In the same statement she avers that "at the time of the publication of said Book [of Mormon], my brother Joseph Smith, Jr., lived in the family of my father in the town of Manchester, Ontario County, N.Y., and that he had all of his life to this time made his home with the family."
The manuscript of the Book of Mormon was finished and the book copyrighted by June 11, 1829.Millennial Star, 24. 118 Rigdon's help would be most needed before this time, and from June, 1828, until June, 1829, all and numerous revelations are dated "Harmony, Pennsylvania," which, together with Smith's autobiography, shows that he did not all of his lifetime make his home with his parents, nor live at Manchester during all of the most important period of Mormon incubation. The probabilities are that Smith moved to Pennsylvania at this time, for the very purpose of making it easier for Rigdon and Pratt, who lived in Ohio, to furnish him the much needed help.
The admitted errors in Mrs. Salisbury's statement destroy its evidentiary value, and leave it clearly demonstrated by the other evidence adduced, that Rigdon visited Smith' several years before the appearance of the Book of Mormon.
THE CONVERSION OF PARLEY P. PRATT.
In the summer of 1830 the Book of Mormon came from the press, and the time had come for Pratt and Rigdon to be astonished by its appearance. Now watch their maneuvers. That year Pratt left Ohio for a visit to New York. Of this trip his autobiography records the following:
"Landing in Buffalo, we [Pratt and wife] engaged our passage for Albany in a canal boat, distance three hundred and sixty miles. This, including board, cost all our money and some articles of clothing."
Would a mere desire to visit friends induce him to give up part of his clothing for passage money? Hardly; he was after larger game. But let us read on:
"Arriving at Rochester, I informed my wife that, notwithstanding our passage being paid through the whole distance, yet I must leave the boat and leave her to pursue her passage to our friends, while I would stop a while in this region. Why, I did not know; but so it was plainly manifest by the Spirit to me. I said to her: 'We part for a season; go and visit our friends in our native place; I will come soon, but how soon I know not, for I have a work to do in this region of country, and what it is or how long it will take me to perform it, I know not; but I will come when it is performed. My wife would have objected to this, but she had seen the Hand of God so plainly manifest in His dealings with me many times that she dare not oppose the things manifest to me by His Spirit. She therefore consented, and I accompanied her as far as Newark, a small town upwards of a hundred miles from Buffalo, and then took leave of her and of the boat."
"It was early in the morning, just at the dawn of day. I walked ten miles into the country [remember now he doesn't know where he is going], and stopped with a Mr. Wells."
This was undoubtedly a member of the same Wells family of Macedon with whom Joseph Smith had long been on terms of intimacy.[119] Pratt's autobiography continues:
[Footnote 119: "Joseph Smith, the Prophet," by Lucy Smith, 101-103. Probably this refers to the home of Daniel H. Wells, afterward a prominent Mormon in Utah.]