EXHIBIT C: STATEMENT AND TESTIMONY OF POMEROY TUCKER

Statement:

"A mysterious stranger now appears at Smith's and holds intercourse with the famed money-digger. For a considerable time no intimation of the name or purpose of this stranger transpired to the public, not even to Smith's nearest neighbors. It was observed by some that his visits were frequently repeated. The sequel of the intimacies of this stranger and the money-digger will sufficiently appear hereafter. There was great consternation when the 118 [sic-- should be 116] pages of manuscript were stolen from Harris, for it seems to have been impossible, for some unaccountable reason, to retranslate the stolen portion. The reappearance of this mysterious stranger at Smith's at this juncture [summer, 1828] was again the subject of inquiry and conjecture by observers, from whom was withheld all explanations of his identity and purpose. When the Book of Mormon appeared, Rigdon was an early convert. Up to this time, he had played his part in the background and his occasional visits to Smith's had been observed by the inhabitants as those of the mysterious stranger. It had been his policy to remain in concealment until all things were in readiness for blowing the trumpet of the new gospel. He now came to the front as the first regular [Mormon] preacher in Palmyra."(33)

A brief introductory comment:

Below you will find an examination intended to analyze the reliability and accuracy of what Tucker claims (or at least the portion of Tucker's statement that relates to the alleged visits by Sidney Rigdon prior to 1830).

The authors of the Enigma have also, for the first, and probably only time, provided "answers" to my Tucker questions (see: Answers, or click on the relevant, and respective, links below. )

However, the reader may see that the questions I asked were worded slightly differently than what may be found below. This is because the questions were originally oriented towards the authors, whereas they are now, for reasons that will become clear, oriented more towards the reader. And, due to a reorganization of the material, the authors were asked several questions which do not appear below, but which will appear in other sections of this chapter. (see: Collectively--forthcoming)

The authors have also presented me with some questions of their own--though unrelated to the Tucker statement, or the statements from other witnesses which they proffer in Chapter Eleven. I have done my best to provide them with straightforward answers to the best of my knowledge. So as to avoid complicating matters, I will address their questions separately (see: Questions).

Investigative questions:

