There was, however, another object for which Smith said the Lord had sent him to Susquehanna; and that was—a wife. Until he obtained one there was no use in trying to get certain buried treasures at Palymra. A headless Spaniard guarded it with great vigilance, but would, it appeared, be driven away if Smith should shake millinery and dry-goods bills at him. Joseph stopped at the house of Isaac Hale, already noticed as having furnished board to the diggers. Mr. Hale owned a farm on the north side of the river, a mile and a half below the present borough of Susquehanna. He had three daughters, two of them already married. The second daughter, Emma, was easily persuaded to join her fortunes with those of the adventurer. The father, however, made so much opposition that they crossed over into the State of New York, and were married at Windsor, a neighboring town. This was probably early in 1826. Mr. Hale threatened to shoot his son-in-law—the "Peeker," as he called him—if he ever returned.
About these days, every other means of gaining a living without honest work having been exhausted, the prophet thought it was time to find the golden plates. Returning to the vicinity of Palmyra, Smith and his followers began to dig for the plates on the eastern side of the hill. It was announced that each one of the diggers must be pure in deed, and that no evil thought must cross his mind as he worked. One night a spade struck an iron box at the same moment that an evil thought seized one of the diggers. The box sank to lower depths amid thunder and lightning, while Smith announced that nothing could be done that night but to go home and pray. They were more fortunate, however, in leaving their evil thoughts at home on the night of September 22, 1826, for then, according to the faithful, the golden plates were taken from "the Hill Cumorah with a mighty display of celestial machinery." It is recorded that after the prize had been delivered to the prophet by angels his eyes were opened and he saw legions of devils struggling with a celestial host to keep the plates concealed. On his return to Susquehanna with a bandaged head, Smith gave out that he had had an encounter with the chief devil, and been severely wounded by a blow "struck from the shoulder."
With the golden plates were also found the Urim and Thummim, the magic spectacles or religious peek-stones, "transparent and clear as crystal," which should translate the hieroglyphics on the plates. There were three witnesses who swore by all that was sacred that the angel of the Lord laid these plates before them, and that "they were translated by the gift and power of God." The three witnesses were Oliver Cowdery, who was finally expelled from the brotherhood in Missouri; David Whitner, who abandoned the Mormons and settled in Richmond, Missouri, where he still lives; and Martin Harris, who quarrelled with Smith in the same State and returned to New York to live.
Such a precious treasure as was now in the hands of Smith was not to be "borne in earthly vessels frail." He applied to Willard Chase, a son of that Clark Chase on whose premises the original peek-stone was discovered, to make him a wooden box for the plates. The compensation was to be a share in the prospective profits from the "Gold Book." Chase's lack of faith in both the man and the book caused him to decline the work. Smith thereupon thrust his gold plates and the rings which connected them into a bag of beans and started for Susquehanna. Twenty miles above that borough lies the village of Harpersville. Here lived Benjamin Wasson, who married one of Mrs. Smith's sisters. Wasson was a cabinetmaker, and, although not a Mormon, he made a strong box for the plates. Smith announced that no one could look into the box and live, but when his father-in-law, Hale, wished to try it Smith hid the box in the woods. Hale, in his statement of 1834, declared that Smith translated the plates in his own house, "with the stone in his hat and his hat over his face," while the plates were still hid in the woods.
Fortunately for Smith, he did not have to depend upon Hale for a place in which to carry on his operations. His wife had a six-acre place in a corner of her father's farm, adjoining the farm of Joseph McKune. Upon this little strip of land Smith moved a partly-finished house, twenty-six feet broad, eighteen feet deep and fourteen feet in the posts. It is evident, from the stovepipe through the roof, that the edifice was never finished. After Smith left this region Martin Harris came from Palmyra and sold the house to McKune, whose widow lived in it for about forty years. It is now the farm-residence of her son, Benjamin McKune, high sheriff of Susquehanna county, and lies close to the track of the Erie Railway, a mile and a half west of Susquehanna Dépôt. The elder McKune strongly suspected that Smith and his gang were counterfeiters.
