Mormon Parallels 2014

Mormon Parallels 2014

HISTORY AND ANALYSIS OF: THE FLAMING SWORD, Or A Sign From Heaven. Being A Remarkable Phenomenon, Seen in the State of Vermont. Exeter [New Hampshire]: Printed for J. Richardson, 1814. The following document reproduces a single entry comprising pages 1825‐37 in: Rick Grunder, MORMON PARALLELS: A BIBLIOGRAPHIC SOURCE (Lafayette, New York: Rick Grunder ‐ Books, 2008; 2014), a PDF file of 2,307 pages published digitally only, (ISBN 978‐0‐9814708‐1‐8) described at http://www.mormonparallels.com Note that links in the following pages will not be operative in this individual document, which is available at: http://www.rickgrunder.com/parallels/mp454.pdf 454 [WALKER, Timothy P.] THE FLAMING SWORD, Or A Sign From Heaven. Being A Remarkable Phenomenon, Seen in the State of Vermont. Exeter [New Hampshire]: Printed for J. Richardson, 1814. 14½ cm. [4], 5-12 pp. Verso of title blank. "TO THE READER," p. [3], signed in type, "G. W." Author attribution appears only on p. 12, signed in type at the end of the text, "TIMOTHY P. WALKER." The copy examined was in contemporary plain blue wrappers (without printing), bearing at the top of the front wrapper some lower portions of an early ownership inscription, mostly torn away and insufficient for identification. AI 33566. The fourth recorded edition. OCLC shows six copies preserved at institutions in New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts (saying, variously, 15 or 16 cm., 12 pp.). Only edition in NUC, but see below. J[osiah]. RICHARDSON (1778-1857) is listed as publisher of more than forty editions of generally practical or colloquial, primarily religious works and pamphlets by other writers, printed in Exeter, 1814-32, preceded by his own compilation, The Religious Experience and Spiritual Trials of Josiah Richardson (Exeter: Printed by Samuel T. Moses, for Josiah Richardson, 1805; 16 pp., AI 9262). He appears to have been a Baptist preacher and polemicist, sometimes styling himself "preacher of righteousness," "preacher of the everlasting gospel," or "the Lord's messenger to the people" (1819 and later imprints). The few titles that identify Richardson's printer give the name of Mr. Moses (the 1805 pamphlet mentioned above, then several items in 1823). These were works of varying ability, ranging from hymns to medical advice for horse and man, mixed with attacks upon Universalism or infant baptism. The Flaming Sword was among Richardson's first publication efforts, however, and was surely the most colorful of his five items recorded for 1814. —OCLC THIS curious work was evidently first published at Norwich [Connecticut], 1799 (no printer given. 12 pp. AI 36665. OCLC locates three copies). Next published at Suffield, Connecticut, 1801 (AI 1598 naming the printer as "{E. Gray}" and giving no locations; OCLC shows only the Vermont State Library copy. Both AI and OCLC say 10 pp.). Then at "Groton Con[necticut]': Printed [by Timothy Waterous, Jr.?] in the year 1812" (8 pp., no printer named), OCLC locating only the copy at the American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, Massachusetts) with their cataloging note: "Signed at end: Timothy P. Walker. Foreword signed: G. W. The only other known early Groton imprint was another apocalyptic work, The Battle-Axe, written by the Waterous family, Rogerene Quakers, and printed by the younger Timothy [Waterous] on a press he set up in 1811. The type faces are the same, and on both title pages 'Connecticut' is abbreviated with an apostrophe." Following the 1814 edition analyzed here, this pamphlet shows up one last time - more than forty years later in 1857, the beginning year of the Utah War (New London, Connecticut: Starr & Farnham; 8 pp., OCLC locating only the copy at the Connecticut Historical Society). An excerpt Mormon Parallels: A Bibliographic Source © 2014 Rick Grunder 1825 from this text was eventually printed in an obscure pamphlet (The End of the World! How it is to be Understoood [sic], signed in type at end, p. 4, "John Rice, Elliotsburg, Pa., July 19, 1894." 4 pp., only one copy recorded, at Pennsylvania State University). AN ALTERNATE TEXT exists in a single broadside example preserved at the Library Company of Philadelphia. Entitled FLAMING SWORD, Or a Sign from Heaven! Being a Remarkable Phenomenon seen in the State of New Hampshire in May last, it bears no publication information but appears to have been printed 1815-16. Set in New Hampshire and attributed to a different author, "Thomas C. Prentiss," it is an anonymous, clumsy adaptation of the Walker narrative to later circumstances. For my notes and historical commentary on that broadside and text, see the end of this entry, section headed, "An Alternate Version." Woodcut illustration atop the Prentiss broadside version (not appearing in the primary, Walker text pamphlet analyzed below), showing the popular adaptability of this vision text for public consumption ca. 1815. Courtesy of The Library Company of Philadelphia; used with permission. OVERVIEW: Extraordinary visions in a town adjacent to the Smith family residence, reported in a text and culture rich in Mormon parallels. 