1. Since when does a 40 year old rumor about an alleged rumor and corresponding conjectures become considered as "evidence"? (Answers)
2. Even assuming that a "mysterious stranger" was rumored to have been at the Smith's, does that necessarily mean that the rumor is true, or even that all parts of the rumor are true--i.e. is it possible that the "mysterious stranger" may have only been at the Smith's once, or that different "mysterious strangers" may have visited the Smiths, and that Tucker and others may have confused them as repeat visits by a single "mysterious stranger"? (For more on this, please see below.)(Answers)
3. Even assuming that the rumors about the "mysterious stranger" were true, does that necessarily mean that Tucker's insinuations about Rigdon being that "mysterious stranger" is true? Couldn't one correctly assume that it may have been the two different "strangers" mentioned in Lucy Smith's history of Joseph Smith? And, since neither of the strangers were named by Lucy, doesn't that implying that it was not Rigdon, because Lucy Smith, at the time she wrote her history of Joseph Smith, was familiar with Rigdon, and would have know if it were he? Also, wouldn't it be counter-intuitive for her to refer to the man who helped Joseph on the stage in July of 1828 as a "stranger", if that were the same "stranger" who, according to Tucker's reported rumor, had supposedly visited the Smith's "repeatedly" prior to that time? Furthermore, if one assumes that Lucy Smith didn't name Rigdon because she, too, was deeply involved in the alleged conspiracy to commit fraud, then why would she supposedly risk exposing the alleged attempt to conceal the supposed pre-1830 Rigdon/Smith association by disclosing the story of the stranger to begin with? (Answers)
4. Wasn't Tucker jumping to conclusions by insinuating that the "mysterious stranger" was Rigdon? After all, if the identity of the stranger was a mystery (hence "mysterious stranger") to those ("some") who supposedly observed the "repeated" visits--reportedly because Rigdon's identity had been "withheld", then how would Tucker then know who he was? Could Tucker's conclusion have been conveniently derived from his Hurlbut/Howe-inspired theory? Or, better yet, could it have been derived from the unsubstantiated opinion of his Wayne Sentinel associate, E. B. Grandin, who was likely the source for a similar rumor reported in the 1831 Bennett article (see: Bennett) (Answers), and/or Orsamus Turner (see: Turner)?
5. Since Tucker, according to the Preface of his book, was familiar with the Smith's during the time they lived in Palmyra, and was familiar with the Smith's neighbors (according to the Kelley interviews, he was supposedly Abel Chase's neighbor) during that same time, and even for several neighbors, he knew them for years after the Smiths had moved away; and since Tucker was a newspaper man, and a self-styled historian; why do we not find any record of him having conducted first-hand interviews with, and reporting of, the supposed eye witnesses to the alleged visits of the "mysterious stranger"? In other words, why, after 40 years with assumed access to the supposed "witnesses", would Tucker resort to using rumor when he could have establish what supposedly happened for a fact--that is, unless there were no eye witnesses, or the "facts" did not support his theory? (And, by extension, why do the Spalding theorists, after 173 years, resort to using Tucker's rumor about rumors instead of facts?) More interesting still, why didn't he, as a neighbor, go directly to the source, and investigate the validity of the alleged rumor with the Smiths at the time the alleged rumors were being spread? (Answers)
6. The Enigma's citation of Tucker begins: "a mysterious stranger now appears at Smith's. . .", and were are also told that the visits were "frequently repeated." But, from what little is quoted, we are given no sense for when "now" is. However, upon further investigation, it appears that the time is 1827, presumably around September 27th. If one takes a look at the Rigdon time-line, in light of the fact that from the end of September until December of 1827, when Joseph left Palmyra to take up residence at Harmony, Pennsylvania, there is only a gap of 18 days in which the alleged sightings of Rigdon in the company of Smith (which would include the necessary travel time for Rigdon from Mentor, Ohio to Palmyra) were supposedly "freaquently repeated." Does that make sense to the reader? Yet the Enigma authors went on to knowingly and falsely claim that "for in every instance without exception, where a witness or witnesses have claimed that Rigdon and Smith were together, a gap in Rigdon's chronology occurs which allows sufficient time for him to have visited New York." As the author's have also said, "every liar slips up somewhere" (see Enigma p. 490), and it appears that both Anderick and the Enigma authors slipped up here.(Answers)
7. How do the authors reconcile Tucker's assertion that the visits were "frequently repeated", with his later statement that they were "occasional"? (Answers)
8. What difference would it have made to conceal Rigdon's identity "until all things were in readiness" if Rigdon's alleged visits to Smith were supposedly observed as "frequently repeated"? And, once the alleged "frequent" observations were made, and supposedly rumored about and speculated on, sufficient that Tucker, an admitted non-observer, would have supposedly known about it, then wouldn't the cat have been let out of the bag, so to speak, and it would have been pointless to continue the alleged ruse? In other words, what would be the point of supposedly keeping Rigdon's name a secret when his face was supposedly well known around Palmyra? (Answers)
