Mrs. Marsh says that Joseph Knight and his sons were on one occasion in her husband's hay-field, and boldly declared that Smith could perform miracles. On being challenged for an example, Joseph Knight said, "The prophet cast the Devil out of me. He looked like a black cat; and he ran into a pile of brush." The prophet prayed for a deceased shoemaker in Greene, Chenango county. This man had joined their Church, and the Mormons needed his property to help them in leaving the country. The widow refused to sign the property over until the prayers had been offered for the return of her husband. The prayers having availed nothing, the executor sought to recover the property. Thomas A. Johnson, then a law-student and a brother of Mrs. Marsh, was sent to Harpersville to get possession. Smith's followers were encamped in the barn of Joseph Knight, and they threatened to shoot. By the advice of friends Johnson compromised the matter by taking a valuable horse.
All accounts agree that Smith drank freely, both in the Susquehanna and in the Harpersville neighborhoods. Mrs. McKune relates that one night Smith volunteered to pray the frost away from the corn-field of his brother-in-law, Michael Morse. The field was not saved, probably because it had an exposure toward the north and the west. A number of witnesses in the vicinity of Nineveh remember that the prophet set a day for that village to sink, but that he afterward repented and withdrew his curse. He did, however, announce that on a certain evening, about twilight, he would walk on the water. The place of his selection was watched by Gentile boys until one of Smith's followers was seen to construct a bridge of planks just under the surface. Watching their opportunity, the boys removed the outer planks. Before the prophet made the attempt to walk he exhorted his followers to have strong faith. When his bridge suddenly gave way he swam ashore and said, "Woe unto you of little faith! Your faith would not hold me up."
There were other boys in the neighborhood who thought it rare sport to annoy the Mormons. The same Joseph Knight who has already figured in this narrative owned a small farm on which he had built a combined grist- and carding-mill. The power was obtained by means of a small stream, the outlet of Perch Pond to the Susquehanna River, opposite Harpersville. This stream was dammed, so that the Mormon converts might be baptized by immersion. The day for the ceremony was fixed, but the boys so persistently destroyed the dam that the Mormons did not attempt to rebuild it till the night before, and then they were obliged to stand guard until the hour for the baptism had arrived. Knight's barn was a rude structure of about forty by thirty feet, but it served the purpose of a tabernacle in the wilderness for a number of months. The prophet himself was not a very successful preacher, but the versatile Sidney Rigdon more than made up for his defects. Smith Baker gives Rigdon the credit of being "a decent speaker, as preachers averaged in those days."
A semblance of persecution having strengthened the Church, the Gentile inhabitants of the Susquehanna Valley were glad when a "revelation" caused the sixty Mormons to pack their traps and move westward. Some of the followers were moved by a spirit of adventure, while others placed their property in the common lot and determined to accompany the prophet to his earthly as well as to his heavenly kingdom. Smith Baker was one of the teamsters, and reports that the train consisted of three baggage- and eleven passenger-wagons. The exodus was along the old State road, north of Binghamton, to Ithaca, and thence, across Cayuga Lake, to Palmyra.
The Saints in the region about the Gold Bible Hill had not been idle while these things were occurring in Susquehanna. William Van Camp relates that he and all the other boys believed Hen Pack Hill, a mile east of Palmyra, would open to allow a giant to step forth and place his foot upon Palmyra to crush it. This would be the end of all disbelievers in Mormonism, and the Saints would at once be gathered together in that vicinity. "I did not know then," says Mr. Van Camp, "how easy it is for men to lie."
Mr. Van Camp is about seventy years old, and Major John H. Gilbert, who still resides in Palmyra, is about seventy-six. Both of these gentlemen were working in the office of the Wayne Sentinel, E.B. Grandin proprietor, during the months from September, 1829, to March, 1830, the time during which the Book of Mormon was in process of printing. The office was in the third story of a building now known as "Exchange Row," in the principal street of Palmyra. The foreman was Mr. Pomeroy Tucker, who afterward published a work on Mormonism. Major Gilbert was a compositor and also a dancing-master. His duties in the latter calling took him away from his "case" so frequently that Van Camp "distributed" in order to give him a chance to work the next day. The "copy" was on ruled paper—an expensive thing in those days—and the letters were so closely crowded together that words like and or the were divided at the end of the line. The copy was in Cowdery's handwriting, but it was produced from a tightly-buttoned coat every morning by Hyrum Smith. One day's supply only was given at a time, and even this was carefully taken away at night, there being but one occasion when permission was given to Major Gilbert to take it away from the office. Major Gilbert and others say that David Whitner of Richmond, Missouri, has this manuscript copy; and it has been stated recently that he has been called upon by officials from Salt Lake City to produce it, and refused.[4]
There were no marks of punctuation in the copy—a sore trial to both Tucker and Gilbert in "reading proof." At such times Cowdery occasionally "held the copy." In the absence of Cowdery the proof-readers often resorted to the orthodox Bible to verify some foggy passage. The "matter" was "paged" so that thirty-two pages could be printed at a time on one of Hoe's "Smith" six-column hand-presses. After the sheets had been run through once and properly dried, they were reversed and printed on the other side. The bookbinder then folded them by hand, and severed them with an ivory paper-cutter. The result was that the twenty-five hundred large sheets made five thousand small sheets, with sixteen pages printed upon each side. Major Gilbert has an unbound copy of the book, which he saved, sheet by sheet, as it came from the press.