1826 Mormon Parallels: A Bibliographic Source © 2014 Rick Grunder ARLY ONE EVENING in 1798 before the spring foliage was out in Chelsea, E Vermont, some gentlemen sat by the fireplace of the village inn. It was Tuesday, March 27, a moonlit night. A traveler from Connecticut stepped through the doorway, and the proprietor found him a meal and a place to stay. The guest introduced himself to the other men in the room, and sat down to join in their conversation. Talk turned, inevitably, to recent alarming conditions in the nation, and to deteriorating American relations in Europe. Ten miles to the south in Tunbridge, meanwhile, Lucy Mack Smith tucked her six-week-old infant Alvin into a crib, and sat by her own fire. As she took up the mending, Lucy may have contemplated those same fears which troubled so many people that season. It must have seemed as if ominous, powerful intrigues at home and abroad were threatening the peace and prosperity that had been established so recently in the new nation. Lucy's own father and eldest brother had engaged in perilous shipping and sailing for years, making the current international conflicts over ships at sea a likely topic of family interest and concern. At the Chelsea inn, now, our visitor from Connecticut will retire early, wishing his new acquaintances a good evening. If he hopes for badly needed rest, however, the topics just discussed shall follow him to his room, to take on palpable, disturbing forms. Are these other-worldly scenes brought on by what he has just heard by the fire? Or does everything converge at this place, this night, to prepare him for some unexpected part he must play to deliver a warning to the world? Timothy Walker shall publish quickly, if awkwardly. His homely little pamphlet can be taken up by others and reprinted over the years during times of impending war. Most copies pass eagerly from hand to hand, eventually to be read to death and lost. The narrative goes through several editions, in at least two versions. With sufficient time and insight, one might discover substantial exegesis of this story. For now, I offer some footnotes and the entire text of the 1814 edition here at hand, transcribed carefully below . Mormon Parallels: A Bibliographic Source © 2014 Rick Grunder 1827 TO THE READER. THE following phenomenon, happened within the circle of my acquaintance, and the truth of it here is unquestionable; although it may appear incredible to many—an omen which I conceive112 to forebode threatening and judgment on our land, by the great Ruler of nations and worlds, whose penetrating eye views with impartiality the most minute proceedings of his creatures, and will bring all nations under his government by the arm of his almighty power. G. W. [p. (3) ends] THE SWORD, OR A SIGN FROM HEAVEN. FEELING it a duty incumbent on me to communicate to my fellow men, what has been so remarkably revealed to me.113—I shall attempt to communicate, as far as my memory and illiterate abilities114 will admit, a faithful narrative115 of a most remarkable phenomenon of which I was an eye witness. On the 26th of March 1798, as I was on my journey with a team from Woodstock, in Connecticut, the place of my nativity, to Burlington in Vermont, on the evening of the 27th of said month.116—I called for entertainment at the house of Capt. J. Bissell,117 Innholder in Chelsea118—after some time spent in the 112 The main text of the pamphlet may have been taken down and edited by this "G. W.," inasmuch as "Timothy P. Walker" mentions his own "illiterate abilities," p. 4. G. W.'s somewhat uncommon use of "conceive" in this preface occurs six more times in the main text. 113 Like the Book of Mormon's first line ("I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I . ," 1 Nephi 1:1), this is an incomplete sentence (as punctuated in the printing), rendered incorrect by a mis-used opening present participle. 114 See note 112. 115 This term was used in the first edition of Jonathan Edwards' famous and influential publication, A Faithful Narrative of the Surprizing Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton, and the Neighbouring Towns and Villages of New-Hampshire in New-England . (London: for John Oswald, 1737). Closer to the time and place of The Flaming Sword here at hand, Joseph Smith's grandfather wrote and published his own pamphlet, A Narraitve [sic] of the Life of Solomon Mack, Containing an Account of the Many Severe Accidents He Met With During a Long Series of Years, Together with the Extraordinary Manner in Which He Was Converted to the Christian Faith .

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