The Book of Mormon Manuscripts

THE BOOK OF MORMON MANUSCRIPTS.

G. Martin Hopfenbeck.

The Book of Mormon manuscript was written, in the main, by Oliver Cowdery, who acted as amanuensis for the Prophet Joseph Smith. Oliver would be stationed on one side of a screen and would write as the words fell from the lips of the Prophet. The Prophet would be seated on the other side of the screen, and would translate from the golden plates by means of the Urim and Thummim.

The greater part of the work was done at the home of the Prophet in Harmony, Pennsylvania. However, the work was completed, sometime in July or August, 1829, at the home of Peter Whitmer in Fayette, New York.

The translating completed, Joseph Smith’s next problem was that of securing a printer to publish the first edition of the Book of Mormon. Difficulties immediately arose. The Prophet called on Mr. Egbert B. Grandin, publisher of the Wayne Signal. He and the printers in the vicinity of Palmyra were not at that time open to negotiations for the publishing. Accordingly, the Prophet and Martin Harris approached a Mr. Thurlow Weed, publisher of the Rochester Telegraph at Rochester. Mr. Weed declined oil the grounds that lie was publishing a newspaper, only, but recommended Mr. Eligy F. Marshall, a friend of his, who was engaged in publishing books in Rochester. The Prophet and Martin Harris called upon Mr. Marshall and received terms for the first edition. However, as it would be more convenient to have the printing done at Palmyra, the seat of the Smith home, Mr. Egbert B. Grandin was again appealed to. He finally agreed to print and bind five thousand copies for the sum of three thousand dollars. This proposition was accepted and Martin Harris became surety for the payment of the bill.

Relieved of the worry of securing a printer, the Prophet re­turned to his home and wife at Harmony, Pennsylvania. Before going, however, he left implicit instructions regarding the handling of the work in his absence:

Oliver Cowdery should transcribe the whole manuscript.

Only one copy of the manuscript should be taken to the printing office at a time, so that if one copy should be destroyed, there would be a copy remaining.

In going to and from the printing office, a guard should always be in attendance for the purpose of protecting the manuscript.

A guard should be at the home, constantly, both day and night, to watch and protect the manuscript from evil-disposed persons who might infest the house for the purpose of destroying the manuscript.

The first of these precautions accounts for the existence of two original manuscripts of the Book of Mormon. Oliver Cowdery, during the time that the type-setting and printing was going on, made a copy from the original for the use of the printer. The original he carefully kept in his possession at the home of the Smith’s, so that if, peradventure, a day’s copy sent to the printer should be destroyed or stolen, it could be copied again from the original. Oliver would transcribe the printer’s manuscript from the original each day as required by the printer. The sheets used on the previous day would be returned as “new copy” was fur­nished.

It can readily be understood why all these precautionary measures were necessary. Designing persons had attempted all along to frustrate the work; during the translations the Prophet had been repeatedly interrupted. It had been impossible to do any work of translating in Palmyra, for mobs drove him from his home. He repaired to Harmony, that he might there, in his father-in-law’s house, obtain seclusion for his work of translating. Later, persecution drove him from Harmony. He then went to the home of the Whitmers in Fayette, New York, where the work of translating was completed.

When one hundred sixteen pages of manuscript had been re­corded. Martin Harris, the Prophet’s first scribe, after incessant persuasion, was allowed to take the completed work for the pur­pose of exhibiting it to a few of his relatives. This privilege he secured only after, as the Prophet says, “I again (for the third time) inquired of the Lord, and permission was granted him to have the writings on certain conditions, which were that he should show them only to his brother, Preserved Harris, his wife, his father and mother and Mrs. Cobb, a sister of his wife.” “In ac­cordance with this last answer,” says the Prophet, “I required of him that he should bind himself in a covenant to me in the most solemn manner, that he would not do otherwise than he had been directed. He did so. He bound himself as I required of him, took the writings and went his way.”

Martin Harris, however, soon forgot his covenant, and not only showed the manuscript to those specifically mentioned, but to others, and rather widely at that. He did not exercise sufficient caution, and treacherous persons succeeded in wresting the manu­script from him, for the purpose, as recorded in Doctrine and Covenants, “that the devil may lay a cunning plan, that he may destroy this work; for he hath put into their hearts to do this, that by lying they may say they have caught you in the words which yon have pretended to translate.”

This unfortunate carelessness of Martin Harris necessitated another translation’s being made. But this time the translation was from a different set of plates, that the designs of the evil one might not be realized.

The stolen manuscript has never been found. One anti-“ Mormon” critic has charged that Mrs. Harris, who was very unfriendly to the work, burned the manuscript. This accusation, however, she denied.

