anchor as the best means of preserving life; it may also by some be a query as to the wisdom of our present enterprise. But by an acquaintance with the fact of our early pioneer labors, as partner with the first type setter in Livingston county, and the first maker of news impressions in the counties of Cattaraugus, Allegany and Orleans, in the woods where in those days lived more deer and wolves than men and cattle, it may be rendured less wonderful, that we make this effort to gain an honest living.

Our several papers were published: In 1817-18, Genesee Farmer and Moscow Advertiser, in company with H. Ripley. In 1819-20, Hamilton Recorder, at Olean, in company with B. F. Smead. 1820-1-2, Angelica Republican. 1823-4-5, Newport Patriot, at Newport, now Albion. In Ontario county, (not first,) in 1828-9-30, Geneva Chronicle. And in 1836-7, Constantine Republican, in Michigan, near White Pigeon Prairie, where the community of Bears, Wolves & Co., by large majorities, out-voted the biped race....

With religious sectarianisms, or any dogmas or isms whatever, we promise to take no part; and as the Whigs, Democrats, and other partisans, are fast driving each other up Salt River, and Governor Dorr proposed as candidate for Consul to Algiers, (upsetting our last hope of promotion,) we shall not meddle with party politics....


Note: The Genesee Olio was edited and published by Benjamin Franklin Cowdery, a second cousin (one generation removed) of Oliver Cowdery, the early Mormon leader. A close inspection of B. F. Cowdery's movements and publishing efforts in western New York, 1817-1830 may help provide some information on the emigration and dispersion throughout that same area, of his Vermont cousins, the family of Oliver Cowdery's father.

==> The Printer's Festival, on the 18th, in this city, brought together several of our cotempraries of the pelt balls and Ramage presses, as far back as 1817, some of whom we had not seen for some twelve or fifteen years past. While Augustine, the president at this board, was at that day printing a little swarthy looking Rochester Gazette, in the north end of Genesee county, we with Hezekiah, were issuing the Genesee Farmer, about as comely in appearance, at Moscow, in the southern part of the same county, and David, (afterwards the great hub in Morgan's disclosures,) was publishing at the centre, his Republican Advocate, the head in canon italic, and a little the smuttiest, unreadable thing of the three. These were, for several months, all the luminaries of the country, embracing what of the counties of Monroe and Livingston lies west of the river, and the present Genesee, Orleans and Wyoming counties, till Everard with his Rochester Telegraph, was the second in the village and fourth in the county.

Our Moscow concern, press, type, cases, stands, balls, bank and all, were only a descend wagon load for a common span of horses; and the other two establishments were about the same weight.

But the Telegraph was of more size and brighter lustre. Our ambition warmed up a little, and to let the world know that we were not to be beat in our own county, we enlarged to five columns the page and from a medium to a royal sheet, and prefixed a new title line, designating more definitely the grand point of location; which read, 'Moscow Advertiser, and Genesee Farmer.' Our news matter was set in long primer and the miscellany in pica, and our terms two dollars a year for the paper and a dollar a square for advertisements, three insertions. Franklin left, and issued proposals for a second paper at Batavia, but there being four in the county already, gave it up; but Oran, a little more venturesome, went there and commenced the Spirit of the Times, and Frank, rather than be fifth in Genesee, chose to be first in Cattaraugus.

So we, in company with another Franklin, took a wagon load of printing apparatus from Bath, 'over the hills and far away.' to Olean Point, where we uncapped our balls, amid the tall pines, and printer our first number of the Hamilton Recorder, dated June 10, 1819; for the first sheet of which Horatio Orton, postmaster, gave us 25 cents and ran with it from the office, boasting the he had got the first printing ever done in Cattaraugus. We issued just 52 numbers and quit. It was now the summer of 1820; our partner, yet a minor, returned to his father Benjamin, then of the Steuben Patriot; and we remained till autumn in the exercise of our honors as justice of the peace: conferred as a boon for our active support of DeWitt Clinton, that spring elected Governor, in opposition to Daniel D. Tompkins and the bucktails.

In October, two wagons conveyed our household goods, printing apparatus, and family, then numbering but two back to Angelica; where in a new little brick house east from the square, we soon began the Angelica Republican, the first press in Allegany county, which we continued just two years and one week. For several weeks we had no other help at case than the wife, as apprentice under instructions, and at the press, than the saddler, our nearest neighbor; who would for pastime come in and beat awhile. (Inking the type was done with a couple of balls, like large negro-heads, but the wool was inside. The operation was termed beating,) Allegany then numbered only about nine thousand inhabitants, and the settlements were far apart, so that the paper-maker but seldom came out our way collecting rags. This subjected us sometimes to inconvenience. But rather than fail in our regular publication at the precise time of date, we would borrow the village blacksmith's horse, ride to Dansville, about 30 miles, take a bundle of two reams on forward, and return home the same day, though rather late in the evening. We could not have spared that amount of time had it not been that then had an apprentice in our office. All our printing ink for three years, including the year at Olean, (village of Hamilton,) was of our own manufacture, composed mostly of linseed oil, lampblack and rosin. Our patrons usually paid during winters in green wood, sled length, at a dollar a cord, and venison hind quarters at a cent and a half per lib; and in the spring bags of maple sugar, in cakes -- the price not now recollected.

During our sojourn at Angelica, the state convention, called to revise the constitution, made a new one, which abolished the council of appointment, gave the choice of county officers and presidential electors to the people, changed the time of election from spring to fall, &c., and to our home we added a couple of little fair responsibilities. We were also first, and did the very first printing ever done in Orleans county; of which we may speak in our next number.


Notes: (forthcoming)

==> January, 1823, found us abiding in Lockport, a place in name more than in form of any thing comely or civilized. One or two stores were decent framed buildings, some few erections were of stone and mud thrown together, putting architecture to the blush, and numerous log cabins. on uneven rock foundations occupied the village plot in various directions, over Comstock and Brown's late farms, where streets were said to be intended. The cabins answered for dwellings, offices, shops, school house, churches, groggeries and taverns; Mann's Hotel, being the largest cluster of shantees, contained the most cords of wood in its walls, and the most feet of back in its roof, of any building in Upper Lockport, and was, withal, the only resort for genteel company. The Lower Town had not yet been dreamed of; the native forest remaining undisturbed, except by Boland's Ashery at the base of the hill, and the small openings made by cord wood choppers, with whom we sometimes joined. Excavations for the canal through the Mountain Ridge had progressed in some places to the depth of three or four feet, and in many places not yet begun. Hundreds of drillers were every day, click, clicking powder holes into the rock mountain, and blasting out showers of stone, which in descending scared the women, wounded or killed the men, and riddled the roofs of the surrounding erections called houses. It was not uncommon to see mangled men, with eyes and limbs destroyed or skulls broken in. The 'Lockport Observatory' was the paper then published by our friend Orsamus Turner, whom we sometimes assisted and in whose office we printed a pamphlet edition of the New Militia Law, and late in autumn, printed our prospectus, with borrowed head lines from the two Batavia offices, for the 'Newport Patriot,' in the northern part of Genesee County.

Before leaving Lockport we were present at the laying of the first foundation stone for the locks. Deacon Horn was head man in the hoorahing ceremony, and horns of liquor flowed freely among all present on the joyous occasion.

In December, the same year, in a time of good sleighing, we with our household effects, family, and a pair of empty cases, departed and were safely lodged in a room in a farmer's house, a mile south of the surveyed and staked out village plot called Newport, the dwellings there being all occupied, and there was no room at the inn, a little red rummy as it was. And a New port it really was, all but the port -- there being not even a bridge, as the canal ground was not yet broken, and Brockport, fifteen miles east, was then the head of navigation. There were two stores, (not wholesale,) in one of which was what was called a post office; having no mail to open our P. M. would occasionally go over to Gaines Corners, about three miles distant, on the Ridge Road, and bring over in his handkerchief what of mail there might be for our lawyer, doctor, blacksmith, tailor, plowmaker, shoemaker, grocer, innkeeper, merchants, or the editor. The only ornamented buildings of our port were, the pigmy rum colored tavern and the two little white stores, which, as indicative of their heaviest business, the liquor trade, should have been of the same dye. How beautifully these painted edifices loomed up among the scattering trees of this clearest spot, as on a snowy day one might perchance be coming in from the woods, a quarter of a mile distant in any direction. We soon scared up a font of worn out bourgeois type half in pi, and a hard maple press, the iron parts of which had been saved from the conflagration of Mr. Danby's office in Rochester; and in a few weeks an upper room of the plowmaker's shop was plastered for us, our joiner had botched up some cases, and by using wooden composing sticks and wooden column rules, on the 9th day of February, 1824, we flourished our balls and beat the first form. (on a bed of hard wood substituted for marble,) and issued the Newport Patriot, to the astonishment of the denizens of that wooden county, soon after looped off from Genesee and named Orleans. The name petitioned for was Adams. Over a year from that time Seymour Tracy, a lame lawyer, and somewhat lame printer, a lover of gin, on Tuesday, February 15, 1825, issued the first number of his paper, at Gaines, entitled 'The Newspaper,' which he continued about a year, on a press borrowed of David C. Miller, another liquor lover, and printer of the Advocate at Batavia. Tracy was some time afterwards employed as editor of Mr. Fisk's antimasonic paper at Gaines, called the Orleans Whig. In the autumn of '25 we sold out to Timothy C. Strong, then just returned from Michigan. He continued the Newport Patriot a month or two, and then changed the title to 'Orleans Advocate.'

Four or five years afterwards, the Whig was merged in the Advocate, and united, took finally the title of 'Orleans Telegraph,' and stopt in the hands of John Kempshall. Our friend McConnell bought in the materials, the wooden Newport Patriot head, carved by our jack knife, not excepted.

