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“We are blessed when all men speak evil of us falsely for Christ’s sake,” printed Joseph Smith in the Times and Seasons, the Church newspaper in Nauvoo. Yet in the same column one can sense Joseph’s exasperation with the unrestrained circulation of evil reports: “From 1830, when the Rochester Observer introduced the Book of Mormon to the world as ‘blasphemy,’ . . . the public has been sickened with fulsome, jejune, ex parte, and abusive accounts of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”[1] Joseph had learned quickly and early in the Restoration that the editors of the American newspaper press—there were approximately nineteen thousand documented newspapers in the United States in this era[2]—were not his friends, nor could they be trusted to tell his story, truth, or visions in his way.

The unexpected and harsh treatment Joseph experienced for his visionary experiences taught him to guard them, and especially the telling of them. He came to understand that the power and influence of the nineteenth-century press was unwieldy and fickle, and editors had potent motivations behind their typesetting. Joseph and the editors he chose for early Latter-day Saint newspapers were consistently incensed by the portrayals of the Church, its prophet, and members, and actively rebutted them. And for Joseph personally, the callous and careless inaccuracies in the retelling of his visions and visitations drove him to combat “the prejudices of a crooked and perverse generation” by publishing certified versions. Thus, the traveling elders, members, and newspaper readers of all persuasions would have

in their possession, the facts of my religious principles, which are misrepresented by almost all those whose crafts are in danger by the same; and also to aid those who are anxiously inquiring, and have been excited to do so from rumor, in ascertaining correctly, what my principles are. [3]

However, Joseph’s authorized accounts in a handful of Church newspapers faced the deluge of editors who printed, copied, and reprinted accounts of the Saints according to their purposes, ideals, prejudices, and commercial endeavors, which Joseph could neither prescribe nor predict.[4]

A powerful influence in nineteenth-century print culture in which Joseph and other editors participated and were enveloped was what American printers called the newspaper exchange. Congress passed the Post Office Act of 1792, which allowed newspaper editors to exchange their papers with other editors via the postal system without charge. The intent was to unify a geographically disparate and newly established country by enabling the free interchange of local and national news.[5] The newspaper exchange provides a fascinating historical lens because a newspaper article can be traced from city to city by publication dates and locations of the presses on which they were printed. Tracking this printing progression creates a veritable map of the exposure of the reading public to specific texts, including those about the early Latter-day Saints. Much like a drip in a pond that sends ripples outward, news originated on an identifiable press and spread through the country as editors, according to their own motives, copied, summarized, and appended the texts they reprinted.

This study examines the differences in the recounting of Joseph’s First Vision and Moroni’s visitations by American editors in 112 US newspaper articles from 1829 to 1844. They are drawn from nearly thirteen thousand newspaper articles that were written about Joseph and the Saints in that era.[6] Joseph’s own accounts and rebuttals to editors printed in Church newspapers illuminate which points of the visions were most treasured and considered by Joseph to be the key elements he desired others to know. I also identify the facets of the visitations that editors chose to reveal to their readers and that likely influenced their perception and attitude toward Joseph’s foundational visionary experiences.

Joseph’s First Vision Appears in American Newspapers

“On last Monday, in company with a friend, I paid a visit to Nauvoo, the far-famed kingdom of the ‘Latter-day Saints,’” reported David Nye White, senior editor of the Pittsburgh Gazette in the fall of 1843.[7] A former Warsaw, Illinois, newspaperman, White had returned to Nauvoo to interview Joseph. He described Joseph and Emma’s “very good garden,” fence, and humble-looking house. Joseph received his visitors “in quite a good humored, friendly manner . . . and said he hoped for a better acquaintance.”[8] White’s printed newspaper article of their conversation comprised a lengthy 468 lines of text, nearly an entire page of the four-page issue. Within the article, which meandered from a description of Nauvoo, the prairie, politics, and the temple with its baptismal font, was the first known printing of Joseph’s First Vision in a non–Latter-day Saint newspaper. It was also the first time Joseph introduced the detail that the location where he prayed in the grove was near the stump in which he had left his axe. White reported that Joseph spoke of his boyhood desire to know which church to join among the varying denominations and paraphrased James’s direction to ask God for wisdom. Joseph continued:

I just determined I’d ask him. I immediately went out into the woods where my father had a clearing, and went to the stump where I had stuck my axe when I had quit work, and I kneeled down, and prayed, saying, “O Lord, what Church shall I join.” Directly I saw a light, and then a glorious personage in the light, and then another personage, and the first personage said to the second, “Behold my beloved Son, hear him.” I then, addressed this second person, saying, “O Lord, what Church shall I join.” He replied, “don’t join any of them, they are all corrupt.” The vision then vanished, and when I come to myself, I was sprawling on my back; and it was sometime before my strength returned.[9]

The account of the vision was thirty-four lines long, a scant 7 percent of the total article text. For us, however, it reveals what Joseph considered to be the carefully chosen central and essential kernels of the vision given to a specific audience—an inquisitive nonbeliever with the ability to mass distribute it.

Despite White’s initial admiration of the outward appearance of Nauvoo and the Smiths’ home, his recounting of Joseph’s demeanor during their hour-long dialogue was sharply critical. He concluded his report saying that he had left Nauvoo “thankful that I had been preserved from such vain and unhappy delusions.” Yet, striking is the fact that White did not specifically address Joseph’s claim to have seen two glorious personages. White’s only commentary on Joseph’s revelatory claims was that the “eyes of his poor deluded followers . . . seem to be perfectly blinded . . . and yet he is venerated as the favorite of Heaven, and his revelations put on a par with divine writ.”[10] Joseph’s declaration that he had seen God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, went unremarked by White as he emphasized aspects of the Saints in Nauvoo more odious to himself and which he felt were more significant for his readers. His narrative, nevertheless, struck a chord. An anonymous contributor to the Nauvoo Neighbor under the pseudonym “Not the Prophet” labeled White’s rendering a “cumbrous mass, . . . a ‘diarrhea of words,’ [which was] made up, and mixed up, with truth and error; sense and non-sense.” After further rebuttal, the author cautioned exchange editors: “One word to publishers, that copy fabrications as they appear in such papers, as the Gazette, and all others that take the same course, ‘You do more to corrupt the morals and spoil the hearts of the people than intemperance and infidelity combined,’ for you, with a priestly smile, guile the community with a lie.”[11]

Twenty-three editors across seven states and Wisconsin Territory considered White’s article of enough import to their interests and that of their subscribers to reprint some aspect of it during the next six short weeks. White’s recounting of the First Vision is found unedited in seventeen newspapers in seven states—Pennsylvania (originating with White in Philadelphia and reprinted in Pittsburgh), Virginia (Washington, DC), New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. At the end of its travels through the newspaper exchange, it was read back west near the Saints in Illinois.[12] As with White, no editor drew any attention to Joseph’s vision, and five editors removed the vision entirely from their shorter reprint to focus on other matters (primarily political). The editor of the Batavia, New York, Spirit of the Times disregarded more than 450 lines of content to bestow upon his readers the mere thirteen-line description of Joseph’s “fine blue eye, large and sensual looking mouth and lips,” and “his manner, conversation, and appearance.”[13]

The spreading and thinning out of exchange articles were consistent characteristics of nineteenth-century print culture. The longer an article stayed in the exchange, the larger the gaps grew between succeeding reprints. Likewise, repeated articles became shorter. As Joseph knew, news is fleeting and without rekindling “gets cold.”[14] Such was the case with White’s article. American newspaper readers read the first journalist-recorded account of the First Vision on September 15, 1843, and, as quickly as it appeared, the article faded from print. Portions of White’s article were last seen in drastically reduced form in a Wisconsin newspaper on November 2, 1843,[15] only forty-eight days later—but with no mention of the First Vision.