The prophet's original plan was that the plates should be translated by an infant son, who should perform other miracles and become his successor. But his expectations were doomed to disappointment, for in a little fern-grown cemetery near at hand is a tottering slab of black sandstone with the simple inscription, "In memory of an infant son of Joseph and Emma Smith, June 15, 1828." Hence the magic spectacles were very opportunely found with the plates. The little low chamber in Smith's house was used as a translating-room. The prophet and his plates were screened even from the sight of his scribes, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery and Reuben Hale, by blankets secured with nails. While the translation was going on the neighbors frequently called to discuss the forthcoming book, which, it was alleged, would make the Hale family very rich. Occasionally a visitor was allowed to feel the thickness of the Golden Book as it reposed within a pillow-case, but no one was permitted to see it.[3]
The "celestial machinery" for the translating process was very simple. A copy of the hieroglyphics was taken, and then Smith either wrote his translation on a slate or dictated for others to write on paper. Martin Harris having taken a scroll containing some of the hieroglyphics to Professor Anthon, the characters were pronounced to be partly Greek, partly Hebrew and partly Roman inverted, with a rude copy of Humboldt's Mexican calendar at the end. That the prophet was not well advanced either in Greek or English appears from a story related by the Rev. Henry Caswall, who visited Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1842. He had with him a copy of the Psalter in Greek, which he handed to the prophet and asked him to explain its contents. Smith looked at it a few moments, and then replied, "No, it ain't Greek at all, except perhaps a few words. What ain't Greek is Egyptian, and what ain't Egyptian is Greek. This book is very valuable: it is a dictionary of Egyptian hieroglyphics." Pointing to the capital letters at the beginning of each verse, he said, "Them figures is Egyptian hieroglyphics, and them which follows is the interpretation of the hieroglyphics, written in the reformed Egyptian. Them characters is like the letters that was engraved on the golden plates." Upon this the Mormons began to congratulate Mr. Caswall on the information he was receiving. "There!" they said, "we told you so: we told you that our prophet would give you satisfaction. None but our prophet can explain these mysteries." The prophet then attempted to buy the book, on the ground that it could be of no use to Caswall, because he did not understand it! Refusing to sell, Caswall inquired the meaning of certain of the hieroglyphics on the papyrus of the prophet. When cornered the prophet slipped out of the room, and Caswall saw him no more.
Mrs. McKune relates the particulars of an incident which took place early in 1828. Martin Harris had advanced so much money to Smith that his wife came from Palmyra in great alarm to arrest the destruction of property and to reclaim her husband if possible. Harris showed her the sacred writings, already nearly completed, as an inducement for her to hold her peace. She found where the manuscript was concealed, and at once secured it. When asked to return it she replied, "Joe Smith may peek for it." This he attempted to do, but accused her of unfairly removing the manuscript whenever the attendants had almost reached it. After waiting a little time, she produced a portion of the roll and declared Smith to be a fraud. The remainder of the manuscript she retained, and finally burned it, with the remark, "If it cannot be found there will be an end to the partnership between Joe Smith and my husband." Joe never undertook to use his wonderful spectacles for a second translation of the matter in the missing manuscript: he feared that Mrs. Harris might produce a totally different Bible consisting of his first translation.
Mrs. Squires and Mrs. McKune agree in saying that no converts were made by Smith and Harris in the vicinity of Susquehanna. The scene of the Mormon endeavors was suddenly moved along the beautiful valley of the Susquehanna to a point north of the Appalachin Mountains and just within the borders of New York. In the locality of Harpersville and Nineveh a broad plain had been settled by a colony of emigrants called "the Vermont Sufferers," from their having formerly occupied land which was claimed by both Massachusetts and New York. Three miles above Nineveh lies Afton, just on the edge of Chenango county, and a short distance above are Sidney, in Delaware county, and Otego, in Otsego county. Smith and his followers operated with the peek-stone in this part of the valley, where he was a comparative stranger. George Collington, one of the most substantial farmers in Broome county, was then a lad of sixteen. One evening, at twilight, he discovered Smith, Joseph Knight, William Hale (uncle of Smith's wife) and two men named Culver and Blowers in the act of dodging through the woods with shovels and picks upon their shoulders, their object being to discover a salt-spring by the agency of the peek-stone. He followed them, under cover of the brush, to a point where they stopped for consultation and finally decided to dig the next day. Noticing that Bostwick Badger, who then owned the farm now occupied by Collington, had felled an oak near the place, and that he had drawn out the timber, Collington obtained permission to cut the top for wood. Collington's axe and the prophet's diggers began operations about the same time on the following morning. Out from the treetop came Collington and asked what they were doing. They told him to mind his business, which he did by thoroughly publishing them about the neighborhood—a proceeding that brought them a number of unwelcome visitors in the place of one. Frederick Davenport furnished young Collington with a half bushel of salt to be deposited in the hole at night. By morning the water had dissolved the salt and retained its briny flavor. Bottles were filled for exhibition, and the stock of the converts in the peek-stone ran high until the trick was discovered. It was claimed that the peek-stone also pointed out an extensive silver-mine on the farm of Abram Cornell at Bettsburg, nearly opposite Nineveh. No silver was found except that furnished by Josiah Stowell, a not over-bright man whose little all went into the pocket of Smith.
However much he might fail in discovering material treasures, Smith's hold upon the religious infatuation of his followers grew more and more strong. John Morse, an aged convert to Mormonism, had recently died, and Smith was sent for to restore him to life. After looking at him Smith declined, because it would be a pity to have him suffer rheumatism and die again so soon! This was something like Brigham Young's refusal to restore a lost leg to one of his Mormons, on the ground that if he did it the man would be obliged to walk on three legs all through eternity!