Oliver Cowdery Controversies

Of all the people in the restored Church of Jesus Christ, the one perhaps we would least expect to ever separate himself from the Church, aside from the prophet Joseph Smith, is Oliver Cowdery. Just imagine the remarkable spiritual experiences he had. He was a witness of many critical events in the restoration of the gospel. As one of three Book of Mormon witnesses, Oliver testified that an angel displayed the gold plates and that the voice of God proclaimed them correctly translated. He was with the prophet Joseph when John the Baptist restored to them the Aaronic Priesthood and when Peter, James, and John ordained them to the Melchizedek Priesthood and to the apostleship. He was present again during the momentous Kirtland Temple visions (D&C 110). And yet he was excommunicated and did leave the Church! How is that possible? It is no surprise that many critics of the Church have delighted in the conclusions many are willing to make of this combination of circumstances. If Oliver was able to actually leave the Church, and remain separated from the saints for ten years, then he must not have actually had those remarkable experiences!

In this chapter, I will first briefly review Oliver’s biography. I will then consider individually each of several specific accusations made against Oliver by critics of the Church. Then, I will review the circumstances surrounding his excommunication from the Church in April 1838. Then I will look closely at the event of his rebaptism into the Church in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Finally, I will draw a few conclusions as to Oliver’s true mind set during the unpleasantness surrounding his excommunication and during those ten years he lived separate from the Church.

#Brief Biography of Oliver Cowdery

Oliver was born October 3, 1806 in Wells, Vermont, to William Cowdery Jr. and Rebecca Fuller. His parents married three years after Oliver was born. He was born into a New England family with strong traditions of patriotism, individuality, learning, and religion.

In 1809 Oliver’s family moved to Middletown, Vermont. His mother died there, possibly of tuberculosis, at age 43 (It is ironic that Oliver would later die of the same disease at the same age). Subsequently, between 1809 and 1813, he apparently lived with his Uncle Rufus and Aunt Huldah Fuller Glass in Wells, Vermont. Huldah was Oliver’s mother’s older sister. The Cowdery and Glass homes were just a mile apart in Wells. Oliver grew up with the Glass children.

On March 18, 1810, Oliver’s father William married Keziah Pearce Austin, a Middletown widow who came from a respected Poultney family. William and his family soon moved to Williamson, New York. Oliver remained with the Glass household.

In 1813 Rufus and Huldah Glass died, probably of typhoid fever. After their death Oliver returned to the home of his father and step mother. Shortly thereafter, the family moved back to Middletown.

Later in 1818 they moved to Poultney, Vermont. They would live in Poultney for nearly a decade. It is possible that Oliver lived with the Arunah Glass family in Wells, Vermont between 1820 and 1822 while he attended school there. Arunah was the son of Rufus and Huldah Glass.

In 1825 Oliver moved to Wayne County, New York where he possibly lived with his brother Lyman in Lyons, a few miles northeast of Palmyra. Oliver’s younger sister provided us with the only information we have about his childhood. She described his childhood thusly: “Oliver was brought up in Poultney, Rutland County, Vermont, and when he arrived at the age of twenty [Oliver was probably only 19], he went to the state of New York, where his older brothers were married and settled. . . . Oliver’s occupation was clerking in a store until 1829 [Oliver started teaching in 1828], when he taught the district school in the town of Manchester” (Lucy Cowdery Young to Andrew Jenson, March 7, 1887, Church Archives). The William Cowdery family followed Oliver to New York two years later in 1827.

In late 1828, while Joseph and Emma were living in Harmony, Pennsylvania, Oliver met David Whitmer and the Smith family in Palmyra. In early 1829, while teaching school in Manchester and boarding with the Smith family, he learned of their convictions about the ancient record that their son Joseph was translating. Oliver prayed for and received a divine visitation calling him to assist Joseph Smith.

Joseph described Oliver’s experience: “The Lord appeared unto . . . Oliver Cowdery and shewed unto him the plates in a vision and . . . what the Lord was about to do through me, his unworthy servant. Therefore he was desirous to come and write for me to translate” (Papers of Joseph Smith 1:10).

In late March 1829, he departed Manchester with Samuel Smith and arrived in Harmony, Pennsylvania on April 5. There he met Joseph Smith for the first time. Just two days later, on April 7, Joseph and Oliver began the translation of the Book of Mormon. Joseph dictated, and Oliver acted as scribe.

During the process of translation, on May 15, 1829, Joseph and Oliver received the Aaronic Priesthood with Joseph from John the Baptist. Oliver and Joseph then baptized each other. Probably sometime within the next two weeks both men received the Melchizedek Priesthood from Peter, James, and John. This was likely just prior to Joseph and Oliver’s moving away from Harmony.

Between June 1 and 3 Oliver moved with Joseph to the Peter Whitmer farm in Fayette, New York. There the translation of the Book of Mormon was completed about the end of June. On June 20, with Joseph Smith, Oliver, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, in open vision, saw Moroni and the Book of Mormon plates. Also in June, Oliver drafted a document called the “Articles of the Church of Christ.” This document would form as a foundation for section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants.

On about July 1, 1829, Oliver completed his work as the scribe for Joseph’s translation of the Book of Mormon. Between July and February 1830 Oliver completed a copy of the entire Book of Mormon for use by the printer. This was the so-called printer’s manuscript. The actual printing of the Book of Mormon, by the E. B. Grandin Press in Palmyra, was begin in August 1829 and completed in March 1830. Oliver, along with Martin Harris and Hyrum Smith, supervised the printing.

In January, 1830, Oliver traveled to Ontario, Canada, with Hiram Page in an attempt to sell the Book of Mormon copyright. This occurred at about the same time that Abner Cole was illegally printing extracts from the Book of Mormon under his pseudonym, Obadiah Dogberry. He printed them in his weekly periodical, The Reflector.

On April 6, 1830, Oliver became one of the six original members of the Church when it was organized in Fayette, New York. Oliver was ordained an elder by Joseph and sustained Second Elder of the Church. On April 11, Oliver preached the first public discourse of the Church of Christ.

Between June and October of 1830 Oliver served as scribe for Joseph’s inspired “translation” project, the writing of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. translation of the Bible. During 1830 and 1831, Oliver served as church Recorder.

Between October 1830 and February 1831, Oliver led the Lamanite mission to Ohio. He traveled with Parley P. Pratt, Peter Whitmer Jr., and Ziba Peterson. This was the first major mission of the Church. The missionaries’ access to the Indians was limited by the federal Indian agent. But the mission succeeded in doubling the membership of the Church.

Oliver was ordained a high priest by Sidney Rigdon on August 28, 1831.

Between November 1831 and July 1833, Oliver assisted O. O. Phelps with publishing church periodicals in Missouri. Between July 1833 and the fall of 1837, Oliver preached, published, and assisted in church administration in Kirtland,Ohio. He was ordained assistant president of the High Priesthood on December 5, 1834. He was thus ranked above Sidney Rigdon who had long served as Joseph’s first counselor. Oliver’s church career peaked from 1834 to 1836. He was a highly effective preacher, writer, and administrator.