Despite Joseph’s negative experiences with revealing his vision of Deity in the grove to public and priestly audiences, Joseph sought to publicize it in what he felt were controlled circumstances. He was aware of the reader-influencing value of prestigious newspapers and the far-reaching potential of the newspaper exchange. He and his editors published lavish praise to editors who offered the opportunity to tell his experiences in well-known venues or who circulated positive commentary on the Church: “Many of the most respectable, influential, and widely circulated periodicals are beginning to look at Mormonism in its true light: at any rate they are for investigating the subject impartially, and [are] honest and candid journalists. . . . We have always courted publicity, and investigation, and choose light rather than darkness.”[16]

Joseph availed himself of one such opportunity when Chicago Democrat editor John Wentworth requested his story for an acquaintance, George Barstow, who was compiling a history of New Hampshire. Neither Wentworth nor Barstow published his narrative, which included a formalized account of the First Vision. But seeing the potential of the draft, Joseph published the account in his serialized history in the Times and Seasons beginning in 1842.[17]

Joseph began by recognizing Barstow for having “taken the proper steps to obtain correct information.” Yet, knowing the potential of an unproven inquisitor with the power to disseminate falsehoods, Joseph stated, “All that I shall ask at his hands, is, that he publish the account entire, ungarnished, and without misrepresentation.”[18] Different from the spontaneous oral recitation to White, Joseph had the time and assistance to craft a polished account with expanded context.[19] After using twenty lines to describe the denominational conflict and his youthful confusion before quoting James’s directive, he continued:

I retired to a secret place in a grove and began to call upon the Lord, while fervently engaged in supplication my mind was taken away from the objects with which I was surrounded, and I was enwrapped in a heavenly vision and saw two glorious personages who exactly resembled each other in features, and likeness, surrounded with a brilliant light which eclipsed the sun at noon-day. They told me that all religious denominations were believing in incorrect doctrines, and that none of them was acknowledged of God as his church and kingdom. And I was expressly commanded to “go not after them,” at the same time receiving a promise that the fulness of the gospel should at some future time be made known unto me.[20]

This narrative was the first firsthand account recorded by Joseph Smith or under his direction for publication in a newspaper. It represents the Prophet’s formalized telling of his sacred experience intended for a believing audience.

The retelling of Joseph’s vision by unknown printers was subject to another influence outside his control. Editors of the nineteenth century had overt philosophical purposes for their newspapers that were evident in not only what they chose to print but how they framed the news.[21] For example, one of the first reprints of White’s article were found in the New York American, which included Joseph’s First Vision. The editor added an introductory paragraph wherein he cast to his readers his own derisive view of Joseph and the Saints. He queried, “But what must the people be, of which such an ignorant and profane babbler is the prophet?”[22] Editors’ framing of articles shaped readers’ perceptions before they could form their own opinions. Such biased supplementary text also entered the exchange and often accumulated as the article traveled, further influencing subscribers.

Similarly, but far more descriptive, was the New York Commercial Advertiser editor who ascribed to Joseph the same characteristics of other “successful imposters” who “were ignorant, uncouth in manners, [and] rude in speech” and employed religion to lead “thousands astray.”[23] His introductory paragraph to a nearly full reprint of White’s article comprised twenty-one lines of negative framing and implicated Joseph with debunked and criminal religious leaders of the time. This version of the article entered the newspaper exchange on a parallel path to the original. Editors of at least two other newspapers copied the Commercial Advertiser version with its newly affixed introduction, which was propagated to other newspapers in the exchange and their readers. Yet, placing a disbelieving lens before readers’ eyes didn’t require lengthy additions. The editor of the Pennsylvania Inquirer and National Gazette prejudiced his subscribers by presenting his castigation of Joseph’s life, claims, and personality in a simpler way. He added a brief heading of his own creation to White’s original title in bolded and enlarged type: “A Visit to the Mormon Impostor.”[24]

Just as the adversary pressed down upon Joseph in the grove to prevent or, at the least, stifle the world-changing vision, so was the viewing of Joseph’s First Vision by American newspaper readers both spread and stifled through the culture of nineteenth-century American print. Those who read of the encounter with the glorious personages, which editors neither specifically highlighted nor debated, found the account buried in a mass of generalized derision and unrelated content. Joseph was unable to control the retelling of his visions despite his careful guarding of the sacred experience and his meticulous rendering of the account in his authored texts and newspapers. Also, there is no indication at this time that either Joseph or his editors recognized or rebutted White’s transcription of the First Vision in the two Church organs, the Times and Seasons and the Nauvoo Neighbor. Thus, although the First Vision was read in newspapers by subscribers in seven states, it was seen only by those with eyes to see (Matthew 13:13–16), while ignored by most.