Cuylerville Telegraph
March 18th, 1848, "Forty Years a Typo."

Western New York, in 1817, was verdant and woody, and roads and bridges not much for accommodation. The ice in the winter and a rope ferry in the summer were the substitutes for a bridge over the Genesee river between Moscow and Geneseo. The only paper mill was Dr. James FaulknerŐs at Dansville, a place of hardly tenements enough to entitle it to the name of a village. Mt. Morris had a tavern, a few mechanics, and a small store kept by Allen Ayrault. Hon John H. Jones, of Leicester, kept an inn and was first judge of Genesee Co.

Moscow square, covered with bushes, had been just laid out and a few small frame erections put up, and two or three tenements removed there from Leicester, about a mile, standing. An academy, in a rough looking cabin of two rooms, male and female departments, with perhaps a dozen or fifteen students in all, was kept by Ogden M. Willey, and Miss Sarah H. Raymond of Connecticut. A low brick schoolroom, at the east end of the square, was the meeting house on Sundays. A blacksmith shop, a tavern, a store, and a printing office, made up the rest of the village. Deputy Sheriff Jenkins kept the inn, N. Ayrault, P. M., the store, and Richard Stevens was the blacksmith. There was a Dr. Palmer, lawyer Baldwin, and a justice who had been a minister, Rev. Silas Hubbard; and there was a hatter, Homer Sherwood, and a tanner and shoemaker, Abijah Warren.... There were other inhabitants at the beginning of Moscow, not in mind at the setting up of our preceding chapter, namely, Benjamin Ferry, tanner and shoemaker, successor to A. Warren; Moses Ball, cabinet maker; Theodore Thompson, grocer; Levi Street, stage proprietor and eventually inn-keeper; Peter Palmer, Sen., a cooper and natural poet, and Widow Dutton, one of whose daughters is the lady of Dr. Bissell, Canal Commissioner....


Note: Ref: Hamilton, p. 275; Olio, 31 July, 1847, p. 187. Jonathan A. Hadley was apprentice to Thurlow Weed at the Rochester Republican/Telegraph in 1825-26, during which time Weed's foreman was Benjamin Franklin Cowdery. He started the Palmyra Freeman in 1829, moved it to Lyons (with Myron Holly as ed.) in 1831. In 1835, he was at Penn Yan with the Yates Republican, in 1836-7 at Warsaw, Wyoming Co., with the American Citizen, and then from 1837-1847 was journeyman and later foreman of the Rochester Daily Democrat. He then went to Wisconsin where he began the Watertown Chronicle. Later (1855) he was justice of the peace, (1867) asst. U.S. Assessor, and employee of the Wisconsin Secretary of State (all apparently Watertown). B. Franklin Cowdery describes him in the Olio as "our whole souled friend."

==> At Lockport, sometime in the summer of 1823, David M. Day, of the Buffalo Journal, and David C. Miller, of the Batavia Advocate, came into friend Turner's office one day, and were considerably amused by our new way of inking the types. Instead of the balls we were using a composition roller -- of the same material as those now in common use, and probably the first ever in the United States. The instructions for making it were derived from an Irish printer, recently from Dublin, who came to Lockport by way of Canada. But the roller got hard in a few weeks, and the balls were again up, and were not abandoned until the buckskin rollers took their place, several years afterwards. These had their day, after getting into pretty general use; but the composition kind, as soon as printers learned how to keep them in good order, gained the preference, and for twelve or fourteen years have served in all printing establishments, and are used on all sorts of presses.

During the summer of 1824, four of us. inhabitants of Newport, (now Albion,) each on horseback, went to Holley, ten miles east, through the woods, guided by marked trees and the partly dug out canal, to attend the celebration of the completion of the works five miles farther, and the safe arrival there of boats from Albany via Brockport!

... A well spread table, under a bower, furnished food and drink for as many as were favored with appetite and thirst, (not a few,) after which, with sparkling wine, or something stronger, many spirited toasts were drank; among which were the two following:

  The Newport Patriot -- 'A stream of many tides,
Against the foes of the people.'
  John Quincy Adams -- The brightest star in the
constellation of presidential candidates. There were then five or six candidates in nomination for the presidency of the United States.

The next summer, 1825, the canal vein circulated through to Buffalo. The day the first boats passed up through the locks at Lockport, with Gov. Clinton aboard, it seemed as if all the world had turned out and left nobody at home to take care of the children. La Fayette, after visiting Buffalo and the Falls, that autumn, shipped at Lockport, for Rochester, but passing our burgh at midnight, he missed the pleasures of cheering and welcoming met with wherever else he went. Three events made '25 a memorable era: the completion of the Grand Erie Canal -- the last visit of Gen. La Fayette to this country -- and, the selling out of our Newport establishment!


Note: Among the earliest miscellaneous recorded documents in the Oreleans County Court House at Albion is a copy of a Feb. 23, 1826 certificate, signed by "Franklin Cowdery." The document merely certifies that Cowdery was the printer of the Newport Patriot on Friday the 27th of May, 1825, a "week previous to the day of sale" of the newspaper to Timothy Strong.

Forty  Years  a  Typo.

...Western New York, in 1817, was verdant and woody, and roads and bridges not much for accommodation. The ice in the winter and a rope ferry in the summer were the substitutes for a bridge over the Genesee river between Moscow and Geneseo. The only paper mill was Dr. James FaulknerŐs at Dansville, a place of hardly tenements enough to entitle it to the name of a village. Mt. Morris had a tavern, a few mechanics, and a small store kept by Allen Ayrault. Hon John H. Jones, of Leicester, kept an inn and was first judge of Genesee Co.

Moscow square, covered with bushes, had been just laid out and a few small frame erections put up, and two or three tenements removed there from Leicester, about a mile, standing. An academy, in a rough looking cabin of two rooms, male and female departments, with perhaps a dozen or fifteen students in all, was kept by Ogden M. Willey, and Miss Sarah H. Raymond of Connecticut. A low brick schoolroom, at the east end of the square, was the meeting house on Sundays. A blacksmith shop, a tavern, a store, and a printing office, made up the rest of the village. Deputy Sheriff Jenkins kept the inn, N. Ayrault, P. M., the store, and Richard Stevens was the blacksmith. There was a Dr. Palmer, lawyer Baldwin, and a justice who had been a minister, Rev. Silas Hubbard; and there was a hatter, Homer Sherwood, and a tanner and shoemaker, Abijah Warren.... There were other inhabitants at the beginning of Moscow, not in mind at the setting up of our preceding chapter, namely, Benjamin Ferry, tanner and shoemaker, successor to A. Warren; Moses Ball, cabinet maker; Theodore Thompson, grocer; Levi Street, stage proprietor and eventually inn-keeper; Peter Palmer, Sen., a cooper and natural poet, and Widow Dutton, one of whose daughters is the lady of Dr. Bissell, Canal Commissioner....

(under construction)

Note: Benjamin Franklin Cowdery's biographical sketch, "Forty Years a Type," was reprinted in his next paper, the Cuylerville Telegraph, beginning on March 18th, 1848. Both the 1847 Olio version and the 1848 reprint of the text are rare and obscure Western New York historical items, infrequently found in libraries and archives.

The Mormon City -- The Temple
Mob Depradations, &c.
________

Correspondence of the Rochester Daily Advertiser.

                                                            NAUVOO, Ill., July 9, 1847.
Verily, has the City of the Saints been sacked and plundered by its enemies. A most melancholy testimonial is this town, of what mob law, or a disregard of the laws and constitution of our country has accomplished, with impunity, in the midst of an enlightened American people. Less than three years ago, here was a flourishing town of fifteen thousand inhabitants, sustaining all the various branches of trade and mechanics...

The widow Smith yet remains here and keeps the 'Nauvoo Mansion,' and a very good house she keeps. There are only three or four Mormon families remaining.


Note: This article will be updated with its full text after a more legible copy has been obtained and transcribed.

LATE FROM THE MORMONS: -- A friend has shown us letters of a late date from the pioneer camp of [Mormon] emigrants. They had at length reached the great salt lake near which they had made a halt, and their wearied cattle were enjoying the sweet grass and fresh water with which that region is favored. They had made a new road from the Omaha country to near the base of the mountains, which will no doubt be valuable to other emigrants from the United States.

It keeps north of the Oregon traces, is said to be more direct than this, and is carried, by substantial bridges, over most of the principal streams which it meets. By the pioneers it must have been traversed with difficulty, since they have evidently been subjected to great hardships. After leaving Grand Island, however, they had an abundant supply of buffalo beef, which greatly renewed the strength of those whose health was suffering by forced abstinence.

A single herd, with which they fell in, was estimated to number over 10,000, or, according to the calculation of one letter writer, must have contained from 8 to 10,000,000 pound of meat; "a large supply," he says, "to be sent by quails in the desert." Should Whitney's railroad, or any Government works, be undertaken along the line from Missouri to the Pacific, they will find their best contractors and workmen among the Mormons -- hardy children of persecution -- who appear to despise difficulty and danger.


Notes: (forthcoming)

MARRIED.

At the Washington St. Church, on the 15th inst., by the Rev. M. J. Hickok, Mr. Daniel F. Alverson to Miss Sarah Cowdery, all of this city.


