""San Jacinto, Cal. February 2 [1897].
"Daniel
Hendrixs [sic] one of the two persons now living(39) who were associated with
the members of the earliest Mormon Church at Palmyra, N.Y., lives at the home
of his son in this vicinity. He is 87 years of age, and retains his full mental
faculties. Although a disbeliever in any part of the Mormon faith, he is often
visited by descendants of Joseph Smith and of Sidney Rigdon, the founders of
Mormonism, for reminiscences of the early days of the Latter Day Saints in Wayne
County, N.Y. Edgar Smith, a grandson of Joseph Smith,(40) told the writer less
than a year ago that he found Daniel Hendrix, the last man living who had the
closest personal acquaintance with his famous grandparent at the time of the
finding of the golden bible.
"Mr. Hendrix's mind is wonderfully retentive of events
sixty-five years ago. He has a few proof-sheets of the original Mormon Bible,
as printed by Major John Gilbert, at Palmyra, in 1834 [sic], and at one time had
a copy of the first complete Bible. He sold it twenty years ago for $200 to a
gentleman who acted as an agent for Lord Beaconsfield....
"'I was a very young man in a store in Palmyra, N.Y. from 1822
until 1830,' said Mr. Hendrix to us recently, in talking of his recollections of
the origin of Mormonism, 'and among the daily visitors at the establishment was
Joseph Smith, Jr. Every one knew him as Joe Smith. He had lived in Palmyra a
few years previous to my going there from Rochester. Joe was the most ragged,
lazy fellow in the place, and that is saying a good deal. He was about 25 years
old. I can see him now, in my mind's eye, with his torn and patched trousers
held to his form by a pair of suspenders made out of sheeting, with his calico
shirt as dirty and black as the earth, and his uncombed hair sticking through
the holes in his old battered hat. In winter I used to pity him, for his shoes
were so old and worn out that he must have suffered in the snow and slush; yet
Joe had a jovial, easy, don't-care way about him that made him a lot of warm
friends. He was a good talker, and would have made a fine stump speaker if he
had had the training. He was known among the young men I associated with as a
romancer of the first water. I never knew so ignorant a man as Joe was[,] to
have such a fertile imagination. He never could tell a common occurrence in his
daily life without embellishing the story with his imagination; yet I remember
that he was terribly grieved one day when old Parson Reed [also sp. "Reid,"
ed.] told Joe that he was going to hell for his lying habits.
"'Mrs. Smith, Joe's mother, was a stanch [sic] Presbyterian,(41)
and was a great admirer of her son, despite his shiftless and provoking ways.
She always declared that he was born with a genius, and did not have to work....
"'For over two years Joe Smith's chief occupation was digging
for gold at night and sleeping in the daytime. He was close-mouthed on the
subject of his gold-seeking operations around on the farms of Wayne County,
where not a speck of gold was ever mined, and when people joked him too severely
concerning his progress in getting the precious metal he would turn his back
upon the jokers and bystanders and go home as fast as possible. With some of us
young men, however, who were always serious with him and affected an interest in
his work, he was more confidential.
"'Joe, in his excursion after gold, carried a divining rod to
tell him where there was hidden treasure, and he left many holes in the ground
about that region, which testified that he could work if the spirit moved. He
had all the superstitions of the money diggers of the day, one of which was that
the digging must be done at night, and not a word must be spoken, for at the
first utterance the gold would fly away to some other locality; in fact, Joe
claimed that he had more than once been on the point of reaching some great
treasure when, in his eagerness, some unlucky exclamation would escape him, and
presto! the treasure would vanish under his feet.
"Finally, in the fall-- in September, I believe-- of 1828
[actually 1827; ed.], Joe went about the village of Palmyra telling people of
the great bonanza he had at last found. I remember distinctly his sitting on
some boxes in the store and telling a knot of men, who did not believe a word
they heard, all about his vision and his find. But Joe went into such minute and
careful details about the size, weight, and beauty of the carvings on the golden
tablets, the strange characters and the ancient adornments, that I confess he
made some of the smartest men in Palmyra rub their eyes in wonder. The women
were not so skeptical as the men, and several of the leading ones in the place
began to feel at once that Joe was a remarkable man after all.
