EXHIBIT E: TESTIMONY OF W. A. Lillie

Statement:

"I was born in Trumbull Co., Ohio, in 1815. Our family moved to Chester, the town adjoining Kirtland on the south, in 1822. About 1834 Mr. Pearne, of Chester, told me he used to live in the neighborhood of the Mormon Smith family in Palmyra, N.Y., and was well acquainted with all of them. He said they were a low family and of no account in the community. He told me the summer before Jo Smith, the Mormon prophet, first came to Ohio, he often saw Smith and Rigdon together. It was the first he knew of Rigdon, and it was before the 'Book of Mormon' was published. He saw Smith and Rigdon start together in a buggy for Ohio. Mr. Pearne knew Rigdon well after coming to Ohio and said he believed he was at the bottom of Mormonism. My father borrowed the 'Book of Mormon' and when he had finished reading it laughed and remarked Rigdon had done pretty well. W.A. Lillie, Witnessed by: A.B. Deming, Thomas B. Page. 'Sworn to and subscribed in my presence at Willoughby, Lake County, Ohio, this 7th day of March 1885. A.P. Barber, Justice of the Peace' (35) "

Investigative questions:

(note: fatal questions are marked with an asterisk *)

1. How reliable can a hearsay statement be that is made 51 years after an alleged conversation, which was about an insignificant event that had supposedly occured 3 years prior to the alleged conversation (being told by an acquaintence about supposedly seeing Rigdon in Palmyra during the summer of 1830)?
2. What are the odds that you or I, after 51 years, would recall (correctly or otherwise) a somewhat meaningless comment made by an acquaintence about a relative stranger who was supposedly seen three years prior to the conversation?
3. How reliable can a hearsay statement be that, after 51 year, was presumably given in reponse to a newspaper as by A. B. Deming (one of the two witnesses to Lillie's statement), in which he offered money in exchange for testimony, abd who, along with other Spalding theorists at the time, was vigorously trying to find evidence for Rigdon's alleged visits with Smith prior to the winter of 1830?
4. Even assuming that Lillie remembered the conversation correctly after all those years, does that necessarily mean that he heard "Pearne" correctly on all points, or that "Pearne" was correct in what he said on all points?
5. *How reliable can a hearsay statement be that is anachronistic? According to what "Pearne" had allegedly told Lillie, Joseph Smith left for Ohio "befor the 'Book of Mormon' was published." Whereas, it is undisputed that the Book of Mormon was published in the spring of 1830, and Joseph Smith left for Ohio in January of 1831, clearly a number of months after the Book of Mormon was published.
6. *How reliable can a hearsay statement be that is inconsistent with both the Rigdon and Smith time-lines? According to what "Pearne" allegedly told Lillie, that during the summer of 1830, in the vicinity of Palmyra, he supposedly "often saw Rigdon and Smith together." Whereas, with the Rigdon time-line there is only about a three week gap, from June to August of 1830, in which Rigdon is unaccounted for in Ohio, and during that same period of time, Joseph Smith was actually in Harmony, Pennsylvania, not Palmyra.
7. Even were "Pearne" correct both about being well acquainted with the Smiths and his having seen Rigdon with Smith in the summer of 1830 (which he clearly is not), how does that support the Spalding theory which asserts that Rigdon periodically supplied Smith with portions of the Spalding manuscript from September of 1827 to the spring of 1830? At the very worst it only suggest that Rigdon (or "Pearne" for that matter) may have been several months off in his timing of Rigdon's first arrival at Palmyra.
8. Apart from the conflict which the Enigma authors' noted in their own "evidence" ("Pearne's" statement about Rigdon leaving with Smith for Ohio in a buggy conflicts with other historical accounts), do the authors, themselves, suggest that Garret Purnee of Sodus, Wayne County, New York, is the same person as, or a close relative of, Jacob Perne, later of Rice Township, Sanduscky County, Ohio? If so, on what basis do they make this apparent conjecture? (Not that it matters to the issue at hand)

Last updated 01/28/01