Note 1: Sarah Cowdery (1848-1906) was the daughter of pioneer printer and journalist, Benjamin Franklin Cowdery. Franklin was a second cousin (one generation removed) of LDS Elder Oliver Cowdery. Sarah and Daniel's daughter, Mary Bryant Alverson Mehling, was the compiler of Cowdrey... Genealogy; William Cowdery of Lynn, Massachusetts, 1630, and His Descendants (NYC: Frank Allaben Genealogical Company, 1911). Daniel Fairchild Alverson (1823-1893) was a prominent resident of Canandaigua, Ontario Co., NY, and a first cousin of Prof. James H. Fairchild, later President of Oberlin College. Sarah met Daniel when the two were living at Oberlin, Ohio, in 1847. For more on details regarding this genealogy, see the comments accompanying the 1845 article "Mormonism and the Mormons," by William Buell Fairchild (another of Daniel F. Alverson's Fairchild relatives).

Note 2: This same marriage notice was reprinted in the Rochester Republican of June 22, 1848. The rival Rochester Daily Democrat of June 16th carried practically the same wording in its columns.

Marriages.

At the Washington St. Church, on the 15th inst., by the Rev. M. J. Hickok, Mr. Daniel F. Alverson to Miss Sarah Cowdery, all of this city.


Note: The same notice was also published in the June 16, 1848 issue of the Rochester Daily Democrat. Sarah was the daughter of Benjamin Franklin Cowdery; while Daniel Fairchild Alverson was a member of the extended Fairchild family, which lived in and about Oberlin, Ohio.

FIRE. -- A fire broke out yesterday afternoon about 6 o'clock in a dwelling house on the corner of Stilson and Achilles streets, occupied by F. Cowdery and Westbury. The building was entirely consumed, and was worth about $500, and insured. Most of the furniture of the occupants was saved.


Note: The men mentioned in the above report was Benjamin Franklin Cowdery, the pioneer printer and cousin to Oliver Cowdery. The Rochester Republican of Aug. 23 printed essentially the same notice.

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 that they "have 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 designa[t]ion.

Mr. Harris visited England some three years ago. At present he professes to have a mission from God, in fulfillment 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 Scripture[s], and discourses theology in his peculiar way, with the with the fluency and zeal of a devotee.


Note 1: The above article was reprinted in the Portland, Maine Transcript of Dec. 1, 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 from a visit to Beaver Island, at the head of Lake Michigan, upon which the Mormon colony is located, headed by the prophet, James Strang. They number about six hundred, and have a farm on the island which is cultivated by them. They also have 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 is 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, and we are informed the "Lady of Lyons" had had a worse "Claude," and an inferior "Pauline" upon Boston boards. This room is also used for a ballroom, where the faithful chase the giddy hours, and also as a place of worship on Sundays.

Strang is at present deeply engaged in decyphering 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 to the interests of the "church of the latter day," by his followers. He is described as a hard working, industrious man, but most of those upon the Island are indolent and averse to labor. -- Chicago Jour.


Notes: (forthcoming)

Author of the Mormon Bible.
______

The New England Puritan, states that at a public meeting held lately in Cherry Valley Judge Campbell said:

Rev. Solomon Spaulding, one of the earliest preceptors of the Academy of Cherry Valley, was the actual composer of most of what is known as the Mormon Bible. He wrote it during a period of delicate health, to beguile some of his weary hours, and also with a design to offer it for publication as a romance. Dr. Robert Campbell, late of Cherry Valley, and foster father of the first Mrs. Grant of the Nestorian mission, calling some years since upon Mr. Spaulding, had the manuscript of this noble book shown to him, and was also informed by Mr. Spaulding that he had hopes of reaping some preliminary advantage from it for himself and family. Mr. Spaulding has been dead some years, though it is believed that his wife is still living in the United States. How it passed from the possession of his family into the hands of Jose Smith, it is probable Mrs. S. could tell.

We have heard the following account given of what Mrs. Spaulding was unable to supply. S. took the MS., to a publishing house in Cincinnati to be printed. The house afterwards failed, and this, among other old stock, was sold at auction. It was not made use of for some years, but lay in the garret of another office. While Joe Smith was rambling over the garret, long before the inspitation came upon him, he came upon the MS. He bought it of the owner, for a pittance, and preserved it, till he found use for it in propogating his religious follies. -- Milwaukie Dem.


Note 1: This article first appeared in the New England Puritan, about the second week in October. It was reprinted in the New-York Organ of Oct.19, 1850 and in a mid-November issue of the Milwaukee Democrat, (from whence the Syracuse Journal obtained its text). A shortened version was published in the New York Daily Tribune on Nov. 19, 1850, which occasioned a reply from a reader that was printed in the Tribune's Dec. 6th, issue and hence reprinted (along with the quote from the Puritan) in the Feb. 7, 1851 number of Orson Hyde's Frontier Guardian.

Note 2: The Campbell family were early settlers of Cherry Valley, Otsego. co., NY. Dr. William Campbell operated a drug and hardware store in the village in the early 1800s and Solomon Spalding's name occurs in the druggist's account book as a customer, even after Spalding moved to Richfield, several miles away. Also, Dr. Robert Campbell was a contemporary of Solomon Spalding during their residence in that place, c. 1795-1800. The 1820 and 1830 U. S. Census reports both show a Robert M. Campbell living in Cherry Valley, Otsego co., NY. The "Mrs. Grant" mentioned in the article was an associate of Miss Fidelia Fiske, who, following a solicitation for teachers among the faculty at Mount Holyoke Seminary in 1843 by Rev. Dr. Perkins, taught at the Nestorians Mission in Oroomiah, Persia. She is called by William W. Campbell the "adopted daughter of Dr. William Campbell, of Cherry Valley" ("Centennial Address, Delivered at Cherry Valley, Otsego County, N.Y., July 4th, 1840.) Her name appears to have been Elizabeth.

Note 3: In his 1878 book, The History of Otsego County, 1740-1878, Duane Hamilton Hurd says: "In 1796 the names of fifty-four others are entered as "members of the first Presbyterian congregation." Among these is that of Rev. Solomon SPAULDING, a man whose literary labors subsequently became an instrument in supporting the most scandalous imposture our county has produced. We read in Scripture of... lost Tribes of Israel. On this he wrote a romance, detailing an imaginary history, and identifying them with the aborigines of this continent... a handsome building was erected for an academy... Mr. SPAULDING to have taught in this institution, and doubtless he occasionally preached in the church..." Hurd does not say that Spalding wrote his "romance" in Cherry Valley, however.

Note 4: The article's conjecture about Spalding's unpublished writings being "sold at auction" following the failure of "a publishing house" was echoed by William H. Whitsitt, nearly four decades later: "Sidney [Rigdon] had the period from the 28th of January to the last day of December 1822 in which to cultivate the kind regards of Lambdin, before the commercial crash of the first of January 1823 befell the firm of R. Patterson & Lambdin. This disaster would [have been] a favorable occasion to take an inventory and to cleanse the printing office of the soiled accumulations of many years. Among the jetsam and flotsam of such a wreck it is not unlikely was found Solomon Spaulding's copy of the Book of Mormon... if the contents of the printing office were sold under the hammer, Sidney might have purchased the manuscript Book of Mormon for a song. There is no kind of necessity to suppose that anything improper was connected with the transaction..."

Note5: The article's presumption of how Spalding's writings could have ended up in the possession of Joseph Smith is similar to that voiced by Captain Gunnison on page 95 of his book on the Mormons: "When the Book of Mormon appeared, and its almost identity with the Manuscript was discovered... enquiry was made for the whereabouts of that paper. It had mysteriously disappeared, and the "Manuscript Found " has ever since been the Manuscript lost. The trunk was hunted up and searched... How the Manuscript could have been taken out, and when, remains a mystery... it seems fair to conclude, that the Manuscript Found escaped from its prison and perched upon some farmer's shelf; or fell direct, by accident or design, into the hands of Joseph Smith, and opportunely met the mind that could mould it into a religious fiction."

Religious Humbug.
______

There is more humbug afloat in regard to religion, than upon any other subject. The rapid increase of the Mormons, may be cited in proof of this statement. Not more than fifteen years have elapsed since the Mormon Bible was first printed, and yet the number of believers in the doctrines it teaches, is probably a hundred thousand or over, and the cry is "still they come."

In regard to the authorship of the "Book of Mormon," about which much discussion has arisen, the Wayne Sentinel, on the authority of a correspondent versed in the matter, says it was written by Rev. Mr. Spaulding, formerly a Missionary at Green Bay, now deceased, and first published by Jo. Smith and Martin Harris, at Palmyra.

Mr. Spaulding left his mission at Green Bay, on account of sickness, and went to his brother's at Ashtabula, where, after a long lingering decline, he died. His wife was a cousin to Rigdon, who had been a Baptist preacher, but was at that time engaged in a foundry at Pittsburgh. Spaulding wrote the manuscript, which was afterwards remodeled into the wonderful Book of Mormon, for amusement during his sickness -- though he intended to have it published as a romance, thinking in this way to realize something to pay the expense of his long confinement. This will account for the disjointed form of the book as it appears in print. He used to amuse himself and friends by reading chapters of his manuscript, from time to time, as he proceeded with his composition. After his death, his widow offered this manuscript for sale at Pittsburgh, but it was regarded on a slight examination, by the publisher to whom it was shown, as a stupid affair, and no bid was made for it. She finally left it with her cousin Rigdon -- and this is the end of my private history of it. The subsequent acquaintance that took place between Jo. and Rigdon, the printing of the book at the expense of Martin Harris, the associate career of the three in preaching the gospel of Mormon, the tragical catastrophe that ended the worldly mission of the "Prophet Joseph," in a prison, and the progress of imposture, step by step, until assuming its present power and renown, in Europe and America, are familiar matters of public history.