The work of evil-designing persons was not confined alone to the time when the manuscript was in the making. Even during the printing, attempts were made to destroy the work. An ex-justice of the peace by the name of Cole, started to publish a weekly periodical which he called Dogberry Paper on Winter Hill. In his prospectus, he promised his subscribers to publish one form of “Joe Smith’s Gold Bible” each week, and thus furnish them with the principal part of the book without their being obliged to purchase it from the Smiths. The Dogberry Paper was printed at Mr. Grandin’s establishment, where the Book of Mormon was being printed, and as the press was employed all the time except at night and on Sundays, Mr. Cole printed his paper at those times. This arrangement also enabled him, for a time, to keep what he was doing from the knowledge of the Prophet and his associates. It it said that several numbers of his papers, containing pilfered portions from the Book of Mormon, were published before his rascality was found out. Joseph, who "was at Harmony, was sent for, and on arriving at Palmyra quietly but firmly asserted his copyrights, which he had been careful to secure. Mfr. Cole gave up his attempt to publish the book or any portion of it.

Other incidents, inspired of malicious men, transpired before the Book of Mormon was finally off the press and in the hands of the Prophet.

The printer’s copy of the manuscript, after it had served its purpose, was taken possession of by Oliver Cowdery and was retained by him until a short time before his death in 1850, when he gave it to David Whitmer, his brother-in-law and fellow­witness to the truth of the Book of Mormon.

David Whitmer guarded the manuscript, entrusted to him, with great care up to the time of his death, in 1888. It then passed to the custody of his grandson, George Schweich, who transferred it to the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christof Latter-day Saints.

It is now in the official custody of Frederick M. Smith, Presi­dent of that church, and is kept by him in a secure vault in Inde­pendence, Missouri, the Reorganized Church’s headquarters. It is contained in a special box of oxidized tin, lined with asbestos, made for the purpose. To add to the security, a small vial of chemical used for extinguishing fire is placed in the container also.

The original manuscript remained in the possession of the Prophet, and was by him, on the 2nd of October, 1811, in the presence of a number of Elders, deposited, together with a number of coins, papers and books, in a cavity, made in the north­west cornerstone of the Nauvoo House for that purpose.

Among those present when the deposit was made was Ebenezer Robinson, who in The Return, a monthly periodical published by him in Davis City, Iowa, relates the circumstances as follows:

“After the brethren had assembled at the southeast corner of the foundation, where the cornerstone was laid, President Joseph Smith said: ‘Wait, brethren, I have a document I wish to put in that stone,’ and started for his house, which was only a few rods away, across Main Street. I went with him to the house, and also one or two other brethren. He got a manuscript copy of the Book of Mormon, and brought it into the room where we were standing and said: ‘I will examine to see if it is all here,’ and as he did so, I stood near him, at his left side, and saw dis­tinctly the -writing as he turned up the pages until he hastily went through the book and satisfied himself that it was all there. … It was written on foolscap paper, and formed a package, as the sheets lay flat, of about two and one-half inches thick, I should judge. It was written mostly in Oliver Cowdery’s handwriting, with which I was in­timately acquainted, having set many pages of type from his handwriting, in the printing office at Kirtland, Ohio. Some parts of it were written in other handwriting. He took the manuscript and deposited it in the corner­stone of the Nauvoo House, together with other papers and things, includ­ing different pieces of United States coin” (The Return, Vol. I., pp. 314-15).

The Nauvoo House was never completed. Its unfurnished walls stood, unprotected, for a number of years and were crumbl­ing to decay. They were taken down, the foundations were torn up and the excellent building stone of which they were made sold for use in other buildings in and about Nauvoo. During the process of taking up the foundations, the deposits in the north­west cornerstone were uncovered. The manuscript had been almost ruined by the dampness, and but little of it remained that could be preserved. Some portions, however—pages numbered from three to twenty-two, inclusive—finally found their way into the hands of the late President Joseph F. Smith.

This fragment of the manuscript, now in the possession of the President of the Church, is thus described by Elder George Reynolds in his History of the Book of Mormon:

“It consists of twenty-two pages of somewhat rough, unruled writing paper, more resembling narrow bill-cap than any other size of paper now made, being a little less than fifteen and a half inches long and full six and a half inches wide. The paper is now tinged brown or yellow by time and damp, and the writing in some places is undecipherable. The pages are numbered 3 to 22, pages 1 and 2 having been lost. The manu­script commences at the second verse of the second chapter of the first Book of Nephi, and continues to the thirty-fifth verse of the thirteenth chapter of the same book. The manuscript is in two, if not three, hand­writings. Pages 7 to 18, inclusive, appear to have been written by Oliver Cowdery. Pages 3 to 6 are written in what looks like a woman’s hand, possibly that of Emma Smith; while the handwriting on pages 19 to 22, if not the same, very much resembles that of pages 3 to 6. The only division made in the manuscript is into chapers; the sentences are not divided by punctuation marks, and are seldom commenced with capital letters.”