"'Joe declared, with tears in his eyes and the most earnest
expression you can imagine, that he had found the gold plates on a hill six
miles south of Palmyra, on the main road between that place and Canandaigua. Joe
had dug and dug there for gold for four years, and from that time the hill has
been known as Gold Hill.
"'For the first month or two at least Joe Smith did not say
himself that the plates were any new revelation or that they had any religious
significance, but simply said that he had found a valuable treasure in the shape
of a record of some ancient people which had been inscribed on imperishable gold
for preservation. The pretended gold plates were never allowed to be seen,
though I have heard Joe's mother say that she had lifted them when covered with
a cloth, and they were heavy-- so heavy, in fact, that she could scarcely raise
them, though she was a robust woman. [Note: Common lead would have a similar
weight. Ed.] What Joe at that time expected to accomplish seems difficult to
understand, but he soon began to exhibit what he claimed to be copies of the
characters engraved on the plates, though the irreverent were disposed to think
that he was more indebted to the characters found on China tea chests and in
histories of the Egyptians and Babylonians than to any plates he had dug up near
Palmyra. Before long, however, a new party appeared on the scene in the person
on one Sidney Rigdon, and thenceforward a new aspect was put upon the whole
matter.
"'I remember Rigdon as a man of about 40 years, smooth, sleek
and with some means. He had a wonderful quantity of assurance, and in these
days would be a good broker or speculator. He was a man of energy of
contrivance, and would make a good living anywhere and in any business. He was
distrusted by a large part of the people in Palmyra and Canandaigua, but had
some sincere friends. He and Joe Smith fell in with each other, and were
cronies for several months. It was after Rigdon and Smith were so intimate that
the divine part of the finding of the golden plates began to be spread abroad.
It was given out that the plates were a new revelation and were part of the
original Bible, while Joe Smith was a true prophet of the Lord, to whom it was
given to publish among men.
"'Rigdon, who from his first appearance, was regarded as the "brains"
of the movement, seemed satisfied to be the power behind the throne. Not only
were pretended copies of the engraved plates exhibited, but whole chapters of
what were called translations were shown; meetings were held at the Smith house,
and in the barns on the adjoining farms, which were addressed by Smith and
Rigdon, and an active canvass for converts was inaugurated. Strange as it may
appear from the absurdity of the claims set forth and the well-known character
of Joe Smith, these efforts were to quite a degree successful, particularly
among the unsophisticated farmers of the vicinity, and a number of them, who
were regarded as equal in intelligence to the average rural population, became
enthusiastic proselytes of the new faith.
"'One feature of the claim in relation to the translation from
the plates was quite in character with the claims that have been from time to
time set up by the Mormon Church down to the present day. Joe Smith was, of
course, an illiterate man, and some way must be provided for the translation of
his record. But Joe, or Rigdon, was equal to the emergency, for he [Joe]
claimed to have found with the "Gold Bible" as they always called it,
a wonderful pair of spectacles, which he described as having very large round
glasses, larger than a silver dollar, and he asserted that by placing the plates
in the bottom of a hat or other deep receptacle, like a wooden grain measure, he
could put on those spectacles, and looking down upon the plates, the engraved
characters were all translated into good, plain English, and he had only to read
it off and have it recorded by a copyist....
