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From Captain Kidd's Trea- Sure Ghost to the Angel Moroni: Mormonism

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From Captain Kidd's Trea- Sure Ghost to the Angel Moroni: Mormonism VI DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT ern Christendom is in decline. The Huggins believes that "careful new centers arise in warmer climes, study" allows one "to trace the including Africa, the seat, we story's development from its ear- should remind ourselves, of the ear- lier to its later version" (19, 22). liest expansion of the faith. Huggins's work, however, All of which brings me back to hardly qualifies as a "careful this article, my experience in Haiti, study." He seems to be unaware, and a previous stint in East Africa. I for example, of Mark Ashurst- think we have not yet begun to real- McGee's definitive article "Mor- ize the implications of our boast of a oni: Angel or Treasure Guard- "world-wide" Church. The inter- ian?" Mormon Historical Studies 2, face of the Church with Haiti or, to no. 2 (2001): 39-75. a much greater extent, Africa, will Ashurst-McGee argues that the not leave either party unchanged. issue "requires an application of What we are witnessing in these the basic standards of source criti- parts of the world is a throwback to cism and good history": (1) First- an earlier age when the Saints were hand accounts take precedence accustomed to a much more over secondhand accounts; (2) free-flowing spirit, did not see effi- Sources composed closer to the ciency as the highest of organiza- time of the event take precedence tional values, focused on ritualistic over sources composed later on and charismatic aspects of the faith (48). as unifying factors, and found doc- Applying these standards, trinal purity a sometime thing. Ashurst-McGee analyzes primary A forbidding future? Maybe. But sources in chronological order. it will liven up the landscape. Huggins, in contrast, ignores Gary Huxford these standards and misses key Monmouth, Oregon documents. A prime example is the Willard Chase affidavit. Folklore Rebutted Huggins claims that Chase's ac- In "From Captain Kidd's Trea- count of the plates—featuring sure Ghost to the Angel Moroni: black clothes, a black horse, a dis- Changing Dramatis Personae in Early appearing book, and a toad that Mormonism," 36, no. 4 (Winter turns into a spirit—preserves "the 2003): 17-42, Ronald Huggins at- earliest version of the story" (22). tacks Joseph Smith by claiming that Only later, Huggins argues, did Jo- a "money-digger's yarn" was trans- seph speak of revelation and an formed into "restoration history." angel. Letters to the Editor vn The Chase document, however, ments, 5 vols. [Salt Lake City: Sig- fails both of Ashurst-McGee's tests. nature Books, 1998-2003], First, it is not a firsthand account. 1:496). Rather than hearing of the plates di- 3. Lorenzo Saunders's 1884 in- rectly from Joseph, Chase heard of terview. Saunders said that Joseph them from the Prophet's father. told him about the revelation, the Even if he recalled the conversation plates, and the angel "in the sum- accurately, his secondhand version mer before Alvin died" (EMD, at best represents the view of J o s e p h 2:159). Saunders thus pinpoints Sr. Second, multiple sources were his conversation with Joseph as composed before Chase's 1833 falling between the first visit of statement. A careful study should Moroni on September 22, 1823, look first at the early firsthand wit- and Alvin's death on November nesses and second at the early writ- 19, 1823. ten sources. 4-5. Joseph Knight's reminis- Firsthand accounts—in the order cence, ca. 1835-47, and Joseph these individuals spoke with Joseph Knight Jr.'s 1862 history. The Smith—include the following: Knights heard the story from Jo- 1-2. Lucy Mack Smith's 1844- seph Smith in November of 1826. 45 history and William Smith's Joseph said Joseph Smith had 1883 reminiscence. The Smiths been visited by a personage who heard of the plates from Joseph on instructed him to do the will of September 22 or 23, 1823. Lucy God in order to obtain the plates wrote that Joseph was contemplat- (EMD, 4:15). According to Joseph ing religious questions, that a bright Jr., the Prophet "had seen a vision, light entered the room, and that Jo- that a personage had appeared to seph "looked up and saw an angel him and told him <where> there of the Lord" (Lavina Fielding An- was a gold book of ancient date derson, Lucy's Book: A Critical Edi- buried, and if he would follow the tion of Lucy Mack Smith's Family directions of the Angel he could Memoir [Salt Lake City: Signature get it" (EMD, 4:71). Books, 2001], 335). According to Accounts