Where Have all the Joseph Smith Experts Gone?

[_DonBradley]

Hey Unk,

I believe all references to something called the "Golden Bible Company" refer to a treasure-related group in the Palmyra area. Are you aware of any uses of this or a similiar term in the Harmony or Bainbridge areas?

Don

[_Uncle Dale]

Hey Unk,

I believe all references to something called the "Golden Bible Company" refer to a treasure-related group in the Palmyra area. Are you aware of any uses of this or a similiar term in the Harmony or Bainbridge areas?

Don

That is exactly what I am trying to establish --------> when it was that the Bainbridge/Colesville/Harmony
associates of Joseph Smith first heard of a forthcoming ancient record.

If we believe traditional Church chronology (which I seldom do), then Joseph had known something
about Nephites, etc., as early as 1823, and had entertained his family with such stories in the evenings,
before Alvin passed away.

If that is correct -- then there is no reason to suppose he was not doing much the same thing when
he was ensconced in his southern NY haunts.

The problem being, that the northern group of followers, who believed he was bringing forth gold
plates, etc., seems better defined, as money-diggers and money-digging believers, than was the
southern group.

William Hyde was invited, by Joseph, Sr., to join the northern group and become its treasurer,
before that company became a religious organization.

My question is -- did anything similar happen among the southern group of Smith followers? When
John Reed says that Joseph left the Bainbridge area, Joseph Knight went with him. By that time,
I suppose that the southern group had ALREADY become a religious bunch, and thus did not pass
through the gold Bible company stage of Mormon philosophical evolution.

But I'm not sure of that.

Which is why I want to know WHEN Joseph was first handing out Nephite-style stories to the
members of the Reuben Bridgeman family, the Newell Robinson family, etc.

UD

[_DonBradley]

Hey Dale,

Interesting question! Offhand, I can't think of much that bears on this particular issue. But I would imagine that a careful review of the sources now available would allow us to infer when those around Harmony and southern New York first heard about the plates and Nephites, etc.

by the way, I know you're also working on Joseph Smith's reported westward trip. This is another particularly interesting issue. You recently posted a source mentioning Alvin going out west for a while. I wondered if it didn't mean Joseph.

Don

[_CaliforniaKid]

Very interesting stuff, gents. I don't have much to add about a secret society, but it certainly seems clear to me from my reading about the early Mormon period that most of the standard Mormon narratives relating to the discovery of the golden plates are actually late revisions and/or reinterpretations of narratives that were originally couched in the language and mythology of treasure-digging. (The most often-cited example is that Moroni was originally a treasure guardian, and becomes an angel only in the later accounts. But examples could be multiplied.) In fact, this sort of religious revision of treasure-digging narratives actually continued well after the publication of the Book of Mormon. There's a D&C revelation that promises Joseph that he's going to find treasures on a trip he's taking. It appears to be a reference to contemporary rumors that there was a lost treasure in the region to which he was traveling. But when he doesn't find any treasures there, the promise in the revelation is reinterpreted in a spiritual sense.

With respect to a "gold Bible company", the tantalizing mention in the Reflector of Joseph Smith consorting with the Latin tome-toting Luman Walters springs to mind. When Walters was out of the picture, did Joseph Smith take up the mantle?

[_Uncle Dale]

... I wondered if it didn't mean Joseph.

Dr. John Stafford lived close enough to the Smiths to have been able to
differentiate between Alvin and Joseph.

What clinches it for me, is that Dan Vogel documents how Alvin disappears
from the local public records in 1817-18. This was the time when residents
of the Palmyra/Manchester area were on the move. The previous year had
been disastrous for many farmers, and I think lots of them were uneasy
and willing to move to new lands, where they might have a better chance.

This was the period that Auburn township, Geauga Co., Ohio was opening
up for settlement, and a guy from Ontario Co., NY was a major land-holder
there. Numerous Ontario (later Wayne) County farmers moved to Auburn --
to the "Kirtland Tract" there. In the annual migrations Alvin Smith could
have caught a "free ride" for simply working as a teamster.

I think it very likely that it was Alvin who went west, and that he went
to Geauga County, Ohio ---- but finding no paying employment, he
returned home, with stories of his travels that caught the attention of
his younger brothers -- particularly Joseph. See also Mike Quinn, on
the absence of Joseph, Jr. from the Smith family household in 1820. I
think Joseph may have wandered westward, as far as Livonia, Batavia
and Buffalo -- before venturing to the Pennsylvania panhandle, c. 1824.

Now, all I need is some proof.

UD

[_AlmaBound]

I think it very likely that it was Alvin who went west, and that he went to Geauga County, Ohio ---- but finding no paying employment, he returned home, with stories of his travels that caught the attention of his younger brothers -- particularly Joseph. See also Mike Quinn, on the absence of Joseph, Jr. from the Smith family household in 1820. I think Joseph may have wandered westward, as far as Livonia, Batavia and Buffalo -- before venturing to the Pennsylvania panhandle, c. 1824.