During the years 1835 through 1837, he served a second stint as Church Recorder.

On April 3, 1836, he saw a vision of the Savior with Joseph Smith, followed by visits from Moses, Elias, and Elijah (see D&C 110).

On September 3, 1837, Oliver was ordained “assistant counselor” of the First Presidency of the Church. The situation of the First Presidency at this time was a little complicated. As of September 3, 1837, the First Presidency consisted of its three “presidents” (D&C 107:22) and four “assistant counselors.” The three presidents were President Joseph Smith Jr. and his first and second counselors, Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams. The four assistant counselors were Oliver Cowdery, Joseph Smith Sr., Hyrum Smith, and John Smith (the brother of Joseph Smith Sr., and therefore the Prophet’s uncle) (HC, 2:509).

In late 1837 Oliver’s letters began to reveal a crisis of personal and family estrangement from Joseph Smith especially over Joseph’s economic and political programs. The Three Witnesses had seen an angel with Joseph Smith, but later they tended to compete rather than cooperate with his leadership. Oliver sought personal financial independence that ran counter to the cooperative economics essential to the Zion society Joseph Smith envisioned. Oliver was tried for his membership, and he sent a resignation letter in which he insisted that the truth of modern revelation was not at issue: “Take no view of the foregoing remarks, other than my belief on the outward government of this Church” (Far West Record, 165-66). Five charges were considered by the church court against Oliver: inactivity, accusing the Prophet of adultery, and three charges of beginning law practice and seeking to collect debts after the Kirtland bank failure. Oliver was excommunicated in absentia by the high council at Far West, Missouri. In the fall of 1838 he moved from Missouri back to Kirtland.

In early 1840, Oliver began practicing as an attorney in Ohio. In the fall of 1840 he moved from Kirtland to Tiffin, Ohio, and practiced law there. He also became a prominent civic leader and ardent Democrat.

Oliver’s good friend and Brother-in-law Phineas H. Young—Brigham’s brother— visited Oliver in Tiffin. Phineas reported to Brigham and the Twelve that Oliver’s”heart is still with us.” Phineas made consistent efforts over the next six years to effect Oliver’s reconciliation. In October 1845, Oliver wrote to Brigh Young and offered legal and personal services to the Church. Late in 1846 Oliver traveled to Wahington, D.C., to visit political contacts for the Church.

In April 1847 Oliver moved from Tiffin to Elkhorn, Wisconsin, and practiced law there with his brother Lyman. There he was almost elected to the first state legislature in spite of newspaper accounts ridiculing him for declaring his declarations of seeing an angel and the Book of Mormon plates.

In late 1847 he received a letter from Brigham Young and the Twelve (by way of Phineas Young) inviting him to be rebaptized. He responded favorably to Brigham’s letter in February 1848. In October, 1848, he left Elkhorn, and on the 21st of October he bore his testimony to the saints camped near Council Bluffs, Iowa. He was rebaptized by Apostle Orson Hyde, president of the Quorum of the Twelve, on November 12, 1848.

Because Oliver and his family had started for Council Bluffs late in the season, they were forced to winter in Richmond, Missouri, where most of the Whitmer family lived. They traveled to Richmond in January 1849. Letters throughout 1849 repeated Oliver’s hope to move west and also disclosed his lack of means. In June 1849 he informed Phineas that he would not be able to travel to the Great basin that year, as he had planned. Oliver’s health steadily deteriorated in the summer of 1849, probably from the effects of tuberculosis. He reported coughing up blood, a long term respiratory condition. On March 3, 1850, Oliver died at the age of 43 in Richmond, Missouri. He reaffirmed his testimony of the Book of Mormon on his deathbed.

In Oliver’s ten years outside the Church, he never succumbed to the considerable external pressures to deny his testimony of the Book of Mormon. Letters to his LDS relatives show that he was hurt at the church’s rejection but remained a deep believer. David Whitmer and other relatives living near Oliver in his final year claimed that he disagreed with many Kirtland and Nauvoo doctrines, but Oliver’s documented criticisms at this time concerned only intolerance and a continuing concern about polygamy. Although David Whitmer considered Joseph a fallen prophet, in 1848 Oliver said publicly and privately “that Joseph Smith had fulfilled his mission faithfully before God until death” (George A. Smith to Orson Pratt, MS 11 [October 29, 1848]: 14), and “that the priesthood was with this people, and the Twelve were the only men that could lead the Church after the death of Joseph” (Anderson, Improvement Era, November 1968, 18). In his last know letter, Oliver accepted an assignment from the Twelve to lobby in Washington and acknowledge the leadership of the “good brethren of the [Salt Lake] valley” (Gunn, Stanley R. Oliver Cowdery, Second Elder and Scribe. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1962, 261).

Oliver’s wife, Elizabeth Ann Whitmer Cowdery (1815-1892) had known him when he was taking dictation during the translation of the Book of Mormon, before their marriage. She said of his lifelong commitment: “He always without one doubt . . . affirmed the divinity and truth of the Book of Mormon” (Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981, 63). This confidence stood the test of persecution, poverty, loss of status, failing health, and the tragic deaths of five of his six children. He penned his inner hopes to fellow witness David Whitmer: “Let the Lord vindicate our characters, and cause our testimony to shine, and then will men be saved in his kingdom” (Oliver Cowdery to David Whitmer, July 28, 1847, Ensign of Liberty, 1:92).

#Specific Accusations Made Against Oliver Cowdery

Let us now carefully consider the merits of each of several specific accusations leveled against Oliver Cowdery and his family.

#The Smiths and Cowderys were Involved in the Woodscrape

The specific charge made by detractors of the Church is that Joseph Smith Sr. and William Cowdery (the fathers of Joseph and Oliver) participated in a divining-rod incident known as the “Wood Scrape,” forming associations that impacted their sons’ founding of the Church a quarter of a century later.

Chronology of the Cowdery family in Vermont and New York. For a chronology of the family of Oliver and Oliver himself in Vermont and New York, see the “Brief Biography of Oliver Cowdery” above.

Chronology of the Smith family in Massachusetts, Vermont, and New York. Joseph Smith Sr. was born in Topsfield, Massachusetts, July 12, 1771. As a young man, he moved with his parents to Tunbridge, Vermont, where he met Lucy Mack. They were married January 24, 1796, in Tunbridge. The couple began married life as part owners in the Asael (Joseph Sr.’s father) Smith farm and received a $1,000 wedding present from Lucy’s brother Stephen and his business partner, John Mudget. Joseph and Lucy’s finances declined, however, after they opened a mercantile store in Randolph and invested in ginseng, a root that grew wild in Vermont and was prized in China as a medicine. A failed exporting venture required them to sell their farm and sacrifice their wedding gift to pay their debts. Now tenants instead of landowners, beginning in 1803, they moved from one rented farm to another in Vermont and New Hampshire. Joseph Smith Jr. was born December 23, 1805 in Sharon, Vermont, near Tunbridge. After three successive crop failures in Norwich, Vermont, they moved to Palmyra, New York, in 1816.