"'For three or four years Smith, Rigdon, and Harris worked for
converts to the new faith. They all became from constant practice and study
good speakers, and Smith was at that time as diligent and earnest as he had
previously been lazy and careless. The three men traveled all over New York
State, particularly up and down the Erie Canal. They were rotten-egged in some
places, booted and howled into silence in others, and had some attention in a
few communities. Their meetings were generally poorly attended, and people
regarded the men as fools, whose cause would soon die out. I attend-ed several
of the meetings in Wayne and Ontario Counties. Smith would always tell with
some effect how the angel had appeared to him, how he felt an irresistible
desire to dig where he did, and how he heard celestial music and the chanting of
a heavenly host as he drew the golden plates from the earth and bore them to his
home....
"'Of the printing of the "Book of Mormon" I have a
particularly keen recollection. Smith and Rigdon had hard work to get funds
together for the new Bible. Smith told me himself that the world was so wicked
and perverse that it was hard to win converts: that he had a vision to print the
Bible and that as soon as that was done the work would be prospered wonderfully.
A new convert named Andrews, a plain old farmer in Au-burn, N.Y., mortgaged his
property for $3,000 to start the printing. The Wayne "Sentinel,"
published at Palmyra, did the work on a contract for 5,000 copies for
$5,000.(42) The printing office was an upper floor, near the store where I
worked, and I was one of the few persons who was allowed about the office while
the publishing was going on.
"'I helped to read proof on many pages of the book, and at odd
times set some type. The copy was about half ready for the printer when there
came a halt in the proceedings, for Mrs. Harris, wife of Martin Harris, had
become so disgusted with her husband's conversion to the new religion and his
abandonment of his fine farm for preaching Mormonism that she one morning threw
in the fire all the Bible manuscript that had been brought to him for a review
by Smith. It was weeks before Joe Smith and Rigdon recovered from their dismay
at this act. Harris went down into his pockets for $300 to repay the loss caused
by his wife's destruction of the manuscript.(43)
"'The copy for the "Book of Mormon" was prepared in a
cave that Smith and others dug near the scene of the finding of the golden
plates on Gold Hill. I went out there frequently for a Sunday walk during the
process of the translation of the plates and the printing of the book. Some one
of the converts was constantly about the entrance to the cave, and no one but
Smith and Alvin [i.e. Oliver] Cowdry, a school teacher there, who had proselyted
that season, was allowed to go through the door of the cave. Rigdon had some
hopes of converting me, and I was permitted to go near the door, but not so much
as to peep inside. Smith told me later that no one had ever seen the golden
plates but himself, and that he wore the glasses found with the plates, and was
thus able to translate the new message from heaven to the people. He read
aloud, and Cowdery who was seated on the other side of a screen or partition in
the cave, wrote down the words as pronounced by Joe.(44)
"'The penmanship of the copy furnished was good, but the
grammar, spelling and punctuation were done by John H. Gilbert who was chief
compositor in the office. I have heard him swear many a time at the syntax and
orthography of Cowdery, and declare that he would not set another line of type.
The copy came in one conglomerate mass, and there were no paragraphs, no
punctuation and no capitals. All that was done in the printing office, and what
a time there used to be in straightening sentences out, too.(45)
"'During the work of printing the book I remember that Joe Smith
kept in the background. He was wanted sever-al times at the printing office to
explain some obscure sentences and apparent blunders in composition, but he
never came near the printers. He sent word by his brother, Hyrum, that the work
of translating [so] absorbed his mind and functions that he could not attend to
mundane business. Every morning Hyrum Smith appeared at the office with
installments of copy of twenty-four pages buttoned up in his vest, and came
regularly and punctually for them at night.
"'The publication of the book of 538 pages [sic, should read 588
pages] was pushed with spirit, but until it was completed not a copy was allowed
to leave the office. Every volume was packed in an upper room, and the pile
they made struck me at the time, and has since been vividly in my mind, as
comparing in size and shape with a cord of wood, and I called it a cord of
Mormon Bibles. The work was finished in the spring of 1830. Not long after the
publication was completed Smith and his followers began their preparations for a
removal, and ere long the parties with their converts, packed up all their
belongings and left for Kirtland....'"(46)
(fatal questions are marked with an astrisk *)
Last updated 2/4/01