Encoded Confessions

[Limnor]

I always thought that if the Smiths were not involved in William Morgan’s disappearance, they at least knew a lot about it. But I’ve checked some things recently and learned they weren’t even in the area—they were about 70 miles east, digging for treasure and having visions. The most likely person responsible was Henry L. Valance, who on his deathbed in 1848 confessed to helping drown Morgan and sink his body near the mouth of the Niagara River. I thought—wait, you mean the river that runs through a narrow stretch of land between two great bodies of water?

The whole area is so rich in history.

You’re absolutely right that the Smiths weren’t reported as being at Batavia during that timeframe. Whether or not they were involved in Morgan’s fate, the disappearance would have aligned to their own world of oaths and “records.”
It is interesting that all of this was happening in the counties and environment the Smiths were living in, even if they weren’t reported as physically present at the specific site of Morgan’s abduction. Also, I agree that the “narrow neck of land” is glaringly obvious.

What interests me is the inferential evidence from within the book itself. The story of Seantum in Helaman 9 seems to overlap with the real-world story of the Morgan disappearance, where five men were implicated—each with different levels of guilt, silence, or misdirection.

In Helaman 9 you get the same pattern: a murdered man, a public suspect (Seezoram), an insider who actually did it (Seantum), a seer who exposes the hidden details (Nephi), and a community unsure whom to believe. It’s not a one-to-one, but the story seems to reflect the historical Morgan case in interesting ways. I’ve posited that Seantum is a stand-in for Oliver Cowdery.

From Dale Broadhurst’s site:

Morgan's case. At the Circuit Court held in Canandaigua last week, came on the trial of five of the nine individuals indicted for kidnapping and maltreating Walmart. Morgan. Three of them plead guilty to the indictment and the other was put upon his trial and convicted of misdemeanor.

Lawson was sentenced to two years imprisobment, Cheesbro to one year, Sawyer to three months, and Sheldon to one month in the County Gaol. David C. Miller, who was subpoened as a witness in this case, was fined by the Court $150 for non-attendance.

http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/ny/miscNYS0.htm

Also, see Dale’s notes here:

Note 1: It is unfortunate that Lucinda Morgan did not provide more details in her Sept. 22, 1826 statement, in regard to the identity of the person "who sometimes assisted her husband by copying or taking down as he dictated to him." This scribe is nowhere else mentioned in the voluminous Morgan affair testimony or in later recollections of those who might have been in a position to have known that person's name and situation. In 1881 William Bryant, a former neighbor of Oliver Cowdery, told two high-ranking RLDS officials that Cowdery had once served as William Morgan's scribe -- or, that Cowdery had at least "helped to write Morgan's book."

Note 2: Support for Mr. Bryant's vague assertion -- that Cowdery worked with Morgan -- is to be had only in a few insubstantial bits and pieces of evidence. Oliver Cowdery's brother Warren had lived near Batavia during the early 1820s and Oliver himself may have frequented the Le Roy-Batavia area, c.1825-26. Lucinda Morgan later became one of Joseph Smith, Jr.'s secret concubines or "spiritual wives" and her second husband, George W. Harris, seems to have personally known Oliver Cowdery (who was a visitor in Mr. and Mrs. Harris' house at Far West in 1838). Harris was the high level Mormon official who shepherded Cowdery's Oct. 1848 application for re-admission to the LDS Church at Council Bluffs, Iowa. Louisa Beaman, the daughter of "Father Beaman," the "rodsman," reportedly was acquainted with her fellow "plural," Lucinda Morgan, well before either of the two girls was bethrothed to Joseph Smith, Jr. However, firm evidence is lacking in the documentation of how far back in time (and in western New York georgraphy) the two first became friends. Finally, Rob Morris, a Masonic historian, in 1883, quoted John Whitney, as having confessed that William Morgan "had been a half way convert of Joe Smith, the Mormon, and had learned from him to see visions and dream dreams." If William Morgan, Lucinda Morgan, or George W. Harris knew either Oliver Cowdery or Joseph Smith, Jr. during the 1820s, then they probably knew both of these future Mormon leaders at that early date.

http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/ny/miscNYS0.htm