Insert map: Locations in Vermont and New York pertinent to the early life of Oliver Cowdery

The Wood Scrape. Nathaniel Wood, a preacher who had tried unsuccessfully to become pastor of Middletown’s Congregational Church, and several of his relatives broke from the Congregational Church and claimed they were “modern Israelites.” In 1799, the Wood movement was gathering momentum. There is some suggestion that an unsavory character named either Winchell or Wingate arrived in Middletown. He was said to be a fugitive and a counterfeiter. He joined with the Wood group and is thought to have introduced them to the divining rod. Apparently under Winchell’s tutelage, the practice of divination was engaged in with increasing enthusiasm. The group began digging for hidden treasures, searching for missing persons, and predicting things to come. This practice reached a frenzied peak on January 14, 1802. The Wood group had predicted an apocalyptic earthquake and massive destruction carried out by “destroying angels.” There was no sleep that night by anyone in Middletown. But no earthquake occurred. The disgraced Wood group bolted to New York. Winchell was “warned out” of Middletown. This episode in January 1802 has been referred to as the “Wood Scrape.” The word scrape in this label, seems to refer to an embarrassing or distressing situation—one of the meanings of scrape.

It may be evidenced that there is no compelling evidence whatever that either William Cowdery or Joseph Smith Sr. was involved with the “New Israelites.” It is notable that the Wood Scrape occurred seven years before the William Cowdery family moved to Middletown (early in 1809). Vermont civic and religious records from 1802 place Joseph Sr.’s family across the state in Tunbridge, Vermont, through the birth of Sophronia in May 1803. Thus, at the time of the Wood Scrape, Joseph Smith Sr. was a young married farmer some fifty miles from Middleton in Tunbridge or nearby Randolph.

The earliest church critic to suggest a relationship between the Wood Scrape and the origins of Mormonism was nineteenth-century Middletown historian Barnes Frisbie (History of Middletown). Frisbie claimed that Joseph Smith Sr. and William Cowdery were both involved with the Wood group and with Winchell (Wingate) in Vermont around 1800 and that they resumed that association two decades later in New York. He wrote:

There we find these men [Joseph Smith Sr. and William Cowdery] with the counterfeiter, Winchell, searching for money over the hills and mountains with the hazel rod, and their sons Joe and Oliver, as soon as they were old enough, were in the same business, and continued in it until they brought out the “vilest scheme that ever cursed the country” (Ibid., 62).

Frisbie himself, however, admitted that the evidence for these claims was thin. Describing Joseph Sr.’s involvement in the Scrape, Frisbie wrote, “I have been told that [he] resided in Poultney . . . and that he was in it [the Wood movement]. . . . Of this I cannot speak positively, for the want fo satisfactory evidence” (Ibid.). Similarly, Frisbie, in an obviously ambivalent statement, could not place William Cowdery directly in the Wood movement but was wont to suggest an ongoing relationship between William Cowdery and Winchell:

Winchell, I have been told, was a friend and acquaintance of Cowdery’s, but of this I cannot be positive. They were intimate afterwards . . . Winchell stayed at Cowdery’s some little time, keeping himself concealed (Ibid., 46-47).

Richard Lloyd Anderson pointed out that in Frisbie’s reporting of the Wood Scrape incident, he offered a detailed description of the incident—with specific names, dates, and locations—but said nothing at all about Smith or Cowdery. Frisbie also explained that before 1860 he interviewed more than thirty men and women who were living in Middletown in 1800. According to Frisbie’s summary, these survivors said nothing of a counterfeiter or of William Cowdery (Ibid. 42-63).

In spite of the absence of real historical evidence, a modern-day historian and church critic, D. Michael Quinn (Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, 116-135) decided to revive a Winchell-Smith-Cowdery association. Quinn considers it “likely” that Winchell mentored the Smiths in the occult and that Oliver Cowdery’s “gift of working with the rod” (see D&C 8:6-7) came by way of Winchell’s influence on William Cowdery (Ibid., 37). Implicit in these conclusions are Quinn’s assumptions that:

1. William Cowdery was involved in the Wood Scrape.

William Cowdery was never actually identified as a rodsman or as a participant in the Wood Scrape. Quinn’t assertion that William was “described as a divining rodsman by his Vermon neighbors” (Ibid., 318) in not accurate. Frisbie claimed only that Winchell briefly stayed with Cowdery three years before the Wood Scrape, and Frisbie was uncertain whether Winchell used the rod at that time. Frisbie, therefore, had jumped to a conclusion when he argued that “Oliver Cowdery’s father was in the Wood Scrape” (Ibid., 62). Quinn compounds this mistake by frequently asserting that Cowdery was identified as a Vermont rodsman.

It is obvious that even if William Cowdery knew Winchell (someone who knew Nathaniel Wood) that does not mean that Cowdery was a participant in the Wood Scrape.

Following the Wood Scrape incident Winchell was “warned out” of Middletown, and the Woods were pressured to leave “seeing the ‘slow moving finger of scorn’ pointed towards them from all their neighbors; and fearing, moveover, that the heavy hand of the law would all on them for their misdeeds” (“The Rodsmen,” Vermont American). Meanwhile Cowdery went about his business in Wells and appears to have been a respected citizen both before and after the Wood Scrape. In 1803, a year after the Wood Scrape, he was named as a surveyor of highways, a position he had held in the previous decade. After leaving Wells, Cowdery moved to Middletown, the last place one would expect a disgraced rodsman to go. And, in contrast to Nathaniel Wood’s excommunication from the Middletown Congregational Church, William was married to Middletown resident Keziah Austin in the same church, by Congregational minister Henry Bigelow, whom Frisbie called “truly orthodox, and firm in his religious sentiments” (History of Middletown, 93). Nor can William and Keziah’s move to New York be taken as an attempt to flee Middletown, because they returned three years later and remained in Middletown for another four years.

2. William Cowdery gained knowledge of working with the rod from Winchell and transmitted that knowledge to Oliver.

Quinn himself noted, “The historical record is silent about how or when Oliver Cowdery obrained the divining rod he was already using for revelation before April 1829” (Magic World View, 38). In fact, a revelation given to Joseph Smith within weeks of Oliver’s arrival in Pennsylvania in April 1820 offers all that is known on this subject (see D&C 8:6-7). Here it should be noted that the use of rods and stones was common in New England at that time. It is certainly possible, and even probable, that Oliver— and Joseph Jr. and Joseph Sr. for that matter—were using rods and stones as were many of their New England contemporaries. This does not mean that Winchell had anything to do with it.

3. Joseph Sr. moved temporarily from eastern to western Vermont around 1800 and also got involved in the Wood Scrape.

It is a simple fact that Joseph Sr.’s well-documented history does not include a move to Poultney, Vermont. The historian Frisbie asserted (based on an unidentified source who offered no specific details) that Joseph Sr. lived in Poultney and participated in the Wood Scrape). This hardly constitutes a basis for Quinn’s writing that Joseph Sr. “may have visited Poultney or Middletown while the Wood movement was developing from the spring of 1800 to January 1802” (Magic World View, 125). Vermont civic and religious records place Joseph Sr. across the state in Tunbridge from 1798 (birth of Alvin) to 1802 (birth of Sophronia).