Note 1: The location of Solomon Spalding's activities as a Congregational evangelist in the late 1780s and early 1790s remain unknown. One report places him in New York City. These was no Congregational church at Green Bay, Caledonia co., Vermont at that time, although it is possible that Spalding was employed by the Congregationalists to do home missionary work in Peacham township, in southern Caledonia county. It might also be noted that Solomon Spalding was no longer living in Ashtabula co., Ohio when he died in 1816.

Note 2: For confirmation that Solomon Spalding's widow did attempt to get one of his stories published in Pittsburgh, after her husband's death, see the 1876 testimony of Elder William Small.

UTAH.

MORE  ABOUT  COL.  FREMONT.

        Correspondence of the N. Y Tribune.

                                                Parowan, February 8, 1854.
I improve the present opportunity of the departure of A. W. Babbitt, Secretary of Utah, for Washington, to forward you a few items in relation to the movements of Col. Fremont, who arrived here with his party to-day. They were in a starving condition, having subsided for the last two months upon horse flesh, having killed and eaten twenty-six since leaving Bent's Fort. He has traveled in a straight line across the plains, and entered the valley about seventeen miles north of where Major Beale came into it last spring on the Spanish trail. His report is highly favorable, the more so, as he waited until winter set in to cross the mountains, in order to test the depth of the snow in the passes, and in the worst and most elevated pass (which he crossed some time in December,) he found snow only four inches deep in the shade of the summit. -- The only winter we have is in the months of December and January, the snow rarely lying on the ground more than a week at a time. Last winter has been the most severe ever experienced in Utah since its settlement, as much snow having fallen as in the two previous winters put together, and it has not exceeded eleven inches at any one time, and then only lay a few days. You will see by this that the snow is no impediment to the construction or operation of a railroad through this country, and when you take into consideration the mountains of iron ore, and coal beds eight feet high, both being of the first quality, and the vast forests of pine at this point also, the conclusion must be evident to a candid and public spirited mind, that this is the best, most central, and most national route for the Pacific Railway; at least such is the unanimous opinion of the people of Utah; and you must remember that the Mormons are one in thought and feeling and action. While men (?) at Washington are quarreling about the location and building of the greatest work of modern times, and indisputably of the greatest national importance, we, if we had the power, would build it.

The Indians have been tolerably quiet this winter, doing but little damage, on account of the vigilant watch that has been kept, and the collection of the inhabitants into fortified towns and cities.
                   Yours respectfully,
                              JAMES H. MARTINEAU.


Notes: (forthcoming)

THE MORMONS. -- Twenty-eight years ago, JOE SMITH, the founder of this sect, and HARRIS, his first convert, applied to the senior editor of The Journal, then residing at Rochester, to print his "Book of Mormon," then just transcribed from the "Golden Bible" which Jo. had found in the cleft of a rock to which he had been guided by a vision.

We attempted to read the first chapter, but it seemed such unintelligible jargon that it was thrown aside. Jo. was a tavern-idler in the village of Palmyra. Harris, who offered to pay for the printing, was a substantial farmer. Disgusted with what we deemed a "weak invention" of an impostor, and not caring to strip Harris of his hard earnings, the proposition was declined. The manuscript was then taken to another printing office across the street, whence, in due time, the original "Mormon Bible" made its advent.

"Tall trees from little acorns grow."   

But who would have anticipated, from such a bald, shallow, senseless imposition, such world-wide consequences? To remember and contrast Jo. Smith with the loafer-look, pretending to read from a miraculous slate-stone placed in his hat, with the Mormonism of the present day, awakens thoughts alike painful and mortifying. There is no limit, even in this most enlightened of all the ages of knowledge, to the imposture and credulity. If knaves, or even fools, invent creeds, nothing is too monstrous for belief. Nor does the fact -- a fact not denied or disguised -- that all the Mormon leaders are rascals as well as impostors, either open the eyes of their dupes or arrest the progress of delusion.


Note 1: The Albany Evening Journal was started by Thurlow Weed on March 22, 1830, as an anti-Masonic newspaper; it later became an influential Whig paper. The writer of this report reprinted from the Albany Evening Journal was Thurlow Weed, a noted editor, publisher, anti-Mason, and early Whig politician. Assuming that Smith and Harris came to visit Weed in Rochester in 1829, the paper he was then editing was the Anti-Masonic Enquirer. The paper Weed had previously edited was, by 1829, Robert Martin's Rochester Daily Advertiser & Telegraph. See the "Origin of Mormonism" in the Albany Evening Journal of early 1846 for the earliest known Weed account of his meeting with Joseph Smith, Jr.

Note 2: This article was apparently reprinted in both the New York Times and New York Tribune of Aug. 2, 1854.

Note 3: See the Sandusky Mirror of Aug. 1854 for that paper's response to the 1854 Weed account. The Sandusky Mirror article was reprinted in the New York Tribune of Aug. 18, 1854. Yet another Thurlow Weed account of his meeting with Smith appeared in the Albany Evening Journal of May 19, 1858.

Riot on Beaver Island. Strang's Mormons got into an awkward scrape the other day in this out of the way locality. Several of the Sheriff's Possee, who had gone with him to summons jurors, were fired upon and grievously wounded. They are now however doing well, most probably owing to a free use of Lynde's Russian Ointment, the very best remedy in such cases...


Note: The unusual ending of the above news report is explained by the fact that it was printed in the paper's classified section, along with various patent medicine advertisements. This odd mixture of hard news and dubious packaged remedies was, fortunately, rare in respectable prints of that day.

SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE. -- A man by the name of P. S. Blackman, of Painesville, and a young lady by the name of Julia Hurlburt, daughter of Dr. Hurlburt, of Kirtland, were spiritually married at the latter place on Sunday, Oct. 15. The ceremony consisted of matrimonial declarations made by themselves in the presence of friends, about fifty being present. The services consisted of the following poetical announcement: -- "Have you seen the morning kiss the opening blossom? Thus did our spirits meet and at the first interview; and as the inevitable elements of nature unite and blend in one harmonious impulse; so are our spirits [affinitized] into one accordant living force. Whoever are thus united by the eternal laws of affinity, naught has authority to separate. We thus introduce ourselves unto you in the relation of husband and wife."


Note 1: The above news item is perhaps a reprint from a Cleveland paper of late October, 1854. A brief mention of this marriage was also published in the Oct. 18, 1854 issue of the Painesville Telegraph. Spiritualism began in the Rochester area, with the unusual "spirit" manifestations among the children of the Fox family in 1848. While "spiritual wifery" was not a specific invention of the Spiritualist movement that grew out of the Fox sisters' activities, the two phenomena occasionally overlapped. See the Ohio Defiance Democrat of Sept. 10, 1859, for a report on a "spiritual marriage" at the "late Convention of Spiritualists." For more on spiritual wifery, see William H. Dixon's 1868 book, Spiritual Wives, which documents the concept and attempts to make it clear that the strange practice did not originate with the Mormons, their leader Brigham Young, etc.

Note 2: The "Dr. Hurlburt" referred to in this news item was very likely D. Philastus Hurlbut, the infamous anti-Mormon researcher who contributed so much source material to E. D. Howe's 1834 Mormonism Unvailed. Mr. Hurlbut married Maria Woodbury in 1834 and they eventually settled at Gibsonburg, Sandusky Co., Ohio. The couple's family appears on the 1850 Federal Census report for that place. However, the 1860 census shows D. P. Hurlbut living at Gibsonburg with another lady named "Diana" and with several children who were not products of his marriage with Maria Woodbury. It is likely that Hurlbut temporarily left Sandusky co. and returned to his old haunts at Kirtland, in late 1852, after he was ejected from his position as a minister in the Sandusky Conference of the United Brethren church. Whether his new consort was from Gibsonburg or had all the time been living in Kirtland remains unclear, but it is likely that she was an early Ohio convert to Spiritualism and that the "fifty present" at her daughter's "wedding" were residents of Geauga and Lake counties -- perhaps mostly Diana's old friends. Julia may have been Diana's child by a previous association, or she may have been D. P. Hurlbut's actual daughter, born prior to his union with Maria Woodbury. A "Julia Hurlbut" married George Hall near Kirtland on Oct. 22, 1845. If Hurlbut's daughter Julia was already married, that small fact would not have prevented her from entering into extra-legal "spiritual wifery" with Mr. Blackman of Painesville.

Note 3: If the 1854 Kirtland "Doctor" was indeed D. P. Hurlbut, he did not remain for very long in the Kirtland area. In their 1908 History of Kane County, Ill., R. Wait Joslyn and Frank W. Joslyn give passing mention to "Drs. D. Hurlbut and P. S. Blackman" having "settled in Aurora in the fall of 1858, for a stay of several months..." (vol. I p. 527). This information was likely derived from an 1858 newspaper advertisement for the two "doctors'" practice in northeastern Illinois. By 1860 D. P. Hurlbut again living at Gibsonburg, Ohio, maintaining a household with Diana and their several little ones. The couple probably remained Spiritualists for several years, along with at least one of D. P. Hurlbut's older children. In 1867 his daughter Phoebe married Leander Franklin and went to live on his farm near the hamlet of Rollersville, which lies about four miles southwest of Gibsonburg. Later that same year, D. P. Hurlbut was chosen as Rollersville's delegate to Ohio's first annual Spiritualist convention. If Diana also attended the event, she may have there had an opportunity to visit with old friends from the Kirtland area. Mr. Hurlbut's old associate, Eber D. Howe, attended as the Spiritualist delegate from Painesville. Subsequent reports of the Ohio Spiritualists show their "lyceums" and "societies" established at Kirtland and Painesville, along with a "lecturer" at Chardon and publications issued from Cleveland (The Agitator and the American Spiritualist.

