In June, 1829, Smith accepted an invitation to change his residence to the house of Peter Whitmer, who, with his sons, David, John, and Peter, Jr., lived at Fayette, Seneca County, New York, the Whitmers promising his board free and their assistance in the work of translation. There, Smith says, they resided "until the translation was finished and the copyright secured."
As five of the Whitmers were "witnesses" to the existence of the plates, and David continued to be a person of influence in Mormon circles throughout his long life, information about them is of value. The prophet's mother again comes to our aid, although her account conflicts with her son's. The prophet says that David Whitmer brought the invitation to take up quarters at his father's, and volunteered the offer of free board and assistance. Mother Smith says that one day, as Joe was translating the plates, he came, in the midst of the words of the Holy Writ, to a commandment to write at once to David Whitmer, requesting him to come immediately and take the prophet and Cowdery to his house, "as an evil-designing people were seeking to take away his [Joseph's] life in order to prevent the work of God from going forth to the world." When the letter arrived, David's father told him that, as they had wheat sown that would require two days' harrowing, and a quantity of plaster to spread, he could not go "unless he could get a witness from God that it was absolutely necessary." In answer to his inquiry of the Lord on the subject, David was told to go as soon as his wheat was harrowed in. Setting to work, he found that at the end of the first day the two days' harrowing had been completed, and, on going out the next morning to spread the plaster, he found that work done also, and his sister told him she had seen three unknown men at work in the field the day before: so that the task had been accomplished by "an exhibition of supernatural power."*
* "Biographical Sketches," Lucy Smith, p. 135.
The translation being ready for the press, in June, 1829 (I follow Tucker's account of the printing of the work), Joseph, his brother Hyrum, Cowdery, and Harris asked Egbert B. Grandin, publisher of the Wayne Sentinel at Palmyra, to give them an estimate of the cost of printing an edition of three thousand copies, with Harris as security for the payment. Grandin told them he did not want to undertake the job at any price, and he tried to persuade Harris not to invest his money in the scheme, assuring him that it was fraudulent. Application was next made to Thurlow Weed, then the publisher of the Anti-Masonic Inquirer, at Rochester, New York. "After reading a few chapters," says Mr. Weed, "it seemed such a jumble of unintelligent absurdities that we refused the work, advising Harris not to mortgage his farm and beggar his family." Finally, Smith and his associates obtained from Elihu F. Marshall, a Rochester publisher, a definite bid for the work, and with this they applied again to Grandin, explaining that it would be much more convenient for them to have the printing done at home, and pointing out to him that he might as well take the job, as his refusal would not prevent the publication of the book. This argument had weight with him, and he made a definite contract to print and bind five thousand copies for the sum of $3000, a mortgage on Harris's farm to be given him as security. Mrs. Harris had persisted in her refusal to be in any way a party to the scheme, and she and her husband had finally made a legal separation, with a division of the property, after she had entered a complaint against Joe, charging him with getting money from her husband on fraudulent representation. At the hearing on this complaint, Harris denied that he had ever contributed a dollar to Joe at the latter's persuasion.
Tucker, who did much of the proof-reading of the new Bible, comparing it with the manuscript copy, says that, when the printing began, Smith and his associates watched the manuscript with the greatest vigilance, bringing to the office every morning as much as the printers could set up during the day, and taking it away in the evening, forbidding also any alteration. The foreman, John H. Gilbert, found the manuscript so poorly prepared as regards grammatical construction, spelling, punctuation, etc., that he told them that some corrections must be made, and to this they finally consented.
Daniel Hendrix, in his recollections, says in confirmation of this:—
"I helped to read proof on many pages of the book, and at odd times set some type.... The penmanship of the copy furnished was good, but the grammar, spelling and punctuation were done by John H. Gilbert, who was chief compositor in the office. I have heard him swear many a time at the syntax and orthography of Cowdery, and declare that he would not set another line of the type. There were no paragraphs, no punctuation and no capitals. All that was done in the printing office, and what a time there used to be in straightening sentences out, too. During the printing of the book I remember that Joe Smith kept in the background."
The following letter is in reply to an inquiry addressed by me to Albert Chandler, the only survivor, I think, of the men who helped issue the first edition of Smith's book:—
"COLDWATER, MICH., Dec. 22, 1898.
"My recollections of Joseph Smith, Jr. and of the first steps taken in regard to his Bible have never been printed. At the time of the printing of the Mormon Bible by Egbert B. Grandin of the Sentinel I was an apprentice in the bookbindery connected with the Sentinel office. I helped to collate and stitch the Gold Bible, and soon after this was completed, I changed from book-binding to printing. I learned my trade in the Sentinel office.