Quinn has searched public records for the name Joseph Smith. He points out that the name listed as Joseph Smith in the 1800 Tunbridge census does not really match the description of Joseph Sr.’s family. Another historian Dan Vogel has observed that Lucy Mack Smith indicated that the family at the time had relocated temporarily to Randolph, Vermont (about ten miles northwest of Tunbridge). Vogel suggests that the family could have been in transit when the census was taken. Quinn also alleges that a Joseph Smith was listed in the 1800 census for Poultney. But that Joseph Smith had been a long time resident of Poultney and was obviously not our Joseph Smith Sr. Also in Lucy Mack’s history, which is full of names and dates, she never mentions Rutland County or Poultney. Quinn’s allegations are obviously based on baseless assumptions.

4. Joseph Sr. was reunited with Winchell in New York in the early 1820s.

Historical evidence which might suggest Winchell’s presence in New York is simply non-existent. Quinn has found evidence that three years after the Smith family moved to New York, the Palmyra Register noted that the post office was holding an unclaimed letter for a “Justus Winchell.” A similar notice appeared in the Wayne Sentinel almost five years later (July 7, 1824). Quinn finds this to be evidence that “Winchell followed Joseph Sr. from Vermont to New York” and that Winchell was an occult mentor for the Smiths. Two unclaimed letters over a five-year period do not prove residence and may point to the very opposite. Also no case has been made that this “Justus Winchell” was the same who lived in Middletown, Vermont in 1802. Finally, there in nothing that links a Winchell with the New York money-digging activities. It is particularly telling that the manifold affidavits collected by the likes of Philastus Hurbut, Chester C. Thorne, and Arthus B. Deming—all of whom sought to link the Smiths with shady occult practices, money digging, and fraud (the very accusations made aginst Winchell in Vermont)—say nothing about anyone name Winchell.

Nor can William Cowdery be linked with Winchell in New York. This is a crucial point because Quinn relies heavily on Frisbie, who insists that Winchell, Smith, and Cowdery were in the Wood Scrape in Vermont and were reunited in Palmyra. But, according to Quinn, Winchell’s alleged Palmyra residence did not begin until 1819 and ended with his death in 1823. William and Oliver Cowdery were clearly in Vermont during this period, as demonstrated above. Oliver moved to New York in 1825, and William did so in 1827.

Quinn is left without historical support in his claims. Historian David M Ludlum states the case succinctly: “The strands of connection between the Wood Scrape and the Palmyra outcroppings are too tenuous to withstand historical criticism” (Social Ferment in Vermont, 1791-1850 [New York: Columbia University Press, 1939; New York: AMS Press, 1966], cited in Quinn, Magic World View, 386).

We may summarize by concluding that D. Michael Quinn has no real historical evidence for any of these four assumptions.

Oliver Enabled Joseph Jr. to Use View of the Hebrews as a Basis for the Book of Mormon

Specifically, anti-Mormons have charged that Oliver and his family were associated with Ethan Smith, the author of View of the Hebrews. They passed on knowledge of the book—or a copy of the book itself—to Joseph who borrowed freely from it in producing the Book of Mormon. Ethan Smith (1762-1849), no relation to Joseph, was a prominent New England minister who published a number of sermons and books. From 1821 to 1826 he served as a minister of the Poultney, Vermont, Congregational Church, and during that period published his best-known work, View of the Hebrews. This book “combines scriptural citations and reports from various observers among American Indians and Jews to support the claim that the Indians were the descendants of the Lost Ten Tribes of Israel” (Richard C. Roberts, “View of the Hebrews” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow [New York: Macmillan, 1992], 41509). By the early twentieth century, and down to the 1980s, suggestions of a relationship between View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon were made by several authors.

Frankly, this argument has always had an element of comedy about it. Let us consider a hypothetical example. Let us say we were to learn that prior to the Russian author, Leo Tolstoy’s, writing and publishing his classic novel War and Peace in 1869, he discovered a document that contained a nuance about the French-Russian war of 1812 that was previously not widely know. And in his novel, which centers on that conflict, he mentioned that detail. Would it then be reasonable to conclude that Tolstoy was enabled to write his magnum opus novel because of learning that detail? Was that esoteric point a significant factor in his being able to write the novel? Might he not have written his novel had he not come across that heretofore unknown aspect? Consider the staggering complexity and historical importance of his novel and compare that with the role of some heretofore unknown detail that Tolstoy was able to include in his novel. In an analogous way, just exactly how might the book View of the Hebrews which suggested Israelite origins for American Indians have enabled, or in any way assisted, Joseph to write the Book of Mormon? The Book of Mormon contains a comparable complexity to Tolstoy’s book. This complexity and uncanny internal consistency has been well documented over the past twenty-five years. It has little to do with the isolated fact that some American Indians might have Israelite origins. Just as Tolstoy’s War and Peace is much grander than the details of the French-Russian war, so is the Book of Mormon exceedingly more splendid, complex, and important than the idea that some American Indians came from Israelite stock.

Though it seems almost unnecessary, I will summarize any evidence for or against a timely View of the Hebrews-Oliver Cowdery-Joseph Smith connection. To be credible, the connection must have been timely. Both Oliver and Joseph have claimed that they had not met prior to Oliver’s arriving in Harmony, Pennsylvania on April 5, 1829. Joseph and Oliver began the translation of the book two days later. The translation was nonstop. There was not time for creating or writing. A delivery of the book View of the Hebrews on April 5, 1829 would not have given Joseph sufficient time to compose the Book of Mormon from that “vital” information contained in Ethan Smith’s book. Joseph’s exposure to Smith’s book would have to have been well prior to April 1829.

Frankly, it matters little whether or not Joseph knew of Ethan Smith’s book and its contents. It is simply not pertinent to the creation of the Book of Mormon which has been abundantly corroborated and rendered unimpeachably valid by modern evidences. See chapter , Book of Mormon Evidences—I Promise You.

What is documented is that Ethan Smith was pastor of the Congregational Church in Poultney from 1821 to 1826. The William Cowdery family lived in Poultney from 1818 to 1827. Oliver Cowdery actually lived there from 1818 to 1825, except he lived with Arunah Glass between 1820 and 1822 in Wells, Vermont, while he attended school in Wells. Also found is a baptismal record of three of William Cowdery’s children from 1818, in that Congregational Church. This was three years before Ethan Smith became the minister or pastor. There is no evidence of Oliver Cowdery’s being in New York prior to 1825, and no evidence of his meeting anyone in Joseph Smith Sr.’s family prior to 1828.

All of this does not prove that the Cowderys , including Oliver did or did not know Ethan Smith or his book, View of the Hebrews. Anyone who says the Cowderys did or did not is simply without objective evidence. Biases exist in both directions, but all is mere baseless speculation.