Note 4: D. P. Hurlbut's reported early life in Penn-Yan, New York may receive some support from the fact that the Rochester Daily American's news item, on his daughter's marriage, was picked up and printed in abbreviated form by the Penn-Yan Yates County Whig. This reprint appeared on Nov. 9th, just as the Hornellville's reprint did. What is curious about the Penn-Yan reprint is that the local editor evidently inserted the words "Oneida Co." immediately after "Kirtland" in the news report. Since Kirtland, Ohio has no special ties to Oneida Co., New York, the editor's intentions in this instance remain obscure. Perhaps he meant to tie D. P. Hurlbut to Oneida Co., in his enigmatic journalistic shorthand. For an earlier advertisement in a Penn-Yan area newspaper, which may have been placed by this same botanical physican, see the Auburn Free Press of Feb. 23, 1831.

SPIRITUAL MARRIAGE. -- A man by the name of P. S. Blackman, of Painesville, and a young lady by the name of Julia Hurlbut, daughter of Dr. Hurlburt of Kirtland, were spiritually married at the latter place on Sunday, Oct. 15. Thc ceremony consisted of matrimonial declarations made by themselves in the presence of friends, about fifty present.

The services consisted of the following poetical announcement:

"Have you seen the morning kiss the opening blossom? Thus did our spirits meet and at the first interview; and as the inevitable elements of nature unite and blend in one harmonious impulse; so are our spirits [affinitized] into one accordant living force. Whoever are thus united by the eternal laws of affinity, naught has authority to separate. We thus introduce ourselves unto you in the relation of husband and wife."

Great state, that Ohio, especially for marriages and divorces.


Note: The above news item was taken by the Hornellsville paper from the Rochester Daily American of Nov. 1, 1854.

Startling Exposure of Mormonism -- Letters from
one of Pesident Young's Wives -- Lectures in
Boston -- Warning to Women, &c.
______

                         Chicago, Jan. 16th, 1855.

EDITOR, BOSTON DAILY TIMES:
    Allow me to trouble you with these lines, which I wish you to insert in your Daily Times. My object is this: I have been for ten years a firm believer in the Latter Day Saints, or rather Mormonism. My parents became followers of the celebrated Joe Smith in an early day, and emigrated to Nauvoo. After the death of Smith and his brother we were driven from thence. The society split. There were two who wished to take their leader's place, and stand at the head of the church, but could not agree. Therefore they separated. Col. White and his followers, that is, such as believed in him, went to Texas, and are living in peace and prosperity. Col. W. is a worthy man compared with our great, or rather notorious, Brigham Young, notwithstanding he has been for the last three years my lawful husband, that is, according to their own laws and rules. But for the last twelve months I have seen enough to satisfy me; for what I don't know about Mormonism is not worth knowing. They have secret plots and objects that they mean to accomplish. They censure the government for not protecting them in all their hellish works. For all this they mean to have satisfaction. My object in writing this is to warn my female friends to beware of the false prophets who are daily sent out from the Salt Lake City to deceive the people. It is my intention to travel thro' the United States, and visit all the principal cities, and lecture on this great and important subject, to caution all young people who should be led into the ungodly trap. Beware!

In Boston I shall deliver my first lecture as that is my native city. I have one young lady in company who also left the Mormons with me. She has renounced the doctrines, and will help me in my lectures. We shall both be present, and show Mormonism in its true colors, which you have never had in your enlightened State. Had it been represented in its true light, and its object told, there would not have been a follower left sweet New England to join such a set of impostors, for I can call them nothing else, knowing them to be such. If there should be any Elders or followers of Mormonism, I hope they will come to the lectures, and dispute what we have to say if they can. We have and shall fetch documents to prove our assertions. We shall be there in a few weeks. We are at present staying with friends, and as soon as we are refreshed from the journey we shall start for Boston. It is near two months since we left Salt Lake City. You shall hear from me again, with more particulars. But no more at present from your humble servants.
                            Mrs. Sarah Young.
                            Miss Eliza Williams.
(The above comes to us from a responsible source. The ladies mentioned have been the victims of Mormonism, and are prepared to expose the mysteries of the creed in a light which will doubtless startle the entire community, Prepare for wonderful revelations. ED. TIMES.


Note: The lady lecturer was apparently Sarah Malin Young Gukin (1804-58) who was married to Brigham Young on April 18, 1848. Why she says in her letter to the Boston Daily Times that she has only been married to Brigham ("according to their own laws and rules") since 1851 is unclear.

Wholesale Robbery by Pirates on Lake Michigan.
______

The people along Lake Michigan, from here north to Manisteo, have been thrown into a state of the most intense excitement by the operations of a gang of marauders, who are reported to be Mormons from Beaver Island, and who have carried on their operations with a boldness, coolness, and desperation rarely equaled in the records of highwaymen. They are reported to have burned sawmills and robbed stores north of the Grand River. At Grand Haven they made repeated attempts to break into stores and shops. On Saturday of last week they made their appearance at the mouth of the Kalamazoo and after looking about some, pushed up south as far as the tanneries in the town of Ganges, and on Saturday night broke open Robinson and Plummer's store, robbed them of $1,600 worth of goods, and made back again down the lake.

Off Port Sheldon they were seen by a vessel's crew, anchored there with their plunder all open to view, and were pulling on down as carelessly and fearlessly as though they were pursuing a legitimate calling. There is said to be upward of twenty in the gang. The sail one small schooner of twenty or thirty tons and two Mackinaw boats. Robinson and Plummer pursued them as far north as Grand Haven, and then turned back, the Haven people advising them that it would be useless and unsafe to pursue them further without a strong force of hundreds of men. What is to be done in the premises we do not hear. Surely we have come upon strange times if such high-handed robberies can be perpetrated and go unwhipped of justice. There seems to be no question as to the identity of the robbers or their halting place. They are emissaries from King Strang's realms, and the whole power of the State should be lent to ferret out and bring to justice the perpetrators of such bold crimes. -- Allegan Record, Oct. 1.


Notes: (forthcoming)

==> Over eight hundred Mormons went through Dunkirk last week, bound for Utah. The Journal states that during their stay in town, they congregated in squads of from two to ten females, with only one male head. They were mostly from Wales and the North of England.


Notes: (forthcoming)

MORMONISM.
______

Extract from the speech of Mr. John Thompson, of this State,
delivered in the House of Representatives, Jan. 27.

Mormonism, as a religious system, had its origin in a romance, written about the year 1810 by Solomon Spalding, a native of Connecticut, who had been educated for the ministry, but followed a mercantile employment, removed to Cherry Valley, N. Y., where he amused his leisure hours by weaving a book entitled by him, "The MSS. Found," the notion entertained or suggested by some writers that the American Indians are the descendants of the lost ten tribes of Israel. Hence, he starts them from Palestine, invents for them various fortunes by flood and field, wars, quarrels, turmoils, strifes, separations, until they people this continent, and leave behind them the vestiges of mounds, tumuli, fortifications, sculpture, and cities dilapidated, which are discovered in Northern and Central America. It is written somewhat in Scriptural style, and uses the machinery of the Jewish economy throughout. He read his manuscript to various persons, who yet remember it, but was not successful in procuring its publication. Somewhere, about the year 1823, this manuscript fell into the hands of Joe Smith, a native of Windsor County, Vermont. Smith was about twenty years of age, and already exhibited that singular compound of genius and folly, of cunning and absurdity, of indolence and energy, of craft and earnestness, which distinguished him to the end of his career.

Under the New Light preachers of that day, Smith became imbued with all the wild and extravagant notions of seeing sights, hearing voices, receiving revelations, meeting and fighting the devil in bodily form, which indicate a diseased imagination and want of all solid instruction and fixed principles on religious subjects. Enthusiasm ran mad through the whole region where he dwelt, and Smith was one of [his] most brilliant exemplifications, ultimately having a revelation that all existing systems of religion were wrong, and that he should be made the prophet of a new faith. For more than five years he vibrated between his caution and his enthusiasm, giving out occasionally dark hints about certain mysterious plates to be dug up by him, containing a new revelation. Part of his time was spent in lying, swindling and debauchery, and the remainder in visions and repentance -- the vulgar habits of the brute contending with the higher functions of the prophet. At length he pretended to dig out the plates from the side of a hill in Palmyra, Wayne County, N. Y., placed himself behind a curtain, permitting no one to enter, from which sanctum he translated from the plates the book of Mormon to an amanuensis, reading it all from Spalding's manuscript in his possession, one hundred and eighteen pages of it having been stolen by Martin Harris. With this new Koran our modern Mohammed started upon his career.

On the 5th of May, 1829, John the Baptist came back to earth to baptize Smith; and on the 5th [sic -6th?] of April, 1830, the first church of Latter Day Saints was organized at Manchester, New York, consisting of four Smith and two converts of the family -- Pratt, Rigdon, Kimball, and Young joining afterward. The Bible, unlike that of the Christian or Musselman, purports to be chiefly historical, and does not [enunciate] or enforce a system of moral and religious truth in a philosophic or didactic form; all its incidental lessons upon life or manners being derived from current doctrines of this day. It is consequently incapable of comparison with any other extant form of religious faith. One might as well compare the Christian religion with Fenelon's Telemachus, or one of Jame's novels.

The history of this fanaticism is soon told. The church was organized in [1830]. In August, 1831, they commenced a settlement at Independence, Jackson County, Missouri -- revealed to Smith as the "New Jerusalem." Smith wavered king between this place and Kirtland, Ohio, where in 1833, they commenced building their first temple, which was finished in 1836 at a cost of about fifty thousand dollars. In 1839 they relaid the foundations of their temple in Missouri. They left this region again for Nauvoo, in Illinois, where another temple was soon erected. Jo Smith's life and labors ended together in Carthage Jail, where, on the 27th of June, 1844, he was shot by a gang of Border Ruffians from Missouri.

