Episode 6: Bad Boys of Early Mormonism

**Bryan Buchanan** (0:12)
Mormonism's founder, Joseph Smith, created controversy wherever he went.
But one of the criticisms he constantly faced were about the men he kept his friends and close associates. Consider what CJ. Webb said of Joseph Smith in 1886, quote, Joseph acquired knowledge very rapidly and learned with special facility all the tricks of the scoundrels who worked at his company. He learned by heart a number of Latin, Greek, and French commonplace phrases to use them in his speeches and sermons. Joseph kept a learned Jew in his house for a long time for the purpose of studying Hebrew with him. I taught him the first rules of English grammar, Kirtland, in 1834 He learned rapidly.
In.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:28)
This isn't your grandpa's Mormon history. I have sinned so gravely, Brother Young.

**Bryan Buchanan** (1:33)
Saddle up. Gird your loins, lock your hearts, and pay your tithing, because we're bringing you the story of Mormonism in all its paradisiacal glory.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (1:40)
It's the Sunstone History Podcast.

**Bryan Buchanan** (2:01)
Early Mormon missionaries were very familiar with biblical prophecies of hunting and fishing for the souls of humankind. Later in the Utah period, Heber C. Kimball, by then a counselor in the first presidency would say, I will tell you it is hard work to deal with such a hard set of people. A more wicked set of scoundrels never lived than when we got here. Is it not too bad to be afflicted with such creatures?
It is hard, but we have got to bear it, and we shall bear it till the gospel net gathers of every kind of fish. Okay, so when he said every kind of fish, he meant it. Converts to Mormonism came from all sorts of backgrounds. Some from organized religion like Methodists and Baptists, etc.
Many from more of these nebulous seeker movements, and some with very little experience of any religion at all, and were there just for the ride.

**Lindsay Hansen Park** (2:51)
Early Mormonism was like a big pot of soup. So you have normal elements of Western religion, normal in quotes, God, faith, prayer, the Bible, the resurrection, so on. But then at the same time, you've got these elements of folk religion that we've talked about, divining rods, amulets, superstitions, etc. Add to that things that, while they weren't solely, they didn't solely belong to Mormons at the first, they eventually become identity markers. Visions of God and angels, health codes, we promise we'll talk about the word of wisdom here before too long, missionary labors, and these kind of things. Not to mention the Book of Mormon. The result?
You get a fluid, often chaotic environment where boundaries and norms really hadn't fully developed yet.
And at every juncture, with every new wrinkle that Joseph Smith introduces, there are people who essentially say, nope, I'm done, that's not me. Some were more overt about this, louder than others. These are your bad boys of early Mormonism.

**Bryan Buchanan** (4:04)
Okay, first up on the bad boy countdown. Drum roll, please, it's Hiram Page. For those casually interested in Mormon history, you might know two things about him. He was one of the eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon, and he had a seer stone. Like Joseph Smith and some early Mormons, he was born in Vermont. We don't know much about his early life. He apparently was a doctor and traveled extensively.
But as he moved around the East, he encountered various religious strains and seems to have become a seeker. You know, someone seeking for the divine, seeking for a greater purpose.
Then in 1825, he turns up in New York and marries into the Whitmer family.
Every Mormon knows that last name. Catherine Whitmer was the oldest daughter in a family of seven children. Her only sister Elizabeth Ann later married Oliver Cowdery, another Mormon name.
Though the pages were clearly at the epicenter of Mormonism due to the Whitmer connection, sadly, they left no record of what happened and how they felt. Four years and one child later, Catherine was then four months along with her second child, the Book of Mormon manuscript is now finished and Joseph Smith selects three witnesses who signed a statement saying that an angel showed them the Book of Mormon plates. Almost as an afterthought, he also designates eight witnesses including three Smiths, Joseph Senior, Hiram and Samuel, four Whitmers, Christian, Jacob, Peter and John, and a Whitmer-in-law, Hiram Page. This last group was apparently shown the plates by Joseph Smith. In their signed statement, they claim that they had quote, seen and hefted the plates. Then, in early 1830, Hiram Page accompanied his brother-in-law, Oliver Cowdery, and two others to Canada to try and sell the copyright of the Book of Mormon. Random aside, the revelation that instructs them to go specifically cuts out Martin Harris. You know the guy who basically funded the printing of the Book of Mormon. His name is blacked out big time in the text.