A recent—and frankly surprising—attempt to link Joseph Smith with View of the Hebrews through Oliver Cowdery has been attempted by Richard S. Van Wagoner (Sydney Rigdon, 455-56). His creativity is interesting in supposing that Oliver was a “traveling agent” in Vermont and New York for the Poultney printing firm of Smith & Shute, the company that printed View of the Hebrews. Van Wagoner speculates that Oliver “had copies of View of the Hebrews in his knapsack when he visited . . . the Smiths” in New York. This, in Van Wagoner’s estimation, explains how Joseph, in the autumn of 1823, began telling his family interesting details about the ancient inhabitants of America. Van Wagoner is completely without the support of any primary documents in this. And besides, Oliver would only have been sixteen years old in the autumn of 1823, and it is unlikely a sixteen-year-old would be hired as a traveling salesman.

#Oliver Had a Vital Role in the Solomon Spalding Gold Bible Conspiracy

For most of the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century, those who rejected Joseph Smith’s account of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon argued that the Book of Mormon narrative was based upon an unpublished romance written by a former minister named Solomon Spalding. Proponents of this theory argued that by some means Sidney Rigdon obtained a copy of this manuscript to which he added additional religious material and then had Joseph Smith publish the manuscript as the Book of Mormon. One of the many weaknesses of this theory is that it inadequately explains how Rigdon, who was living in Western Ohio at the time the Book of Mormon was translated and published, could have interacted with Joseph Smith who live hundreds of miles away in New York. Although the Spalding theory has largely fallen out of favor, a few zealous critics have recently tried to resurrect this explanation. Three contemporary authors, Wayne L. Cowdrey, Howard A. Davis, and Arthur Vanick claim that Oliver was responsible for bringing Rigdon and Joseph Smith together. They make their argument for this claim in chapters 8, 9 and 10 of their book, Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon? The Spalding Enigma. To examine this claim, I have drawn heavily from Matthew Roper’s review of the book in FARMS Review, 17/2 (2005): 7-140.

These three Spalding advocates argue that Oliver could have provided a missing link between Sidney Rigdon in Ohio and Joseph Smith in New York. In order to bolster this theory these critics have tried to place Oliver near Palmyra, New York, in the early 1820s—1820 to 1822—where he could have conspired with and helped the Smith family in such an endeavor. The issue of just how this remarkably itinerant Oliver Cowdery might have made contact with Sidney Rigdon in Kirtland, Ohio, in the early 1820s seems to have been ignored by Cowdrey, Davis, and Vanick.

The three authors appear to be inclined to see conspiracies everywhere. For example, they claim that the history of Oliver’s life in the early 1820s contains a significant gap. They also claim that LDS scholars have not really made an honest effort to uncover “who this man [Oliver Cowdery] was” (Ibid., 210). Matthew Roper wrote, “Their claims are misconceived. There is a substantial literature on Oliver Cowdery of which the authors show little or no awareness and with which they make little attempt to engage” (FARMS Review, 17/2 [2005]: 7-140).

It should be noted that there is no primary source evidence whatever that Oliver Cowdery was in New York prior to 1825. As is noted above, Oliver’s younger sister Lucy described his childhood: “Oliver was brought up in Poultney, Rutland County, Vermont, and when he arrived at the age of twenty, he went to the state of New York, where his older brothers were married and settled. . . . Oliver’s occupation was clerking in a store until 1829, when he taught the district school in the town of Manchester” (Lucy

Cowdery Young to Andrew Jenson, March 7, 1887, Church Archives). Oliver’s initial move to New York, then, would have been about 1825. Cowdrey, Davis, and Vanick assert that Lucy was mistaken about this, but there exists no primary source evidence to refute her recollections.

The three authors have based their case for Oliver’s being in New York prior to 1825 on two newspaper articles and a book containing a history of western New York during that period. In November 1830, when Oliver along with Parley P. Pratt, Peter Whitmer, Jr., and Ziba Peterson, visited western Ohio on their way to Missouri to fulfill a mission to the Lamanites, an article appeared in the Cleveland Herald. The author of the article—probably the editor, John St. John—had noticed the name of Oliver Cowdery in some of the newspaper descriptions of the missionaries activities. They had commented on Oliver’s being one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon. St. John wrote:

On reading the name of Oliver Cowdry [sic], in support of the divine authenticity of the work [Mormonism], whatever faith we might have been inspired with on reading the certificate [the Testimony of the Three Witnesses], was banished, for we had known Cowdry some seven or eight years ago, when he was a dabbler in the art of Printing, and principally occupied in writing and printing pamphlets, with which, as a pedestrian pedlar he visited the towns and villages of western New York and Canada (“The Golden Bible,” Cleveland Herald, November 25, 1830).

In what was likely simply an echo of this earlier article, the Lockport Balance in New York printed another piece in 1832 on Mormonism. The author, probably the editor Orasmus Turner, portrayed the Book of Mormon witness, without further explanation, as “an itinerant pamphlet pedlar, and occasionally, a journeyman printer, named Oliver Cowdry” (“Mormonism,” Lockport Balance, ca. September 1832; reprinted in the Boston Recorder, October 10, 1832).

In 1849, this same Orasmus Turner published a local history of western New York in which he described early settlers and pioneers of the region. In a short sketch of the town of Albion, New York, near Lockport, he recalled, “In 1823, it [the area of Albion] had sufficiently advanced to indicate the necessity of a press and newspaper, and Oliver Cowdery, (who has been the pioneer printer in at least a half dozen localities), took a part of the old battered ‘small pica’ [a printing press] that had been used in printing the Lockport Observatory, and adding to it indifferent materials from other sources, commenced the publication of the ‘Newport Patriot’” (Pioneer History of the Holland Purchase of Western New York [Buffalo: Jewett, Thomas, 1849], 658).

If correct, these two newspaper articles and Turner’s 1849 recollection would place Oliver in New York around 1822 or 1823, working there as a “pioneer printer” and “journeyman printer,” a veteran of various publishing ventures that included commencing a paper in Albion in 1823 and writing, publishing, and peddling pamphlets in western New York and Canada. Keep in mind that in October 1822, Oliver would have turned only sixteen years of age.

There is no evidence that Oliver was involved in printing before December 1829 when he provided some assistance in the preparation of the Book of Mormon for publication. In a letter to Joseph Smith in December 1829, Oliver wrote: “It may look rather strange to you to find that I have so soon become a printer” (Oliver Cowdery to Joseph Smith, December 28, 1829, in Richard L. Anderson and Scott H. Faulring, eds., Witness of the Second Elder: The Documentary History of Oliver Cowdery [Provo, UT; FARMS, 1999], 1:80). The clear implication here is that printing was a new experience for him. Moreover, it can be clearly shown that it was Franklin Cowdery, and not Oliver, who began publication of the Newport Patriot in 1822 (Milton W. Hamilton, The Country Printer: New York State, 1785-1830 [Port Washington, NY: Friedman, 1936], 266).