In 1845 they turned their eyes westward -- to Vancouver's Island, to Texas, to California, and finally to a valley in the Rocky Mountains. In [1846], as the young grass was peering from the sod and the buds were bursting into flowers, in the month of May, the exodus to Utah commenced.

From that day Young has reigned supreme, and thousands and tens of thousands have flocked to his standard. The unsettled religious sentiment of the lower grades of mind gravitate to Salt Lake. It is the Botany Bay of the world! There it stands, rampant and defying -- a despotism consummate, wearing the show of popular approval, and bending willingly to the nod of a tyrant. There it stands -- it is before you in your path to the Pacific -- it will not sway at your bidding; a huge, ugly, stubborn fact, which no ignorance can disregard and no political fatuity despise.

What will you do with it? Will you turn despot and saber 60,000 souls because they believe in Brigham Young and polygamy? Will you meet the fanaticism and folly and fraud by the fanaticism of extermination? Will you make the city a desert and the region a howling wilderness on the one hand; or, will you suffer this moral cancer, inflaming political treason, to grow on untouched until it becomes to vast to handle? Will you permit an independent and defiant despotism, organized in the very heart of this continent and embracing the vilest and most intractable elements of which a community can be composed, to compact and strengthen its defenses, to train its battalion, to call home its forces and light a fire at your threshold which all the forces of the Republic cannot subdue?

I know some think we should let them alone, and that the system must soon fall to pieces. But how long has Mohammedanism lasted? How much reliable is the fanaticism of to-day than that of ten centuries ago? What element of this structure gives signs of impotence or decay? What limb of this hale giant is already smitten with moral paralysis, and gives tokens that its energies are spent or even wearied? -- Sir, we have let them alone, and from a contemptible handful, they have grown into a nation! The citizens of Illinois and Missouri could eject them without aid; but now they stand behind a wall of ten thousand bayonets, and dare you to the encounter. -- The unorganized fanaticism of the world gravitates to Utah, and there it is molded into armies. Eight tenths at least of these elements are foreign, uneducated by and unaccustomed to our institutions, with no love for Democracy, and no reverence for national law; restless masses, impatient of restraint, and fraternizing only on the lust of license and the hope of power.


Notes: (forthcoming)

Prospect of Peace with Utah.

[Thurlow Weed says] ...Within our recollection Mormonism was 'a speck, not bigger than a man's hand.' The original Impostor, JOE SMITH, came to the writer of this article, only thirty-two years ago, with the manuscript of his Mormon Bible, to be printed. He then had one follower, (a respectable and wealthy Farmer of the town of Macedon) who offered himself as security for the printing. But after reading a few chapters, it seemed such a jumble of unintelligible absurdities, that we refused the work, advising HARRIS not to mortgage his Farm and beggar his family. But Joe crossed over the wat to our neighbor Elihu F. Marshall, and got his "Mormon Bible."


Note: Weed published a similar statement in the Journal on July 31, 1854. The May 19th, 1858 excerpt is quoted by Dan Vogel in his Early Mormon Documents, III. Vogel does not supply the full text. The May 19th paragraph was quickly responded to in the Troy Times, where the editor said: "All this is not within your 'recollection,' Mr. Weed. Mr. Elihu F. Marshall did not print the Mormon Bible. It was printed by Mr. Egbert B. Grandin (now deceased) at the office of the Wayne Sentinel, Palmyra. We happen to know this fact. Mr. John H. Gilbert, now residing at Palmyra, did the press work, and a large portion of the type-setting of the Bible. If Mr. Weed doubts this, we can show him a copy of the first Mormon Bible with the imprint." Weed, in turn, responded with his own article in the May 21, 1858 issue of the Albany Evening Journal. See also the New York Herald of July 2, 1858 for an additional follow-up article on this matter.

From the Troy Times

Mr. Elihu F. Marshall did not print the Mormon Bible. It was printed by Mr. Egbert B. Grandin (now deceased) at the office of the Wayne Sentinel, Palmyra. We happen to know this fact. Mr. John H. Gilbert, now residing at Palmyra, did the press work, and a large portion of the type-setting of the Bible. If Mr. Weed doubts this, we can show him a copy of the first Mormon Bible with the imprint.

We have no right to "doubt" the correctness of this statement, though we were strongly impressed with the belief that our Quaker neighbor, MARSHALL, printed the first edition of the Mormon Bible. Was not the Book referred to by the Editor of the Times, a portion only of what became the Mormon Bible? When JOE SMITH called on us, he professed to read fresh revelations from a miraculous Tablet, deposited in his Hat. Will the Editor of the Troy Times oblige us with the copy of the Book it refers to? It can be sent and will be carefully returned, by Express.


Note: Where editor Thurlow Weed says "When Joe Smith called on us," he of course means himself and his staff at the Rochester Anti-Masonic Enquirer in 1829.

Mormonism and Joe Smith.

The Book of Mormon or Golden Bible.

The story of the printing of the first edition of the "Book of Mormon" is truthfully as follows: -- Joe Smith, the pretended prophet, and finder of the original "metallic records." Oliver Cowdery, amanuensis of Smith, and Martin Harris, the "chosen" dupe for the payment of expenses, constituting, as they claimed, the "inspired" nucleus of the dawning "Church of the Latter Day Saints," applied about the month of June, 1829, to Mr. Egbert B. Grandin, the then publisher of the Wayne Sentinel newspaper, and a job printer at Palmyra, for the printing of the book referred to, commonly called the "Golden Bible." Harris, who was a forehanded farmer at that town, an honest and respectable citizen, but noted for his superstitious and fanatical peculiarities in religious matters, was the only man of the party whose pecuniary responsibility was worth a dollar, and he offered to give security by a mortgage upon his unencumbered farm for the cost of printing and binding of the book. Grandin at once advised them against the supposed folly of the enterprise, and with the aid of other neighbors and friends of Harris sought to influence the latter to desist and withdraw his countenance from the imposture. All importunity of this kind, however, was resisted with determination by Harris, (who no doubt firm;y believed in the genuineness of Smith's pretensions,) and resented with assumed pious indignation by Smith. Cowdery took but little part in the conversations. After repeated interviews and much parleying on the subject, Grandin was understood to refuse to give it further consideration. Harris, it was thought, became for a time somewhat staggered in his confidence, but Joe could do nothing in the matter of printing without his aid, and so he persevered in his seductive arts, as will be seen with ultimate success.

About this time, in the fore part of the year 1829, (as recollected,) the same party, or a portion of them applied to Mr. Weed, of the Anti-Masonic Inquirer at Rochester, (who by the way, seems in his reminiscences to have confused Mormonism with Anti-Masonry.) and there met a similar repulse, as stated by the Journal. Mr. Marshall, of Spelling Book notoriety, who was also engaged in the printing and publishing business at Rochester, gave his terms to Smith and his associates for the execution of their work, and his proffered acceptance of the proposed mode of security.

The "Saints" then returned and renewed their request to Mr. Grandin, assuring him that the printing was to be done at any rate, and explaining that they would be saved much inconvenience and cost of travel, (as the manuscripts were to be delivered and the proof sheets examined daily at the printing office,) by having their work done at Palmyra, where they resided. It was upon this state of facts and view of the case, that Mr. Grandin, after some further hesitation, reconsidered his policy of refusal, and finally entered into a contract for the desired printing and binding of 5,000 copies of the book, for the price of $3,000, to be secured by mortgage as proposed; which contract was faithfully performed on his part, completing the work in the summer of 1830, and as faithfully fulfilled in the payment by Harris. Major Gilbert, as stated by the Troy Times, took the foremanship of the printing, and did most of the press and composition work of the job. He still retains an original copy of the book in sheets as he laid them off in a file from the press in working, The manuscripts, in Cowdery's handwriting, were carried to the printing office in daily installments, generally by Joe or his trusty brother Hiram, and were regularly withdrawn for security and preservation at evening. The pretension was that they were written out by the amanuensis Cowdery from translations verbally given by the Prophet Joe, who alone was enabled to read the hieroglyphics of the sacred plates by means of a wonderful stone and magic spectacles that were found in the earth with the "records." In the performance of this task the "chosen" decypherer was always concealed in a dark room, and by special revelation neither Cowdery or other persons than the said "chosen" was permitted to see the plates on penalty of instant death. Such was the pretension. The hand press which did the printing (Smith's patent) has been in continual use (in the Sentinel office) since that important era in the rise of Mormonism, and in the course of changes of ownership and partizan apostacy, it has finally in its degeneracy (quite appropriately) now come to be used for the printing of a Know Nothing newspaper!

A word in regard to the origin of Mormonism, whose advent has furnished so marked an illustration of the susceptibilities of human credulity even at the present age of boasted enlightenment, may not be without interest in this connection, now after the lapse of some thirty years. As early as 1820, Joe Smith, at the age of about 19 years, began to assume the gift of supernatural endowments, and became the leader of a small party of shiftless men and boys like himself who engaged in nocturnal money-digging operations upon the hills in and about Palmyra. These labors were always performed in the night, and during their continuance, many marvellous accounts and rumors in regard to them were put afloat in the neighborhood. Joe professed from time to time to have "almost" secured the hidden treasure, which, however, just at the instant of attempting to grasp it, would vanish by the breaking of the spell of his magic power. -- Numbers of men and women, as was understood, were found credulous enough to believe "there might be something in it," who were induced by their confidence and cupidity to contribute privately towards the cost, of carrying on the imposture, under the promise of sharing in the expected gains; and in this way the loaferly but cunning Smith, who was too lazy to work for his living, (his deluded followers did all the digging,) was enabled to obtain a scanty subsistence for himself without pursuing any useful employment.