emphasizing a trea- William, "[Joseph] told us how the sure guardian came later. Ben- angel appeared to him,... and that jamin Saunders reported in 1884 the angel had also given him a short that he had heard Joseph say, account of the inhabitants who for- "there was something down near merly resided upon this continent" the box that looked like a toad (Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Docu- that rose up into a man which for- Vlll DIALOGUE: A JOURNAL OF MORMON THOUGHT bid him to take the plates" (EMD, if one of them would go to that 2:137). This conversation took place he would find it" (EMD, place in 1827, shortly after Joseph 5:268). obtained the plates. Similarly, Jo- 3. Rev. Diedrich Willers's letter seph and Hiel Lewis, who talked to of June 18, 1830. Willers, a local Joseph in the spring of 1828—and minister, reported that Joseph recorded their version in 1879—said Smith "claimed that the angel of Joseph told of a dream where he saw the Lord had appeared and made a man with a long beard, "who ap- known to him that. there were peared like a Spaniard" and whose golden plates hidden in the earth throat was "cut from ear to ear, and on which was written the fate of a the blood streaming down" (EMD, Jewish prophet's family" (EMD, 4:304). 5:272). While all of these individuals Newspapers also provide valu- claimed to have heard Joseph's able information, but here again story between 1823 and 1828, no Huggins mismanages the sources. documents have survived from that He quotes an 1831 statement crucial period. The earliest sources from Abner Cole, editor of the include the following: Palmyra Reflector, that "it is well 1. Jesse Smith's letter of June 26, known that Jo Smith never pre- 1829. In the first known written re- tended to have any communion cord of the plates, Jesse Smith, Jo- with angels, until a long period af- seph Sr.'s hostile older brother, ter the pretended finding of his mentioned disapprovingly that Jo- book" (EMD, 2:246, emphasis seph Jr. had written "that the angel Cole's). Cole's claim supports of the Lord has revealed to him the Huggins's thesis, but a systematic hidden treasures of wisdom <St look at the earliest newspaper ac- knowledge, even divine revelation" counts shows something else: (EMD, 1:552). 1. Wayne Sentinel, June 26, 2. Lucius Fenn's letter of Febru- 1829, the first-known newspaper ary 12, 1830. In the earliest account account of the Book of Mormon: by someone not associated with "Much speculation has existed, Mormonism, Lucius Fenn wrote concerning a pretended discovery, that "there has been a bible found through superhuman means, of by 3 men but a short distance from an ancient record, of a religious us ... an angel appeared to these 3 and a divine nature and origin, men and told them that there was a written in ancient characters, im- bible concealed in such a place and possible to be interpreted by any Letters to the Editor IX to whom the special gift has not ging and "Walters the Magician" been imparted by inspiration" (Reflector, June 12, 1830; EMD, (EMD, 2:218-19). 2:231-34). 2. Palmyra Freeman, ca. August The pattern is clear: the earliest 1829: "[Golden Bible] proselytes witnesses, including the Smiths give the following account of it. In and the Knights, emphasized the the fall of 1827, a person by the religious aspects of Joseph's story. name of Joseph Smith . reported Accounts emphasizing "Captain that he had been visited in a dream Kidd" elements, from Saunders by the spirit of the Almighty and in- and the Lewis brothers, were later formed that in a certain hill in that developments. Likewise, the first town, was deposited this Golden Bi- personal mentions of the Book of ble, containing an ancient record of Mormon, from the likes of Jesse a divine nature and origin" (EMD, Smith and Lucius Fenn, set the 2:221). story in a religious context, while 3. The Reflector, Palmyra, January later accounts from people such as 2, 1830, Abner Cole's first exten- Abram Benton and James sive treatment of Joseph Smith: Gordon Bennett focused on Jo- "We do not intend at this time, to seph's "magic power" and treasure discuss the merits or demerits of seeking transformed into a "reli- this work. The Book, when it gious plot" (EMD, 4:96; 3:282). shall come before the public, must Finally, newspaper accounts stand or fall according to the whims from 1829 on consistently empha- and fancies of its readers. ... we sized an ancient record of a "di- cannot discover any thing treason- vine nature," with Cole's 1830 able. ... As to its religious character, "Book of Pukei" being the main we have as yet no means of deter- exception. In fact, the first men- mining.
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