There is better explanation for these three sources—that have provided encouragement to the three anti-Mormon authors. Oliver Cowdery had an uncle in New York during those years named Franklin Cowdery who was in the printing business. It is likely that the two newspaper articles and the book mistakenly reported the activities of Franklin Cowdery and attributed them to his nephew Oliver. Franklin Cowdery was, indeed, a pioneer printer who engaged in numerous publishing ventures in New York from 1817 to 1848. These included the Moscow Advertiser and Livingston Farmer (1817), the Hamilton Recorder (1819-20), the Allegany Republican (1820-222), the News Record and Allegany Patron of Industry (1822), the Newport Patriot (1824-25— Turner was off by one year in his recollection), the Ontario Chronicle (1828-29), the Orleans Mercury (1832), the Cuylerville Telegraph (1847-48), the Genesee Olio (1847), and, in Ohio, the Oberlin Evangelist (1847).

It is not enough, though, to get Oliver Cowdery to New York in 1822. The authors also want to place him in or near Palmyra where he can conspire with the Smith family in the early 1820s. In order to bolster this claim, they cite an 1869 history of Vermont by Robert Parks. Parks recalled, “We well remember this same Oliver Cowdery when in our boyhood [in Wells, Vermont]. . . . He attended school in the District where we resided in 1821 and 1822 [in Wells]. He then went to Palmyra, N.Y.” (Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon? The Spalding Enigma, 237, italics added). Cowdrey, Davis, and Vanick interpret this as meaning that Oliver left Wells, Vermont, and arrived in Palmyra in late 1822 or 1823. We know that Oliver did go to Palmyra after he left Vermont. But we know he traveled to New York in 1825, living initially in Wayne County, New York, where he possibly lived with his brother Lyman in Lyons, a few miles northeast of Palmyra. It was not until later that he moved to Palmyra. We know that he began teaching school there in 1828. Parks wrote fifty years after the event. He could easily have meant by “then” any time from 1823 to 1828.

Cowdrey, Davis, and Vanick are, of course, anxious to place Oliver Cowdery in New York in the early 1820s. They attempt to use Orsamus Turner’s 1869 history of western New York in yet another way. Turner’s personal association with Joseph Smith and his family ended in 1822. In August of 1822 he moved from Palmyra to Lockport, New York, about one hundred miles north of Palmyra. He purchased the Lockport Observatory in August of 1822. Turner’s discussions of Mormonism are therefore based on a brief and early experience in Palmyra and subsequent hearsay. His comments are filled with sarcasm and permeated with a tone of ridicule. Richard L. Anderson wrote, “Turner’s personal recollections of Joseph Smith of necessity refer to the period prior to the late summer of 1822 and are probably no later than 1820, the latest date of Palmyra memoirs in his writings” (“Circumstantial Confirmation of the First Vision through Reminiscences,” BYU Studies 9, no. 3 [1969]: 378). Any observations recorded by Turner about the events in Palmyra subsequent to 1822 are recorded from the standpoint of a distant observer. For example, Turner wrote that after the death of Alvin Smith, “the mantle of the Prophet which Mrs. and Mr. Joseph Smith and one Oliver Cowdery, had wove of themselves—every thread of it—fell upon their next eldest son, Joseph Smith, Jr” (Turner, History of the Pioneer Settlement, 213). This, of course, is transfigured by the three authors into firsthand testimony for Oliver’s being in Palmyra in 1823. But Turner, at the time of the death of Alvin in 1823, was one hundred miles away in Lockport. There is no evidence that he was in Palmyra, must less that he was lurking at Alvin’s deathbed. Turner’s comments are only distant hearsay. While Turner describes firsthand experiences with Joseph Smith, he never gives any indication that he had so much as met Oliver Cowdery.

Matthew Roper concludes his analysis of Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon? The Spalding Enigma:

Based on dubious foundations, Cowdrey, Davis, and Vanick then embark on a series of bewildering speculations and irrelevancies as they opine where Oliver may have been and what he might have been doing. Maybe he was dousing with Walters the magician over in Sodus or Palmyra or wherever. Maybe he was scribing for William Morgan on his exposé of Freemasonry. This kind of thing can be fun, of course. Stacking each unproven assumption upon the previous unproven assumption, the authors construct an ugly theoretical caricature of Cowdery, a veritable castle in the clouds, but it has no foundation and the picture is a mirage. It is their wish list, not history. Those seeking to know the historical Oliver Cowdery will have to look elsewhere.

#Oliver Cowdery Was a Scribe for William Morgan

Morgan is the Mason who was kidnapped and killed after he became disaffected with the Masons and threatened to expose their secrets.

#Oliver Denied His Testimony Following His Excommunication from the Church

In a publication “Defense in a Rehearsal of My Grounds for Separating Myself from the Latter-day Saints,” Oliver supposedly admits that when John the Baptist appeared, he later realized that “John sounded a lot like Sidney Rigdon.” This pamphlet surfaced in 1906 and claimed that Oliver published it in 1839. Richard Anderson has analyzed this document point by point and has demonstrated that is a forgery. Jerald and Sandra Tanner not on their website that they knew this document was a forgery by 1967. This document need not be taken seriously.

When Oliver Returned to the Church in Council Bluffs, Iowa, It Wasn’t Really Oliver Who Presented Himself to the Saints

In a document called “A Confession of Oliver Overstreet,” this Oliver Overstreet claimed that he had been bribed to impersonate Oliver Cowdery in a return to the Church. This is even a clumsier forgery than that mentioned in the previous paragraph. This is easy to refute since when Oliver bore his testimony in Council Bluffs, there were several members of the congregation who had known him, his wife, and his daughter from the years before. Jerald and Sandra Tanner also have admitted that they know this document is a forgery.

Diaries and official minutes record Oliver Cowdery’s words in rejoining the Church. He sought only rebaptism and fellowship, not office. He publicly declared that he had seen and handled the Book of Mormon plates and that he was present with Joseph Smith on the occasions when “holy angels” restored the two priesthoods (Anderson, BYU Studies, 1968, 278).

#Oliver Believed He Retained the Keys of Priesthood Leadership Following Joseph’s Death

Oliver made this claim in a published letter to David Whitmer. Following his return to the Church, the high council questioned him closely on this matter. Apparently it was Oliver’s opinion that he had retained those keys. Oliver said that he changed him mind once he saw the revelation from the Lord giving all Oliver’s former keys to Hyrum Smith (see D&C 124:91-96). He said of this scriptural passage: “It was that revelation which changed my views on this subject” (Anderson, Improvement Era, November 1968, 19).

Oliver Cowdery Practiced Unauthorized Plural Marriage After He Was Told of the Doctrine by Joseph Smith

In an entry in Wilford Woodruff’s journal in 1857 we read, “President Young stayed 3 hours in compiling his history. He remarked that the revelation upon a plurality of wives that was given to Joseph Smith. He revealed it to Oliver Cowdery alone upon the solemn pledge that he would not reveal it or act upon it, but he did act upon it in a secret manner and that was the cause of his overthrow.”

