HIRAM PAGE.
This is the only Witness of the Eight not either a Whitmer or a Smith. He was a son-in-law, however, to Peter Whitmer, Sen., having married Catherine Whitmer, in 1825. He was but a young man when he became a Witness to the existence of the Nephite plates, having been born in the year 1800, in the state of Vermont. He was living at Fayette, with the Whitmers when the Prophet and Oliver Cowdery arrived there in the spring of 1829. He entered into the work with enthusiasm, and for some years was a faithful member of the Church. He followed the westward movement of the Saints from New York to Ohio and thence to Missouri. He shared in the persecutions of the Church in Jackson county; in common with his co-religionists he fled to Clay county; and subsequently settled in Caldwell county. When the trouble arose in the Church at Far West, in 1838, Hiram Page followed the fortune of the Whitmers, severed his relations with the Church and finally made his home near Excelsior Springs, some fourteen miles north and a little west of Richmond, Missouri, where he died in August, 1852. Like his fellow Witnesses he remained true to his testimony. His oldest son, Philander Page, in 1888, said to Elder Andrew Jenson:
"I knew my father to be true and faithful to his testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon until the very last. Whenever he had an opportunity to bear his testimony to this effect, he would always do so, and seemed to rejoice exceedingly in having been privileged to see the plates and thus become one of the Eight Witnesses. I can also testify that Jacob, John and David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery died in full faith in the divinity of the Book of Mormon. I was with all these Witnesses on their death-beds and heard each of them bear his testimony." John C. Whitmer, a nephew of Hiram Page by marriage, also testified in the presence of Elder Jenson: "I was closely connected with Hiram Page in business transactions and other matters, he being married to my aunt. I knew him at all times and under all circumstances to be true to his testimony concerning the divinity of the Book of Mormon."[[10]]