The Nation Meets Moroni

“This new Gospel . . . was discovered by an Angel of light, appearing in a dream to a man by the name of Smith, who, as directed, went to a certain place and dug from the earth a stone box, containing plates of gold, on which this gospel was engraved in characters unknown,” reported an Ohio newspaper seven years after the event occurred.[25] Moroni’s visitations to Joseph transpired in September 1823. The first known publication of the encounter was printed by the editor of the New York Palmyra Freeman in August 1829, and the article was reprinted in quick succession by nine more exchange newspapers in the Northeast:

In the fall of 1827, a person by the name of Joseph Smith, of Manchester, Ontario county, reported that he had been visited in a dream by the spirit of the Almighty, and informed that in a certain hill in that town, was deposited this Golden Bible, containing an ancient record of a divine nature and origin. After having been thrice thus visited, as he states he proceeded to the spot, and after having penetrated “mother earth” a short distance, the Bible was found, together with a huge pair of spectacles![26]

Far different from the meager newspaper life of the First Vision, accounts of the visitation of Moroni appeared and reappeared through the exchange no fewer than ninety-five times from September 1829 to May 1844 in the United States and in England, an average of six times per year for fifteen years. The variations of the story are as numerous as the publications. One editor commented, “In relation to the finding of the plates and the taking the engraving, a number of ridiculous stories are told.”[27] Exchange editors repeated the observation and the stories.

As with the First Vision, it is beneficial to study Joseph’s own published compositions for the details of Moroni’s visit to gain an understanding of what he most valued and desired to share with others. An intriguing scholarly review of the varied content of Joseph’s histories, their intertwining, and his degree of authorship is available from the historians of The Joseph Smith Papers.[28] One of these, the narrative Joseph prepared for John Wentworth, editor of the Chicago Democrat, and his associate George Barstow, is an ideal example of the content and manner of conveyance Joseph created for what he hoped would be widespread readership likely with limited knowledge of the Restoration. His script needed to be concise—book page counts and newspaper column inches were finite, and publishers selected content directly related to their editorial philosophies and fiscal interests.[29] The constrained lengths inherent in publishing influenced Joseph to pinpoint and highlight the key truths he wanted understood about his encounter. The resulting text, although not published by Wentworth or Barstow, was directly usable for Church member subscribers. It was printed in the invaluable Nauvoo Church newspaper, the Times and Seasons, perhaps with the hope that it might still enter the newspaper exchange.

Joseph began this adaptation by reciting the date of Moroni’s first visit, September 21, 1823, and continued the experience without the context found in longer versions:

While I was praying unto God, and endeavoring to exercise faith in the precious promises of scripture on a sudden a light like that of day, only of a far purer and more glorious appearance, and brightness burst into the room, indeed the first sight was as though the house was filled with consuming fire; the appearance produced a shock that affected the whole body; in a moment a personage stood before me surrounded with a glory yet greater than that with which I was already surrounded.[30]

“This messenger,” Joseph continued, “proclaimed himself to be an angel of God sent to bring the joyful tidings” in the preparatory work of preaching the gospel for the “second coming of the Messiah” and the millennial reign. “I was informed that I was chosen to be an instrument in the hands of God to bring about some of his purposes in this glorious dispensation.” The messenger informed Joseph “concerning the aboriginal inhabitants of this country” and that “there was deposited some plates on which were engraven an abridgement of the records of the ancient prophets that had existed on this continent.” Joseph starkly abbreviated Moroni’s following multiple visits and the obtaining of the plates four years later in only eight lines, concluding with “on the morning of the 22d of September A. D. 1827, the angel of the Lord delivered the records into my hands.”[31]

Joseph spent twenty-one lines describing the plates, “which had the appearance of gold.” Each page was six inches wide by eight inches long, “not quite so thick as common tin,” and the pages were bound with three rings “as the leaves of a book.” The volume was nearly six inches thick and had a sealed portion; the unsealed part was filled with small characters “beautifully engraved” with “much skill.” Accompanying the records was “a curious instrument which the ancients called ‘Urim and Thummim,’ which consisted of two transparent stones set in the rim of a bow fastened to a breastplate.” Joseph described the translation process succinctly: “Through the medium of the Urim and Thummim I translated the record by the gift, and power of God.”[32]