In a note written in 1872 by Charles Walker who was reporting a speech of Brigham Young we read, “While Joseph and Oliver were translating the Book of Mormon they had a revelation that the order of Patriarchal Marriage and the Sealing was right. Oliver said to Joseph, ‘Why don’t we go into the Order of Polygamy, and practice it as the ancients did? We know it is true, then why delay?” Joseph’s reply was “I know that we know it is true, and from God, but the time has not yet come.’ This did not seem to suit Oliver, who expressed a determination to go into the order of Plural Marriage, anyhow, although he was ignorant of the order and pattern and the results. Joseph said, ‘Oliver if you go into this thing it is not with my faith or consent.’ Disregarding the counsel of Joseph, Oliver Cowdery took to wife Miss Annie Lyman cousin to George A. Smith. From that time he went into darkness and lost the spirit. Annie Lyman is still alive, a witness to these things.”

Several of the church scholars believe that Oliver did practice plural marriage in Kirtland between August 1833 and May 1834. This would have been before Joseph first entered into plural marriage with Fanny Alger. The problem with Brigham Young’s saying that from “that time he went into darkness and lost the spirit” just doesn’t fit at all because in December of 1834 he was ordained assistant President of the high priesthood. And in 1836 he saw the Savior with Joseph Smith.

On the other hand, Oliver wrote a letter July 24, 1846 to Daniel and Phoebe Jackson. Phoebe Jackson was Oliver’s sister. This letter was written before Oliver came back into the Church. In the letter he made a strong statement against the principle of plural marriage. In the letter, Oliver wrote:

Now, brother Daniel and sister Pheobe, what will you do? Has sister Pheobe written us the truth? and if so, will you venture with your little ones into the toils and fatigues of a long journey and that for the sake of finding a resting place, when you know of miseries of such magnitude as have, as will, and as must rend asunder the tenderest and holiest ties of domestic life? I can hardly think it possible that you have written us the truth, that though there may be individuals who are guilty of the iniquities spoken of—yet no such practice can be preached or adhered to as a public doctrine. Such may do for the followers of Muhammad; it may have been done some thousands of years ago; but no people professing to be governed by the pure and holy principles of the Lord Jesus, can hold up their heads before the world at this distance of time and be guilty of such folly, such wrong, such abomination. It will blast, like a mildew, their fairest prospects, and lay the ax at the root of their future happiness.”

The issue of whether or not Oliver practiced plural marriage is uncertain.

#Oliver Accused Joseph of Committing Adultery

Oliver wrote a letter to his elder brother, Warren in January 1838. He spoke of Joseph Smith and wrote:

When he was here we had some conversations in which, in every instance, I did not fail to affirm that what I had said was strictly true, a dirty nasty, filthy affair of his and Fanny Alger’s was talked over in which I strictly declared that I had never deviated from the truth of the matter and as I supposed was admitted by himself. At any rate just before leaving, he wanted to drop every past thing, in which had been a difficulty or difference. He called witnesses to the fact, gave me his hand in their presence, and I might have supposed of an honest man, calculated to say nothing of former matters.

Never believe that Oliver will disgrace the gray hairs of his father or the high sense of honor in the bosom of his brothers, so much as to acknowledge to Joseph Smith, Jr., that he has lied about him. There is something to damning in the thought. My former conduct towards him and that family, when they were poor, and hated, in giving the last cent of my honest earnings to save him from being turned into the streets, is so manifest in the memory of those who knew me at the time, and my course pursued in defending him before all men with my ability and talent, since speak sufficiently in my own heart and proclaim the honest integrity dwelling there too loudly to overlook unnoticed what is passed.

The rather awkwardly-worded passage is difficult for me to interpret in unequivocal detail, but there is no mistaking Oliver strong disapprobation of Joseph’s actions regarding Fanny Alger. It seems obvious that he was not aware that Joseph’s relationship with Alger was a plural marriage. Oliver’s reaction is a reason for concluding that he didn’t practice plural marriage himself. One argument used by those who felt Oliver did enter into plural marriage, prior to Joseph’s relationship with Fanny Alger, is that Oliver was angry that his own plural marriage was not approved, yet Joseph was able to take a second wife.

One author, Todd Compton, who wrote the book “In Sacred Loneliness” about Joseph Smith’s plural marriages, believes that Oliver Cowdery did not practice plural marriage at that time or at any time.

I’m afraid we are left without a clear answer on the matter of Oliver Cowdery’s ever practicing plural marriage. I believe the predominance of evidence suggests he did not, but there are quite compelling testimonies to the contrary.

#Oliver Renounced the Church and Joined the Methodist Church

This claim is basically traced to Charles Keen who lived in Tiffin, Ohio in the 1840s, where Oliver went after he was excommunicated. Keen wrote in 1885:

Mr. Cowdery opened a law office in Tiffin, and soon effected a partnership with Joel Wilson. In a few years Mr. Cowdery expressed a desire to associate himself with a Methodist Protestant church of this city. Reverend John Sounder and myself were appointed a committee to wait on Mr. Cowdery and confer with him respecting his connection with Mormonism and the Book of Mormon. We inquired of him if he had any objection to making a public recantation of Mormonism. He replied that he had objections; that in the first place it could do no good; that he had known several to do so, and they always regretted it; and in the second place it would have a tendency to draw public attention, invite criticism, and bring him into contempt. But he said, nevertheless, if the Methodists’ church requires it, I will submit to it. We did not demand it, but submitted his name to the church and he was admitted a member thereof. At that time he arose and addressed the audience present, admitted his error and implored forgiveness, and said he was sorry and ashamed of his connection with Mormonism. He continued his membership while he resided in Tiffin and became superintendent of the Sabbath-school, and led an exemplary life while he resided with us (Source: Affidavit of G. J. Keen, 1885, in Charles A. Shook, The True Origin of the Book of Mormon, 58-59).

This statement was made forty years after the fact and it’s unfortunate we don’t have a contemporary record. It would be most interesting to know exactly what Oliver said at that time. There is little question that Oliver did associate himself with the Methodists. A woman named Adeline Fuller Bernard apparently lived in the Cowdery home during the 1840s wrote: “I have often heard Mr. Cowdery say that Mormonism was the work of the Devil.” She made that statement in 1881.

We have then two statements that indicate Oliver Cowdery made negative statements about the Church. There is no question that in 1838 when he was excommunicated he felt he had been unjustly cut off from the Church and unjustly treated. At the time, his life and the lives of his family were threatened and all of his belongings were thrown out into the street and he left, along with the Whitmers, under very regrettable conditions. In some of his letters he refers to the High Council who excommunicated him pretty harshly. It could be that his negative statements about the Church were an understandable reaction to the circumstances of his excommunication.

It is interesting to contrast these negative statement about the Church with the statements of two other residents of Tiffin, William Gibson and William Lang. Gibson said, “I think it is absolutely certain that Mr. Cowdery, after his separation from the Mormons, never conversed on the subject with his most intimate friends and never by word or act, disclosed anything relating to the conception, development, or progress of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Lang also commented on whether or not Oliver ever openly denounced Mormonism: “Let me say this to you: No man ever knew better than he how to keep one’s own counsel. He would never allow any man to drag him into a conversation on the subject. . . . He suffered a great deal of abuse here because it was association with Mormonism on that account” (Source: William Lang to Thomas Gregg, 5 Nov 1881, cited from Charles A. Shook, The True Origin of The Book of Mormon [Cincinnati: Standard Publishing Co., 1914], 56-57).