Now, all I need is some proof.

UD

UD, I seem to recall that a while back you mentioned evidence that Joseph was in the area of Geauga County, at a location not far from the Staffords?

I can't help but to overlay the concept you're outlining over the Book of Mormon itself, in particular the story of Ammon who went to look for his brethren - perhaps it was just his brother that he went to look for?

[_Uncle Dale]

...
When Walters was out of the picture, did Joseph Smith take up the mantle?

Certainly it must have been a great opportunity for Joseph to learn the
"tricks of the trade." His parents could not have afforded to send him
to any magicians' school -- no Harry Potter training for Joseph, unless
that training came to his doorstep.

If Joseph spent some time with the Prophet Jacob Cochran, in and about
Batavia, during the mid to late 1820s, that would have been another
great opportunity for him to learn more "tricks of the trade."

And, of course, if he did spend time with Elder Sidney Rigdon, before 1830,
that would have been a great opportunity for Joseph to have learned
the preaching end of apostolic restorationism.

Not much of that sort of training would have been conducted out in the
open, in front of observant witnesses. Magicians learn their trade in secret.

UD

[_Uncle Dale]

...
UD, I seem to recall that a while back you mentioned evidence that Joseph was in the area of Geauga County, at a location not far from the Staffords?

I can't help but to overlay the concept you're outlining over the Book of Mormon itself, in particular the story of Ammon who went to look for his brethren - perhaps it was just his brother that he went to look for?

Most of the Manchester Staffords who migrated to Auburn township, Geauga Co., Ohio
did so AFTER Rigdon had moved a few miles north, to Mentor. So I cannot place the
Staffords in Rigdon's immediate neighborhood while he lived adjacent to Auburn. The
one possible exception was Gad Stafford, who shows up on the 1829 tax records in
Auburn, and who have have been a transitory resident as early as 1827. If so, he
would have only briefly overlapped Rigdon's tenure in that part of Geauga Co. Gad
is identified by none less than historian Larry Porter, as having been an early Mormon.
But I doubt that this followers of Joseph Smith was ever baptized into Joseph's church.
More likely he migrated to Auburn before the church was fiunded and only occasionally
crossed paths with Sidney Rigdon --- who continued to frequent the Auburn area,
even after he had moved to Mentor.

If Joseph Smith came to Auburn after his March, 1826 trial at S. Bainbridge, NY, then
his stay in Ohio must have been relatively brief -- maybe 4-5 months at most. George
Wilber (who knew Rigdon and lived within walking distance of his cabin) reportedly
said Joseph Smith came to Rigdon's neighborhood in 1826 and that he and Rigdon
eventually left for PA/NY together. But Wilber is a single-source historical reference,
and I'm reluctant to put full confidence in single sources.

James Jefferies said that Rigdon and Smith used to meet together in Ohio on Sundays,
in order to create the Book of Mormon from Rigdon's copy of Solomon Spalding's
pseudo-history of ancient America. But Jefferies gives no details.

Possibly a now missing 1826 pamphlet, published at Ravenna, Ohio in 1826, by Rigdon's
replacement in the Pittsburgh Baptist pastorate (Lawrence Greatrake) speaks of Rigdon
associating with a "glass-looker" in the Auburn area in 1826 ---- I would have to
examine the full writings of Carl M. Brewster on this subject, and I do not have access
to that obscure source. And, even if it can be located and verified, the "glass-looker"
may turn out to be Gad Stafford or some other money-digger, rather than the visiting
Joseph Smith.

None of this gets us anywhere -- other than opening up research possibilities. We
cannot yet assuredly state that Joseph Smith, Jr. came to southern Geauga Co.,
in 1826 to cooperate with Sidney Rigdon in compiling the Book of Mormon. It is a
possibility -- just as Rigdon's following Smith back to southern New York late in
1826 is a possibility. But these are not the only possibilities for that time period.

Is any of this reflected in the Book of Mormon narrative? Perhaps so -- but not very clearly.
We seem to be stuck in a dead-end with this part of the investigation.

UD

[_AlmaBound]

If Joseph Smith came to Auburn after his March, 1826 trial at S. Bainbridge, NY, then his stay in Ohio must have been relatively brief -- maybe 4-5 months at most. George Wilber (who knew Rigdon and lived within walking distance of his cabin) reportedly said Joseph Smith came to Rigdon's neighborhood in 1826 and that he and Rigdon eventually left for PA/NY together. But Wilber is a single-source historical reference, and I'm reluctant to put full confidence in single sources.

Understood.

I'm interested in Brewer's work as well. Overlaying this on the Book of Mormon, I'd place this event (if it happened at all) with Alma chapter 17 (if it happened at all).