Joseph’s description of Moroni’s initial visit and obtaining the plates comprised seventy-one lines of carefully delineated details of the meeting and emphasized Moroni’s doctrinal exposition of the coming forth and content of the Book of Mormon.[33] On the other hand, American editors and their reading public were fascinated by the fantastic and mystical elements of the story. Largely absent from the exchange reprints were the spiritual teachings and implications of the angelic messenger who had, as Joseph recounted, arrived with joyful tidings of the forthcoming fulfillment of God’s covenant with ancient Israel. The captivating tales of the mysterious golden plates and the spirit who revealed their location were far more enthralling in nineteenth-century culture in which newspapers were read as much for entertainment as for information.

Abner Cole (whose pseudonym was Obadiah Dogberry) provides an example. Cole was editor of the Palmyra, New York, Reflector, which was printed at the same time (late 1829 to early 1830) and on the same press on which the Book of Mormon was printed.[34] He released a fabrication to his readers reminiscent of a modern-day screenplay. The “rogue of a spirit” was “a little old man with a long beard” who no sooner “delivered the book according to promise, than he made a most desperate attempt, to regain its possession.” Joseph, the story continued, “like a lad of true metal, stuck to his prize” and fled to his father’s dwelling. But “the spirit had become exasperated at the stubborn conduct of the young prophet . . . and out of sheer spite, raised a whirlwind . . . throwing trunks and limbs of trees, about their ears.” The “elfish sprite . . . belabored Jo soundly with blows,—had felled him once to the ground, and bruised him severely in his side.” Finally, Joseph escaped to safety having won the contest and concealed the treasures never to be seen by mortal eyes upon penalty of death. Cole reassured his readers that the tale “is well recollected by many of our citizens.”[35] Two newspapers in the exchange on a line stretching west 250 miles from Palmyra reprinted the Reflector story in rapid order in the two succeeding weeks.[36] Moroni appeared in the newspapers six times in the latter half of 1829, made a greater showing in 1830 with fifteen articles, and became regular fare in 1831—with the Reflector’s help—with forty appearances in twenty-six cities through twelve states, which was half the states in the Union in a single year.

Interest in the Saints in the newspapers swelled and receded in the years from the establishment of the Church in 1830 to Joseph’s death in 1844. When fascination piqued, there followed a recounting of the origin of the faith, which consistently began with the discovery of the plates. Editors in the four years from 1832 to 1835 printed about Joseph and the Saints in 1,053 articles in twenty-seven states and territories. But Moroni and the gold plates were featured in only ten articles, less than 1 percent. Then the New York Spectator resuscitated the story in July 1836—after a gap of more than a year since the previous mention—with familiar but sparse details: Joseph “was informed by an angel of certain plates of unspeakable value, and of the manner in which they might be obtained. But, as it is usual in such cases, he was opposed and thwarted for a long time by an evil spirit, and it was not until 1827 that they were finally obtained.”[37] In less than two weeks, the story traveled from one printing center of the nation, New York, to another 235 miles south, Washington, DC.[38]

During this 1836 renaissance of awareness, Truman Coe, an ill-fated neighbor of the Saints in Kirtland, wrote to the Ohio Observer his observations of the religious body. Coe professed to do so in the “cause of truth and righteousness [and] in the spirit of candor and christian charity,” although as a pastor in Kirtland he had lost many of his flock to the Church.[39] He penned, “Mormonism, it is well known, originated with Joseph Smith,” who had a “nocturnal vision and a wonderful display of celestial glory.” An angel descended and directed him to the buried plates “inscribed with hieroglyphics, and under them a breastplate, and under that a transparent stone or stones which was the Urim and Thummin mentioned by Moses.” Coe inaccurately reported that “the vision and the command were repeated four times that night and once on the following day.”