The silly imposture was persevered in by Smith and the digging performances occasionally continued by his gang without success, for some eight or ten years, when in 1828 or '29 the climax was reached in the discovery of the wonderful golden record of hieroglyphics, of great antiquity, "written by the hand of Mormon upon plates taken from the plates of Nephi," the translation and publication of which are the foundation of Brigham Young's polygamous empire at Salt Lake, were, according to the published testimony of Joe Smith, "found in the township of Manchester, Ontario county, New York."

The intervening annals of the rise and progress of this Mormon imposture, and of the career and martyrdom of Joe Smith, need no particular notice in this sketch, for these are to be found in various forms of recorded history already extant.

The discovery of the pretended ancient plates, "resembling plates of gold," has a significant connection with a scheme of cupidity plotted by one Sydney Rigdon, a deposed clergyman of Pennsylvania. He had surreptitiously possessed himself of a curious manuscript from the pen of a Rev. Mr. Spaulding, late of Ohio -- a romance, written primarily as a pastime exercise during a lingering decline of health, in 1812 and 1813 -- and Smith's marvellous revelation was an opportune event in the furtherance of Rigdon's speculation. Whether the resulting connection of these two conspiring schemes was incidental or contrived, or whether Smith's part in the conspiracy was the invention of his own cunning or the emanation of his co-worjer's perverted mind, are questions that have never been satisfactorily settled in public opinion. Spaulding's production, purporting to have been written by one of the lost nations of Israel, recovered from the earth by some miraculous interposition of Providence, was to have been entitled, if published, "Manuscript Found." An effort was made by the writer, shortly before his death, to procure its publication as a source of profit, but no printer could be found of sufficient faith in its paying expenses to undertake the printing. He died in 1816, and Rigdon, with this manuscript dishonestly procured, as before intimated, happening or designedly appearing in Palmyra about the time of Smith's pretended unearthing of the mysterious plates, the two speculations were joined together, and the two well matched schemers conspired to start the fraud from which originated the myth of the Golden Bible or Book of Mormon, with the attendant fame of Joe Smith, and the world renowned belligerent power of Mormonism in Utah.

The pretended translations of Smith were no doubt transcripts from the Spaulding romance as altered for the occasion by Rigdon. The latter was the first preacher of the newly revealed "Gospel according to Mormon," and made his appearance at Palmyra in that capacity immediately after the publication of the book, but his mission was there a dead failure. Whether he is now alive or dead, or what finally became of him, is not publicly apparent. His Mormon fame appears to have been of short duration. Of course there were never any converts to the Mormon gospel at the locality of its advent, beyond the cases of Harris and three or four similar victims of fanaticism or lunacy. Where its founders were known, the imposture was regarded as too stupid for serious notice by any body possessing a rightful claim to common intelligence or sanity.


Note 1: The above article was written by Pomeroy Tucker, who had been the editor of the Wayne Sentinel at the time the Smith family were living in Palmyra. Although he retained an interest in the business, Tucker was succeeded in that editorship by his partner since 1823, Egbert B. Grandin. A few years later Tucker was elected the Representative from Wayne County to the New York State Assembly, (Jan. 3 - May 16, 1837); he also served as the postmaster at Palmyra between 1839 and 1841. The entry for him in Herringshaw's Encyclopedia of American Biography reads: TUCKER, POMEROY, journalist, author, was born Aug. 10, 1802, in Palmyra, N.Y. He was a Canandaigua journalist who published a work on The Origin of Mormonism. He died June 30, 1870, in Palmyra, N.Y."

Note 2: The end of Tucker's article is of interest, in that he there barely at all develops the theme of Rigdon having visited Smith in New York on various occasions prior to 1830, as a "mysterious stranger." The mysterious stranger motif is more pronounced in Tucker's 1867 book. However, Tucker adds to his early thoughts on this theme somewhat in his follow-up article in the Press, even going so far as to insinuate that the older Smith girl had an illegitmate child as a consequence of Rigdon's secret visits.

Note 3: As he is generally prone to do, editor Dan Vogel eliminated the "brief discussion of the Spaulding theory" at the end of the writer's article, when he reprinted the May 26, 1858 text in his Early Mormon Documents III; (see Vogel's note #12, p. 67).

The Mormon Imposture --

The Mormon Aborigines.

It is believed there has never been published a particular and connected biography or description of the chief founders of the "Church of Latter-Day Saints." or as they may be fitly denomited, the Aborigines of Mormonism. ...

It is presumed, therefore, that as a supplement to the reminiscential sketch given in last week's "Press," the following additional recollections on the subject may possess a compensating interest in meeting public curiosity.

JOSEPH SMITH senior, with a family consisting of a wife and eight children, including Joe the Prophet (as foreordained to be,) settled upon a lot of mostly uncultivated land located on the northern border of the town of Manchester, about two miles south of Palmyra village, (on what is called Stafford Street,) in the year 1817 or '18. They removed there from the suburbs of said village, where they had resided since 1815, having then emigrated to that place from Vermont. The title of the lot was in non-resident minor heirs, uncared for by any local attorney or agent, and Smith took possession of it only as a "squatter sovereign;" though subsequently he purchased it by contract, paying little or nothing thereon. The same premises are now embraced in the well cultivated farm owned and occupied by Morgan Robinson. Smith's children, in the order of their ages, were Hiram, (so spelled by his father,) Alvin, Samuel H., Sophronia, Joseph minor, William, Catharine and Carlos. They lived there for a number of years, in a small, smoky log hut, of their own construction, which was divided into two rooms, with a garret. The age of the junior Joe at that time was about 17 or 18, though he did not know his own age, nor did any of the family remember it precisely. From the oldest to the youngest, they were a an illiterate, shiftless, indolent tribe, without any visible means of a respectable livelihood, nor was it apparent that they earned an honest living -- young Joe being the laziest of the crew. It was for this reason, in part perhaps, and also because of divers petty thefts from time to time occurring in the neighborhood; that they were so far under suspicion, (may be undeservedly) as to suggest to the inhabitants the observance of especial vigilance in the care of their sheep yards, smoke houses, pork barrels. &c. The senior Smith and his elder boys (Joe generally excepted) did some work upon the land which they occupied, in a slovenly, half-way manner, producing small crops or corn, "taters and garding sass," which, added to limited operations in raising pigs and poultry, with the making of maple sugar in the spring season, contributed towards their necessary subsistence. Old Joe also gathered and sold "rutes and yarbs" -- occasionally exchanged a load of wood in the village for tobacco, whiskey, or other notions of trade -- and on training and anniversary days, pocketed a few shillings from the peddling of gingerbread, boiled eggs, and root beer. The boys, who were frequently seen lounging about the stores and shops in the village, were distinguished only for their vagabondish appearance and loaferly habits. The female portion of the household were pretty much ditto. The money-digging humbug soon afterwards introduced, of which the junior Joe was the reputed inventor, was participated in more or less by all the male members of the family.

Such were the character and circumstances of the Smith generation, when young Joe's money-digging experiment commenced, which after a few years' continuance grew to the magnitude of his miraculously discovered golden "plates of Nephi" hidden in the earth by the hand of Mormon the Israelite, resulting in the wonderful revelation and publication of the Mormon Bible. ...

JOE SMITH junior, who became the world-renowned translator of the recovered Israelitish records or scriptures -- the publisher of the new revelation, in the Book of Mormon or Golden Bible, and founder of the politico-religious institution of Mormonism -- was, at the period referred to, a dull-eyed, flaxen-haired, ragged boy. He was of taciturn habits-- seldom speaking unless first spoken to while out among folks -- but apparently a thinking, calculating, mischief-brewing genius, whose whole secretive mind seemed devoted to some mysterious scheme or marvellous invention. In his mental composition the organ of "conscientiousness" might have been marked by phrenologists as not there. His word, by reason of his propensity for exaggeration, was never received with confidence by any body who knew him, (excepting of course his bigoted dupes.) He was proverbially considered by his neighbor contemporaries "the meanest boy" of the family. Subsequent developments and results, however, have demonstrated that he knew "some things as well as others," and that the hopping capacity of a toad cannot be estimated by the length of its tail.

A single instance of the many anecdotes remembered, in connection with Joe's magic pretensions and undertaking, will sufficiently illustrate his unprincipled cunning, and the strange infatuation of his dupes. Assuming his accustomed air of mystery, on one occasion, he pretended to know exactly where the sought-for iron chest of gold was deposited in the earth; and in order to the glittering prize, means must be contributed to pay for digging, and a black sheep would also be required for a sacrifice before engaging in the labors of the necromantic enterprise. Joe knew that his neighbor S., one of his interested listeners -- a respectable farmer in good circumstances, now living -- had a fine fat black wether, and that meat was scarce at home. So it was agreed that the farmer should give the noble wether as his share of the contribution; while others were to contribute their labor, with a small sum of money. At the approach of the appointed hour at night, the digging gang having been rallied and the black sheep provided, Joe led his party with a lantern to the enchanted spot upon a hill near his residence, where he described a circle upon the ground, within which the sacrifice was to be performed, and the prize exhumed. Not a word was to be spoken during the entire performance. Such was the programme. All things being ready, the throat of the animal was cut as previously arranged, (the carcass withdrawn and reduced to mutton by the Smiths,) and the excavation entered upon in good earnest by the expectant diggers. For some three hours the work was continued in utter silence -- when, tempted by the devil, one of the party spoke! The spell was broken -- and the precious treasure, which was just within reach, vanished!