9. Does Tucker explain the rationale behind why the alleged conspirators would think to conceal Rigdon's identity? Can the reader think of a logical reason? If one is going to suggest that it was done so as to prevent detection of the alleged Rigdon/Spalding connection, and Rigdon's supposed part in the creation of the Book of Mormon from the "Manuscript Found", then wouldn't that same argument always hold true, and hence, Rigdon's identity should have always been concealed? Doesn't the fact that Rigdon unabashedly presented himself to the citizens of the Palmyra area in December of 1830 (according to official historical record), counter the whole notion about the supposed concealment and conspiracy? (Answers)
10. I already asked the authors about Gilbert's (who allegedly helped Tucker with the publication of his book) negative comments regarding Tucker's credibility (see: Collectively). But, what should one assume about the reliability of what Tucker has to says in light of the comment made by Dr. Strattford, who was the neighbor of both the Smith's and Tucker, in an interview with William Kelley: "'What Tucker said about them [the Smiths] was false, absolutely'. . . .Well, Doctor, you know pretty well whether that story is true or not, that Tucker tells. What do you think of it? 'I don't think it is true. I would have heard more about it, that is true.'")? (William Kelley Interviews, Saints' Herald, 1 June 1881, p.167) Or, the Jackaways (also neighbors) who said, "Now, Tucker has a statement from Willard Chase in his book, and Chase said Tucker never called on him at all to find out what he knew. Lady.--Yes; I have heard Willard Chase say Tucker never even asked him for what he knew, and Chase lived next door to him, too. Chase is dead now." (ibid. p.166)
11. What does the following quote from B. H. Roberts suggests about Tucker's credibility: "According to a letter written by J. N. T. Tucker, who claims to have been a practical printer in Grandin's establishment, while the Book of Mormon was in the course of printing, relates how 'after putting one sheet in type, we [the printers] laid it aside, and told Martin Harris it was lost, and there would be serious defection in the book, unless another sheet like the original could be produced.' This is represented as throwing Martin Harris into 'quite an excitement.' 'After two or three weeks,' continues Mr. Tucker, 'another sheet was produced, but no more like the original than any other sheet of paper would have been written over by a common school boy, after having read, as they did, the manuscript preceding and succeeding the lost sheet.' All of which, except perhaps the sequestration of the sheet of the manuscript in question, is sheer fabrication, since no such thing could occur when the Prophet had taken the precaution to keep the original manuscript in the hands of his friends, and send only a copy to the printer." (B. H. Roberts, Comprehensive History of the Church, Vol.1, Ch.13, p.158 - p.159. See New Witnesses For God, vol. ii, p. 124; Bennett's Mormonism Exposed, p. 122.)
12. What about Tucker's own admission that the rumors were not "sustained by judicial investigation"? Could the statement above also be worthy of the following Tucker qualification: "though it is but common fairness to accompany this fact by the statement, that it is not within the remembrance of the writer"? (Pomeroy Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism (New York: Appleton, 1867)
13. Finally, what about this seemingly contradictory statement from Tucker's book, which makes no mention of Sidney Rigdon having been a part of this significant event (Rigdon's supposed "slip of the tongue" mentioned at the end of Chapter 11 notwithstanding): "Undaunted by any rebuffs, Prophet Smith persisted in his grand design, and, by the power of his expanding genius, secured a few devoted followers in this incipiency of his new revelation -- proving that, in his case, "the prophet" was not wholly "without honor" even in his "own country." Here may be recognized the first budding of the Mormon organization, or "Church of Latter-Day Saints." These pioneer Mormon disciples, so far as their names can now be recollected, were as follows, viz.: Oliver Cowdery, Samuel Lawrence, Martin Harris, Preserved Harris, Peter Ingersoll, Charles Ford, George Proper and his wife Dolly, of Palmyra; Ziba Peterson, and Calvin Stoddard and his wife Sophronia, of Macedon; Ezra Thayer, of Brighton; Luman Walters, of Pultneyville; Hiram Page, of Fayette; David Whitmer, Jacob Whitmer, Christian Whitmer, John Whitmer, and Peter Whitmer, Jr., of Phelps; Simeon Nichols, or Farmington; William Stafford, Joshua Stafford, Gad Stafford, David Fish, Abram Fish, Robert Orr, King H. Quance, John Morgan, Orrin Rockwell and his wife Caroline, Widow Sally Risley, and all the remainder of the Smith family, of Manchester. It is believed that this list embraces all the persons residing at or near the prime seat of the Mormon advent, who from first to last made a profession of belief either in the money-digging or golden bible finding pretensions of Jopseph Smith, Jr; and probably, indeed, not more than one-half of these can be said to have been genuine converts under one head or the other"? (ibid, pp. 38 - 40).

Last updated 02/08/01