Coe then introduced a component of Joseph’s experience new to newspaper subscribers. Upon prying up the stone and discovering the shining gold plates, Joseph’s

cupidity was excited and he hoped to make himself rich by the discovery, although thus highly favored by the Lord. But for this sordid and unworthy motive, when he attempted to seize hold of the plates, they eluded his grasp and vanished, and he was obliged to go home without them. It was not till four years had elapsed, till he had humbled himself and prayed and cast away his selfishness that he obtained a new revelation and went and obtained the plates.[40]

Coe’s version of the encounter with Moroni was innocuous, yet readers were influenced by the other 320 lines of disdain in the article, summarized by Coe as follows: “On the whole, the vice of Mormonism must be accounted one of the most palpable and wide-spreading delusions which this country has ever seen; and nothing can equal the zeal of their leaders in its propagation.”[41]

The viewing of Moroni’s visitation was widened through the country’s readership by the unintentional collaboration of early Latter-day Saint missionaries and the press. Missionaries traversed the countryside rehearsing the unveiling of the Restoration through Joseph, and audience members transcribed the lectures for their local newspapers. “As the press is a medium through which to communicate information for public use, I have sent the following for that purpose,” wrote one B. Stokely in Pennsylvania who had heard the missionaries testify. Unaltered through its reprints, Stokely’s account traversed the exchange with details dictated by the missionaries both familiar and distinctively different from other embellished yarns circulating in the exchange. The inquiring Joseph “went to bed without any reply” but was “awakened by an angel, whiter and shining in greater splendor than the sun at noon day.” Joseph obtained the plates that were “about as thick as window glass or common tin, pure gold, and well secured by silver rings or loops in the box as an effectual defence against all weather.”[42] Unlike many other newspaper articles about Moroni’s visitation, the 172-line account was free of ridicule by both the author and the exchange editor 235 miles away.

Subscribers in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Maryland were told that the “golden plates” were unearthed from an “iron chest . . . deposited there by a wandering tribe of the Children of Israel [and] young Joe Smith was the chosen one of God to reveal this new ministry to the world—to be the second Messiah.”[43] In Connecticut and New York, readers read that the “new revelation [was] written in mysterious characters upon gold plates, [but] fortunately for this embryo of a new religious faith, a pair of spectacles, of strange and peculiar construction, were found with the plates to aid the optics of Jo. and his associates.”[44]

The editor of the Illinois Patriot diffused, far beyond the patrons of his paper in Jacksonville, rare elements of how Joseph translated the record. The editor’s report of “a preacher of this sect” whose lecture “occupied more than two hours” was picked up by the exchange and reprinted in seven additional states, some of them on the same date. The reproductions spread on multiple trajectories east through Ohio to Virginia and northeast to the national printing centers of Washington, DC, and New York. The known reprints farthest from the frontier Illinois paper made their appearance more than twelve hundred miles away in Rhode Island and New Hampshire—all in a time when newspapers were conveyed through the mail person to person and mile by mile on foot, horseback, stagecoach, or waterway. The editors informed their readers of the distinctive fact that Joseph found “two stones, with which he was enabled by placing them over his eyes and putting his head in a dark corner, to decipher the hieroglyphics on the plates!”[45] The alarmed New York Mercury editor who replicated the article prefaced his reprint with a harsh warning: “This sect . . . of those unfortunate lunatics, or mono-maniacs denominated Mormonites . . . is increasing in the West. . . . Families are in danger of being beguiled and severed by this specious heresy.”[46]

Joseph’s visions were a curiosity to newspaper readers whatever their language or culture. The Reading, Pennsylvania, German-language newspaper, Der Liberale Beobachter (The liberal observer), printed forty-four articles on the Saints from the paper’s inception in 1839 to the end of 1844. Among them was an 1843 article commenting on the alleged springtime discovery of “a chest of brass tablets” near Kinderhook, Illinois, seventy-two miles south of Nauvoo, which the editor reported to have been translated by Joseph.[47] The editor concluded his text sarcastically, highlighting the fact (translated into English) that the newest records were merely brass: “It appears that for now, that the loving God, because of the present evil times, is not allowing any more golden plates to be retrieved.”[48] The Liberale Beobachter was one of only two German-language newspapers in the region, which was the epicenter of Pennsylvania German culture at the time.[49] Joseph’s experiences were translated and transmitted to all interested eyes.