In 1855, Brigham Young told the story of Oliver’s bearing his testimony of the Church while working in a court hearing as an attorney in Michigan:

A gentleman in Michigan said to him, when he was pleading law, “Mr. Cowdery, I see your name attached to this book; if you believe it to be true, why are you in Michigan?” The gentleman read over the names of the witnesses, and said, “Mr. Cowdery, do you believe this book?” “No, sir,” replied Oliver Cowdery. “That is very well, but your name is attached to it, and you say here that you saw an angel, and the plates from which this book is said to be translated, and now you say that you do not believe it. Which time were you right?” Mr. Cowdery replied, “There is my name attached to that book, and what I have there said that I saw, I know that I saw, and belief has nothing to do with it, for knowledge has swallowed up the belief that I had in the work, since I know it is true.” He gave this testimony when he was pleading law in Michigan. After he had left the Church he still believed “Mormonism;” and so it is with hundreds and thousands of others, and yet they do not live it (JD, 2:258).

There are actually several versions of this account told by several different witnesses. Some have it happening in Michigan. Others place it in Ohio or Illinois. Some of the dates and details do not match up. It is probably reasonable to conclude that the account of this incident rests on less than satisfactory grounds.

#Oliver Cowdery Was Emotionally “Unstable”

The anti-Mormon historian Dan Vogel wrote: “Cowdery was far from being a dispassionate teacher, lawyer described here, and at least during this early period of his life he was known to be unstable and given to obsessive and morbid thoughts. Also, like Harris and Whitmer, he had a hisrtory of visions prior to June of 1829. Considering his state of mind and visionary predisposition, his obsessive thoughts may have carried him to the point of delusion; at least, this possibility must be taken into consideration when assessing his role as one of the witnesses.”

Was Oliver unstable following his excommunication from the Church? Let us look at several statements made by individuals who knew him during this period and were not members of the Church.

From Tiffin, Ohio, “Oliver led an exemplary life while he resided with us” (Source: Affidavit of G. J. Keen, 1885, in Shook, Book of Mormon, 58-59).

“Cowdery was an able lawyer, and agreeable, irreproachable gentleman” (“Letter from General W. H. Gibson,” Seneca Advertiser).

He was an able lawyer, a fine orator, and led a blameless life, while residing in this city. His life was as pure and undefiled as that of the best of men. He was an able lawyer, a great advocate. His manners were easy and gentlemanly; he was polite, dignified, yet courteous. His addresses to the court and jury were characterized by a high order of oratory with brilliant and forensic force. He was modest and reserved, never spoke ill of anyone, never complained” (William Lang, History of Seneca County [Springfield, Ohio 1880], 365. For a fuller treatment of Cowdery’s ten years out of the Church see Anderson, “Oliver Cowdery, Esq.: His Non-Church Decade”).

“Mr. C. earned himself an enviable distinction at the bar of this place and of this judicial circuit, as a sound and able lawyer, as a citizen none could have been more esteemed. His honesty, integrity, and industry were worthy the imitation of all whilst his unquestioned legal abilities reflected credit as well upon himself as upon the profession of which he was a member” (Seneca Advertiser, May 5, 1848. This article was copied verbatim as a political endorsement in the Walworth County Democrat and then republished [May 30, 1848] by Horace A. Tenney in the Wisconsin Argus at Madison several weeks after Cowdery’s defeat).

A Wisconsin newspaper described Oliver as “a man of sterling integrity, sound and vigorous intellect, and every way worthy, honest and capable” (Wisconsin Argus, May 16, 1848).

When Oliver died in 1850, the local circuit court and bar honored him with a resolution: “In the death of our friend and brother, Oliver Cowdery, his profession has lost an accomplished member and the community a reliable and worth citizen” (Circuit Court Record, Ray County, Missouri, Book C, 190 [entry Mar. 5, 1850]).

These quotations suggest a solid, well-ordered individual who was hardly “unstable.”

Oliver’s friend William Lang said of Oliver: “[Joseph] Smith was killed while C [Oliver Cowdery] lived here. I well remember the effect upon his countenance when he read the news in my presence. He immediately took the paper over to his house to read to his wife. On his return to the office we had a long conversation on the subject, and I was surprised to hear him speak with so much kindness of a man that had so wronged him as Smith had. It elevated him greatly in my already high esteem, and proved to me more than ever the nobility of his nature. Cowdery never gave me a full history of the troubles of the Mormons in Missouri and Illinois” (Source: William Lang to Thomas Gregg, 5 Nov 1881, cited from Charles A. Shook, The True Origin of The Book of Mormon [Cincinnati: Standard Publishing Co., 1914], 56-57.).

The spirit of conviction in Oliver Cowdery’s own language was reiterated in an 1846 letter to Oliver’s brother-in-law, Phineas Young. This was written prior to Oliver’s return to the Church. Speaking privately and spontaneously, Oliver tied his personal integrity to his priesthood restoration testimony, one that stands on the same ground as his similar Book of Mormon testimony. In pleading that the printed record be set straight before his return to the Church, Oliver spoke pointed words applicable to anyone repeating the unsubstantiated libels to which he refers:

And that I may not be misunderstood, let me here say that I have only sought and only asked that my character might stand exonerated from those charges which imputed to me the crimes of theft, forgery, etc.—those which all my former associates knew to be false. I do not, I have never asked to be excused or exempted from an acknowledgment of any actual fault or wrong, for of these there are many, which it always was my pleasure to confess. I have cherished a hope, and that one of my fondest, that I might leave such a character, as to those who might believe in my testimony after I should be called hence, might do so, not only for the sake of the truth, but might not blush for the private character of the man who bore that testimony. I have been sensitive on this subject I admit, but I ought to be so. You would be under the circumstances, had you stood in the presence of John, with our departed Brother Joseph, to receive the Lesser Priesthood, and in the presence of Peter, to receive the Greater, and looked down through time, and witnessed the effects these two must produce. You would feel what you have never felt, were wicked men conspiring to lessen the effects of your testimony on man after you should have gone to your long sought rest (Oliver Cowdery to Phineas Young, Mar. 23, 1846, Tiffin, Ohio. The letter is transcribed quite accurately in Stanley R. Gunn, Oliver Cowdery [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1962], 250-51).

#Oliver Cowdery’s Excommunication

#Oliver Cowdery’s Rebaptism

#Conclusions

#CANADA

#VERMONT

#Randolph • •

Tunbridge

#•

Reading

#•

Poultney

#• Middletown

Lake Ontario

#• Wells

#• Williamson

#•

Palmyra

Lake Erie

#NEW YORK

Locations in Vermont and New York pertinent to the early life of Oliver Cowdery