Martin Harris furnished the funds for printing the book by a mortgage of three thousand dollars on his farm. He celebrated the completion of the work by inviting all the printers to his house. Mrs. Harris (the same who secreted the manuscript at Susquehanna) had not signed the mortgage. Harris brought his guests within the door—as Van Camp relates it—and introduced them to his wife, who bowed coldly and took no pains to welcome them. At length Harris asked for the cider-pitcher, and went to the spot indicated by his wife. Returning with it in his hand, he showed a large hole in the bottom. "Well," said Mrs. Harris, "it has as much bottom as your old Bible has." There was enough bottom to the Bible, however, to give a comfortable sum of money to "Joseph Smith, Jr., Author and Proprietor." Orlando Sanders, son of Alonzo Sanders before mentioned, says that the Smiths made too much money to walk any longer: he sold them a horse, and he now has a Bible which he took in payment for a bridle.
The most reasonable theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon connects the work directly with Solomon Spalding, a soldier of the Revolution from Connecticut and a graduate from Dartmouth in the class of 1785. Failing health induced Spalding to leave the ministry and to join his brother in a mercantile life at Cherry Valley and Richfield, New York. In 1809 he removed thence to Conneaut, in Ashtabula county, the extreme north-eastern corner of Ohio. Next west of Ashtabula is Lake county, wherein is located Kirtland—a place of great historic interest to the Mormons, as will appear before our narrative closes. While Spalding was in Conneaut he wrote a few novels of so unmeritorious a nature that no one would publish them. At length the opening of an Indian mound gave him a basis of facts upon which he built a story relating to the Indian population of America and its descent from the Lost Tribes of Israel. He announced that the title of his novel would be The Manuscript Found, and that he proposed to publish a sensational story of its discovery in a cave in Ohio. Spalding frequently read extracts to his friends, and one of them furnished him with money, so that he could proceed to Pittsburg and have the novel printed. The manuscript remained in the office of Patterson & Lambdin in that city for some time, but it was never published. It is probable that it was taken away by Spalding, who died shortly after (in 1816) at Amity, Washington county, near Pittsburg. While it was in the office it is believed that Sidney Rigdon, a young printer, was so pleased with the novel that he took a copy for future use. Rigdon was born in Alleghany county, Pennsylvania, February 19, 1793. He received a fair English education, and in 1817 became an orthodox Christian preacher. He soon gave forth strange doctrines, which were founded on the manuscript in his possession, and then he abandoned preaching for a number of years "to study the Bible," as he expressed it. Moving into Lake county, Ohio, he prepared the minds of his followers for some new ism. It cannot be accurately stated just when, where and how he met Joseph Smith and added his religious enthusiasm to the humbuggery of the Peeker. But that such a union was formed appears from the talk of Smith regarding the gold plates, and from the actual finding of them in the manner proposed by Spalding fourteen years before. The union is still more evident when we listen to witnesses who had heard Spalding's readings, and who afterward recognized them in the Book of Mormon, with additions of a religious nature. These witnesses noted certain inconsistencies in the Book of Mormon which they had formerly discovered in Spalding's novel. History records that the widow of Spalding sent the manuscript to Conneaut, where it was publicly compared with the printed book and the fraud exposed. Soon afterward the manuscript was spirited away from Mrs. Spalding, probably to avoid the certainty of a still more convincing disclosure. Major Gilbert testified that Rigdon dogged Smith's footsteps about Palmyra for nearly two years before the Bible was printed. He is of opinion that Rigdon was among those who listened to Spalding in Conneaut, and took notes on those occasions. The Bible itself is full of the religious questions which stirred the people of Western New York in those days—a most strange thing in a celestial work of such great antiquity.
Immediately after the publication of the Book the Church was duly organized at Manchester. On April 6, 1830, six members were ordained elders—Joseph Smith, Sr., Joseph Smith, Jr., Hyrum Smith, Samuel Smith, Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Knight. The first conference was held at Fayette, Seneca county, in June. A special "revelation" at this time made Smith's wife "the Elect Lady and Daughter of God," with the high-sounding title of "Electa Cyria." In later years this lady became disgusted with her husband's religion, and refused after his death to leave Illinois for Utah. She remained in Nauvoo, and married a Gentile named Bidamon. For a long time she kept the Mansion House in that place, where she died April 30, 1879.