Twenty-One (1826)would be of some pecuniary advantage to him. So, in the moment of
excitement, he laid them down very carefully, for the purpose of covering the
box, lest someone might happen to pass that way and get whatever there
might be remaining in it. After covering it, he turned round to take the
Record again, but behold it was gone, and where he knew not, neither did he
know the means by which it had been taken from him.^6Joseph was faced with constant questioning from his family, especially from his
mother. Many times, the things that he told them to pacify their curiosity were of his
own invention to distract them from any further inquiries, but always with the warning
that they should never speak of these things outside of the family. Joseph’s family was
no different than everyone else’s at the time. Throughout Joseph’s life, none of his family
(except for Hyrum) showed any great interest in concentrating their efforts only on the
“fullness of the everlasting Gospel...as delivered by the Savior to the ancient
inhabitants.” They were more interested in what the plates looked like, how the Urim
and Thummim worked, what the angels looked like, what special authority their son
and brother had been given that made him special, and many other things that caused
them to look beyond the mark, desiring things they couldn’t understand. And, because
they desired it, Joseph gave them, as well as others, things that caused them to stumble.
Joseph encouraged his mother to find her own truth in the religions of that time. He
pushed her to attend church and socialize with the pious who went to church—not because
she would find any truth there, but so that she would leave him alone. While making
friends and forming community relationships, Lucy had the desire to make herself look
good in the eyes of her peers. Whatever she had to say to make her own family appear
worthy of public adoration, at least in the eyes of the other women in the community, Lucy
created it through her own boasting. In Lucy’s mind, her son was “chosen by the Lord” to
do a great work; and if she needed to interject this tidbit of information to make herself and
her family appear worthy of the public’s respect, she did so at any convenience.
The Local Grapevine
The history books that have been written about Joseph Smith’s early life often
mention that even before he took actual possession of the plates and the Urim and
Thummim on September 22, 1827, the community was aware of their existence. Rumor
fueled the peoples’ imaginations. And from their speculations, countless affidavits were
later attested to, so as to discredit Joseph’s claims and present fantastic fabrications, which
were only true in the minds of the individuals creating them.
From Joseph peering at a stone in a hat^7 to using a magic dowser to attempt to find
hidden treasurers,^8 his enemies concocted all kinds of “facts” based on rumors they heard
from someone else who had told them that they had heard something of what another had
said about Joseph Smith. When the affidavits and claims of his enemies are compared to
those of his friends, the obvious bias and prejudice is evident on both sides. Very few, if any,
of his friends’ claims and stories were any more validated than those of his enemies.
Many of the early affidavits against Joseph and Mormonism were solicited and
gathered by Eber Dudley Howe. In 1834, Howe, a newspaper publisher living in Ohio,
published the first comprehensive anti-Mormon book. Its rather lengthy title verifies the
intent and obvious prejudice of the entire book: MORMONISM UNVAILED [sic]: Or, A