"DR." PHILASTUS HURLBURT.
We start with "Dr." Philastus Hurlburt. He was not a "Doctor" by profession, but being a seventh son, his parents, following the old folklore custom, called him "Doctor." He was formerly a member of the Methodist Church from which he was excluded for immoralities. He appeared in Kirtland in 1833 and began an investigation of Mormonism, and finally claimed to be satisfied of its truth. Joseph E. Johnson, residing at Kirtland at the time, and at whose mother's home Hurlburt boarded for about one year, describes him as "a man of fine physique, very pompous, good looking, very ambitious, with some energy, though of poor education."[45] Some time after he joined the Church he was brought before a conference of high priests in Kirtland and charged with un-Christianlike conduct with women, while on a mission to the eastern states. His commission as an elder was taken from him and he was excommunicated. Being dissatisfied with the result of this trial he appealed his case to the high council at Kirtland, and a hearing was granted him. He confessed his sin before this council and was forgiven; but a few days after this action, he boasted that he had deceived the council in his confession, "and Joseph Smith's God," and this led to his final excommunication.[46]
[Footnote 45: Deseret Evenings News, December 28, 1880; also "History of the Church," Vol. I, p. 355, note. Also Gregg's "Prophet of Palmyra," pp. 427-430.]
[Footnote 46: "History of the Church," Vol. I, pp. 354-5 and note.]
After his excommunication "Dr." Hurlburt became very bitter against the Church, and threatened the prophet's life. He was finally arraigned before the court at Chardon, for this offense and placed under bonds to the amount of two hundred dollars "to keep the peace, and, be of good behavior to the citizens of the state of Ohio generally, and to Joseph Smith, Jun., in particular, for the period of six months." He was also required to pay the costs of the prosecution which amounted to one hundred and twelve dollars.[47] When it is remembered how great the excitement was at this time in northeastern Ohio, respecting Mormonism, how numerous and how bitter were Joseph Smith's enemies, this decision of Judge M. Birchard is important in showing how violent and vicious must have been the character of "Dr." Hurlburt. Yet he becomes the special emissary of the conspirators of north-eastern Ohio, against Mormonism. He is commissioned to secure Spaulding's manuscript and gather information in New York concerning the character of Joseph Smith,[48] the man whom he so bitterly hates, and whose life he had threatened. And the world is asked to form its opinion of Joseph Smith from the alleged information procured in New York by this man, and published in Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," in the form of affidavits!
[Footnote 47: "History of the Church," Vol. II, pp. 47-49 and notes.]
[Footnote 48: "Origin of the Spaulding Story," by B. Winchester, Philadelphia, (1840) p. 10, "Mormonism Unveiled," chapter xvii. These affidavits gathered up by Hurlburt are quoted by nearly every anti-Mormon writer since 1834, until now, the year of grace, 1908 [and 1911]; all forgetful of the fact that no matter how many mirrors are brought into a room where a farthing rush light is burning, they do not increase the light burning there, but merely reflect it. It is safe to say that since Howe's publication of "Mormonism Unveiled," in 1834, little or nothing has been added to the stock of "information," from the anti-Mormon side of the controversy on this particular point.]
Even some who are parties to the Spaulding theory distrusted Hurlburt. Mrs. Davidson, formerly Spaulding's wife, "did not like his appearance, and mistrusted his motives," and it was only because he presented a letter from her brother, William H. Sabine, urging her to loan her former husbands' manuscript story to Hurlburt, that she finally, but reluctantly, consented for him to have the paper.[49] Mrs. Ellen Dickinson, grand-niece of Solomon Spaulding, and author of "New Light on Mormonism," charges him with having betrayed his fellow conspirators in Ohio, by securing the "real" "Manuscript Found" and turning it over to the Mormons for a price, and that they destroyed it.[50] Clark Braden in his debate on the Book of Mormon with E. L. Kelly, makes the same charge, and says that Hurlburt got $400.00 for his treachery and boasted of it.[51]
[Footnote 49: Mrs. McKinstry's statement Scribner's Magazine, August, 1880.]
[Footnote 50: "New Light on Mormonism." p. 62-71.]
[Footnote 51: "Braden-Kelly Debate." p. 96. Braden relies upon the statement of Rev. John A. Clark, D. D., in "Gleanings by the Way," p. 265.]
Mr. E. D. Howe, author of the first anti-Mormon book of any very great pretensions or general interest—and of which Mr. Schroeder is so eulogistic, speaking of it as "the most important single collection of original evidence ever made upon the subject"—was the editor of the Painsville Telegraph, and especially bitter towards the Mormons and Mormonism, because his own wife and sister had joined the Mormon Church, at which he was greatly incensed.[52]
[Footnote 52: "Braden-Kelly Debate." pp. 69, 81. See also the Advertisement of Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled,"—which precedes the Introduction. Also the Introduction of the same work, for manifestation of bitterness.]