harmony wrote:
...
I'm not sure one is related to the other, Byron. But Sidney appears to have a history of wearing out his welcome... I wonder if Joseph felt he had to keep Sidney around, because Sidney knew things, and one of those things was exactly how the Book of Mormon came about.
In 1888 A. B. Deming provided a brief outline of Sidney Rigdon's career,
I've amended his chronology a little, to produce the following tabulation:
[Rigdon] was installed as pastor of First Baptist Church in Pittsburgh, January 28, 1822.
http://search.ldslibrary.com/article/view/2358490Showed Rev. John Winter in his study Spaulding's "Manuscript Found" the same year [1822].
http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/1882PatA.htm#pg434bWas [unofficially] suspended [by one faction of his congregation] for heresy: July 11, 1823.
http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/1824Grtk.htm#tract2-05cRefused a seat in his own church, by the Redstone Baptist, Assoc., meeting there Sept. 6, 1823
http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/Reds1823.htm#1823-03[Rigdon and his faction were] expelled for heresy: October 11, 1823.
http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/1824Grtk.htm#tract2-05cEngaged in tanning [in Pittsburgh] in... 1823 [and 1824].
Preached for adherents in the Court House of Pittsburgh until the summer of 1824
[Published the "3rd Epistle of Peter late in 1824]
http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/1824Scot.htmSent his family to Warren [Ohio] in the fall of 1825.
He joined them in the winter. Moved to Bainbridge, Ohio, [early in] 1826.
Preached Rev. W. Goodall's funeral sermon in Mentor in August, 1826.
...removed to Mentor in the spring of 1827.
http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/CA ... 010088-2b3According to this provisional chronology, Elder John Winter was a house guest of the Rigdon
family, at Pittsburgh, during the summer and fall of 1822. By early 1823 Elder Winter had
moved out of the Rigdon home and had aligned himself with the faction of Rigdon's Pittsburgh
congregation, which eventually succeeded in expelling Reigdon from the office of their pastor.
http://sidneyrigdon.com/1907Stan.htm#pg18aHere is the recollection reported for Elder John Winter -- probably from the later summer, 1822:
John Winter wrote:During a portion of the time when Sidney Rigdon was pastor of the First Baptist Church in Pittsburgh,
Dr. Winter was teaching a school in the same city, and was well acquainted with Rigdon. Upon one
occasion during this period, 1822-23, Dr. Winter was in Rigdon's study, when the latter took from
his desk a large manuscript and said in substance, "A Presbyterian minister, Spaulding, whose health
had failed, brought this to the printer to see if it would pay to publish it. It is a romance of
the Bible." Dr. Winter did not read any part of it, and paid no more attention to it until after
the Book of Mormon appeared, when he heard that Mr. Spaulding's widow recognized in it the writings
of her husband....
http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/1882PatA.htm#pg434b
In the Deming chronology, we see that Rigdon "sent his family to Warren in the fall of 1825." This
makes sense, since his wife's family lived there, and that town was on the route to Rigdon's next
destination, Bainbridge township, Geauga Co., Ohio. While temporarily living in Warren, Mrs. Rigdon
would have had ample opportunity to renew her acquaintances with her relatives, including her neice,
Miss Amarilla (or Amorilla) Brooks (later Mrs. Amos Dunlap), who lived in or near Warren. Although
I have yet to uncover any documentation for the Rigdon family's move from Warren to Bainbridge, I
believe it occurred early in 1826 and that Miss Amarilla Brooks may have accompanied the Rigdons
on their journey (perhaps helping Mrs. Rigdon to care for her several children).
Once Rigdon's neice had arrived at Bainbridge, she had this experience, c. spring, 1826:
Amarilla Brooks Dunlap wrote:When I was quite a child I visited Mr. Rigdon's family. He married my aunt. They at that
time lived in Bainbridge, Ohio. During my visit Mr. Rigdon went to his bedroom and took
from a trunk which he kept locked a certain manuscript. He came out into the other room
and seated himself by the fireplace and commenced reading it. His wife at that moment
came into the room and exclaimed, 'What! you're studying that thing again?' or something
to that effect. She then added, 'I mean to burn that paper.' He said, 'No, indeed, you will
not. This will be a great thing some day!' Whenever he was reading this he was so completely
occupied that he seemed entirely unconscious of anything passing around him."
http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/1882PatA.htm#pg434e
Amarilla says that she was only visiting the Rigdons, so she evidently did not live with
them at Bainbridge for very long. If she had been acting as a helper with the Rigdon children,
that position was evidently taken over by a local girl, hired to be the Rigdon children's
nursemaid: Dencey Adeline Thompson, then 19 or 20 years of age. A report of her experience:
Dencey Adeline Thompson Henry wrote:...there was in the [Rigdon] family what is now called a "writing medium," also several others
in adjacent places [Auburn, Ohio?], and the Mormon Bible was written by two or three different
persons by an automatic power which they believed was inspiration direct from God, the same as
produced the original Jewish Bible and Christian New Testament.
[Dencey's son] believes that Sidney Rigdon furnished Joseph Smith with these manuscripts, and
that the story of the "hieroglyphics" was a fabrication to make the credulous take hold of
the mystery; that Rigdon, having learned, beyond a doubt, that the so-called dead could
communicate to the living, considered himself duly authorized by Jehovah to found a new church,
under a divine guidance similar to that of Confucius, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed, Swedenborg, Calvin,
Luther or Wesley, all of whom believed in and taught the ministration of spirits.
http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/NW ... htm#090980
That finishes up the reports I've so far discovered from people who were inside of the Rigdon
home as lodgers. In my next posting, I'll complete my set of "secret pages" citations by giving
some less important, confirmations from various old testifiers.
Uncle Dale
ps ----> I do not share Byron's hope of seeing the Mormons expelled yet again from their "gathering"
in the Intermountain West. Each time in the past that the Mormons attempted such a "gathering," they
came into great conflict with their non-LDS neighbors. Although they were not formally expelled
from either Ohio or New York, their "gathered" presence in those states created problems for them.
In Missouri the Mormons claimed to be God's Covenant People, taking possession of the Promised Land.
That sort of gathering obviously did not set well with their Gentile neighbors. In Illinois there
were no claims of possessing a God-given latter day Canaan, but again the Mormons could not live
with their non-LDS neighbors -- there was a struggle for power in Hancock County, and the Mormons
lost that political contest and were again expelled. Utah was a different situation. At the close
of the 1857-58 "Utah War," the Mormon people and their leaders admitted insurrection and formally
accepted a Presidential pardon for their rebellion. That agreement gave them the right to remain in
Utah and adjacent areas forever -- as best I can tell.