OLIVER COWDERY, the scribe or amanuensis employed by the Prophet in the translation of the "sacred records, was an unpretending young man, of supposed fair character, who had done some service as a county schoolmaster. He could write a legible hand, such as might be read by the printers, by carefully dotting his i's and crossing his t's -- an accomplishment not possessed by any of the Smiths; but such spelling, punctuation, capitalizing and paragraphizing as his manuscripts exhibited, awfully multiplied the perplexities of the type-setters. He is believed to have been a native of Palmyra, as his father's family resided there as early as 1810. His present whereabouts or destiny (unknown to the writer hereof) may not involve a question of any moment, as his Mormon career was never distinguished beyond his first connection with the speculation as already explained.

SIDNEY RIGDON who furnished the literary contributions, and MARTIN HARRIS who supplied the fiscal means for carrying forward the imposture were indispensable spokes in the great driving wheel of the Mormon car. The former had been a clergyman of the Baptist persuasion in Pennsylvania -- had fallen from grace and been deposed from his clerical estate -- and he "understood the ropes" to be used in the infamous scheme of deception. He was the first "messenger appointed of God," (as he styled himself,) to proclaim the Mormon revelation, and preached his first sermon as such to a general public audience, in the room of the Palmyra Young Men's Association, in the third story of "Exchange Row," in that village. This was in the winter of 1830-'31, soon after the Mormon book was printed. The several churches had been applied to for the desecration of their pulpits, but were very properly refused. It was especially by the importunity of Harris, whose sincerity was unquestioned, that the use of the Association's room was granted. Holding the Book of Mormon in his right hand, and the Holy Bible in his left, the hardened impostor solemnly declared that both were equally true as the word of God -- that they were inseparably necessary to complete the everlasting gospel -- and that he himself was the called minister of Heaven to proclaim the new revelation for the salvation of sinful man! The discourse was a disgustingly blasphemous tirade, though evincing some talent and ingenuity in the speaker, and was received with such manifestations of disfavor that a repetition of the performance was never attempted there.

Up to this time, Rigdon had played his part behind the curtain. The policy seems to have been to keep him in concealment until all things were ready for the blowing of the Mormon trumpet. An unexpected birth occurring in the Smith family, where Rigdon had been a frequent incog. visitor for a year or so, was said to have been accounted for only as a miracle!"

MARTIN HARRIS was the son of Nathan Harris, now deceased, an early settler in Palmyra, and was universally esteemed as an honest man. He was a prosperous farmer, possessing a benevolent disposition, and good judgment in ordinary business affairs. His mind was overbalanced by "marvellousness," and was very much exercised on the subject of religion; and his betrayal of vague superstitions, with a belief in "special providences," and in the terrestrial visits of angels, ghosts, &c., brought upon him the imputation of being "crazy." He was possessed of a sort of Bible monomania, and could probably repeat from memory every line of the scriptures, quoting chapter and verse in each instance. His family consisted of a wife, (from whom he was separated by mutual arrangement on account of her persistent unbelief in Mormonism,) and one son and two daughters. The farm mortgaged and sacrificed by him in the printing speculation is the same now owned and occupied by William Chapman, about a mile and a half north of Palmyra village He long since abandoned Joe Smith and the Mormons, though he bigotedly adheres to Mormonism, and obstinately refuses to acknowledge his deception in the Bogus Bible! His present residence is in some part of Ohio, and his condition that of extreme poverty.

Old Joe Smith, with his family, including the Prophet Joe (under whose spiritual direction the profanity was perpetrated,) were baptized by Rigdon in the immersion form, into the Mormon "Church of Latter Day Saints," about the date last mentioned. And so also were Harris, Cowdery, the Whitmers, and a number of other fanatical followers. -- By "special revelation," the senior Joe was ordained the first Patriarch and President of the Church; and by like authority he was appointed to sell the Mormon Bible at a fixed price, and appropriate a certain percentage of the proceeds to his own use. This was a changed revelation, for in the first instance the "command from above" was that Harris alone should be permitted to sell and receive money for the book until he should be reimbursed the cost of printing.

The exodus of the Smith family, first to some part of Pennsylvania -- preparatory to taking possession of the "Promise Land" at Kirtland, Ohio -- occurred in 1831 or '32. -- The Prophet went first, with Cowdery and a few other followers, and married a wife in Pennsylvania -- Rigdon having been instrumental in the match-making of this affair and was the officiating "clergyman" at its celebration. ...


Note 1: This piece is Pomeroy Tucker's follow-up to his article in the Press issue of May 26, 1858. The expurgated text is taken from Dan Vogel's Early Mormon Documents III.

In the summer of the year of the first publication of the Mormon Bible (1830). Prophet Joe Smith, the assumed author of the book, came to Victor on foot, with a basket of his marvelous Bibles for sale. Stopping at the tavern, then kept by the hospitable William C. Dryer, he sought entertainment in exchange for a book, pleading that he was "out of money." The appeal was successful, and after breakfast next morning, Mr. Dryer voluntarily paid his penniles guest three shillings as balance of account. With the aid of this money the "prophet" indulged in whisky potations until (as my informant expresses the idea) "he couldn't navigate;" when the mischievous boys of the town threw him into the horse watering trough at the pump, near the bar-room door and pumped water upon the successor of Nephi until he was sufficiently sobered to bid good bye to Victor and the unbelieving "gentiles."


Note: Victor is the second township west from Manchester, Ontario co., NY. If any part of this story is to be believed, the name of its chief character will most likely have to be changed from "Prophet Joe Smith," to "Joseph Smith, Sr., father of the prophet." The pedestrian peddling of copies of the Book of Mormon was a typical activity of the elder Smith during "the summer of the year... 1830."

SERIOUSLY ILL. -- We regret to learn that the vetern printer, B. F. Cowdery, is lying seriously ill at his residence in this city of pneumonia, and his recovery is past looking for.


Notes: (forthcoming)

From the Troy Daily Times

A  Forthcoming  Book.

The Appletons are soon to publish a book entitled "Mormonism: It's Origin and Progress: Biography of its Founders, and History of its Church of Latter-day Saints. Personal remembrances and historical collections hitherto unwritten, By P. Tucker." The author, Mr. Tucker, is well qualified for his task -- was intimately acquainted with Joe Smith, the first Mormon prophet, when in Palmyra -- had the chief direction of the printing of the original edition of the Book of Mormon from the manuscripts -- and knew all the principal actors in the Imposture from its commencement. The plan of the work, as we have reason to know, is a candid, truthful, authentic history, dating from the beginning of the Mormon invention, and chronologically tracing the new sect from its insignificant starting point to its present monster proportions. The Union Vedette of Great Salt Lake City, (gentile) has a notice of the forthcoming book on Mormonism, in which, referring to a statement of its author, the editor remarks:

"We are glad to learn from him that it is not written up in the style we had apprehended, If the Book of Mormon, and knows all about the origin of these 'Saints' who have become distinctly rich and powerful in proclaiming that "gospel," it will be interesting to know from his book all the facts -- naked, substantiated facts. These are what the inquiring mind wants, and the sky blue coloring that often takes the place of a round, unvarnished tale. We shall notice the work at length when it comes to hand."

Much that is very interesting about the Mormons has already been published. Mr. Bowles in his Overland Journey to California, told us a deal concerning Utah and the Saints, which was new and entertaining; Mr. Richardson in his volume "Beyond the Rocky Mountains," has likewise entertained and instructed the public on the same subject, while Hepworth Dixon, the English writer, in his work on "New America," has perhaps told us more than all the others about everyday Mormon life, institutions, and character of leaders and people. But there is wanting in all these histories and allusions to the Mormons, the link which makes the whole historical chain. None of the writers pretend to have any but the most vague ideas of the origin and early history of the imposture itself -- the delusion, which has spread itself to all quarters of the globe, made [its activities?] among the nations, which has almost peopled an empire, and which to-day wields a political, [social], and pecuniary power certainly not [second to] many well established governments. Where did Mormonism originate? Who and what were the men who presided over its birth, [secured?] its infancy, fought its early battles, and identified themselves with its [strugglers]? When did the "Book of Mormon" originate; who and what were the men who first palmed it off to credulous people as a revelation from God? Who and what was Joe Smith? Who and what were his apostles -- the men who followed him from Western New York to Illinois? And what became of these early believers and followers, whose connections with Mormonism were marked and prominent long, long before Brigham Young was heard of?

There are men in Western New York -- the number rapidly [diminishing], however -- who can intelligently answer all these and many more like interrogatories, with the intelligence and reliability which come from a personal knowledge of all the facts. Pomeroy Tucker, Esq., of Palmyra, author of the work above alluded to, is one of these. He was a young editor and printer before "Jo Smith" budded into fame -- [in fact when] the "Prophet" was known about [Palmyra as a] most unpromising sort of village [-------], living by his wits [--- --- ---- ---- ]. Mr. Tucker was employed with the printing office to which the "Book of Mormon" was brought to be printed, and in which, subsequently, it was printed. Mr. T. himself acting as proof-reader for a part of the work. His position brought him to contact with Smith and his associates. Wishing to hear all that the Saints had to say, Mr. T. volunteered, as a member of a literary society, to secure the use of a public hall in the village, in which the Mormons could hold a meeting. This was the first Mormon meeting ever held on the earth below. With all the subsequent doings of the leaders in that vicinity, Mr. Tucker was naturally from that day to this kept in the view [of] the whole movement. He has seen Mormonism from the day when, in his village it was "no bigger than a man's hand," magnifying itself so as to attract the attention of both continents, and to become a power among the so-called religious sects of the world. Never had man such a temptation "to write a book," He was frequently and earnestly urged to put his facts and recollections in print,. He was told that to do so w