Of all the newspaper exchange reprints, the 1838 London, England, Observer article is the largest conflation of accounts. It reads as if it is a combination of all variations of Joseph’s history and the imagination of editors who embellished the stories. The editor, one of three in London who printed on the Saints that week,[50] quoted and summarized a narrative by an unnamed American writer. The author explained that “Joe Smith [was] an idiot, said to have been dumb [mute] from his birth.” On “one fine night he had a visit from an angel” who conducted him “to a remote and retired spot, where lay a large flat stone, having a ring in the middle of it.” He was commanded “the herculean task” of lifting the massive stone by the ring for which if he had sufficient faith, “God [would] instantly give him strength to perform [the feat].” When Joseph doubted, “the angel reproved him . . . and told him that even if the stone weighed ten thousand tons, divine assistance, through saving faith, would enable him to lift it.” Pacified, “Joe . . . grasped the ring, and found, to his astonishment, that the stone weighed as nothing in his hands!”[51]

The stone was a covering to a chest that contained “twelve golden plates or tables.” Atop them was “a pair of spectacles made of freestone,”[52] which after donning, “Joe’s tongue was loosened . . . and his intellects instantly became like those of other men.” The Observer article spent much of the 237 lines unfolding bizarre combinations of sagas about the translation of the gold plates, loss and retranslation of manuscript pages, publication of the Book of Mormon, and early Latter-day Saint history. The author remarked amid his scorn of the Saints that “they endure contempt and insult with a degree of patience worthy of a better cause, in favor of this only true faith.”[53] The London Observer editor reprinted his own entire article the following day but moved it from page 2 to page 3.[54]

The existence of the London Observer account is not surprising; American correspondents regularly sent news to England newspaper offices,[55] and conflict about the Saints was easily found in American papers. The unusual and significant aspect is that the Observer text was carried back across the Atlantic and printed in newspapers in at least Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, reentering and spreading the peculiar England rendering through the newspaper exchange.[56] In all, in the fifteen years from 1829 to 1844, accounts of Moroni’s visitation was found in ninety-five known newspaper articles across fourteen states and through forty-eight cities—half of the states in the Union—and England and Canada. Individuals, families, and communities not reached by early Latter-day Saint missionaries nevertheless knew of Moroni.

Conclusion

Joseph rejoiced at the inauguration of the first Church newspaper, The Evening and the Morning Star, that it was established “expressly to publish the truth, and the word of the Lord, that the saints might not be deceived.”[57] He ardently employed the authorized Church papers to publish authentic and carefully crafted accounts of some of his visions and visitations to the proportionally few believing subscribers. Yet he could not control the deception and derision that marked most of the printing by skeptical editors about him and those visionary experiences. The newspaper exchange multiplied the reach and effects of the nearly nineteen thousand newspapers published in the United States between 1830 and 1850. It magnified the printing philosophies and monetary motivations of the editors who shaped, edited, and annotated the viewing of Joseph Smith’s visions for their readers.

Subscribers across the country and in England were exposed to any number of adulterated perceptions of Joseph’s glorious encounters because of the powerful, pervading characteristics of nineteenth-century print culture. One editor observed of the Saints, “Scarcely a newspaper has been published throughout the western country during the last two or three years, which does not contain some tirade against, or account of, the follies and excesses of these deluded persons. Nor has the civil power been behind with the press in their prosecution and persecution. Accounts of Mormonist [events] are almost as common as advertisements for the sale of land.”[58] Some editors announced their determination to stay out of the swells of print about the Saints but, in exasperation, yielded: “It is not our intention to devote so much space hereafter to matters pertaining to the Saints; but we considered it due at this time. They are a part of the history of the times, and should be pondered by all parties.”[59]

Joseph’s First Vision and Moroni’s visitations were read by newspaper patrons from September 1829 to May 1844 (just before Joseph’s death) in no fewer than 112 articles in eighty-one newspapers through fifty-four cities and across fifteen states—nearly 60 percent of the twenty-six states in the Union with a population of less than twenty million. Much like the game of telephone wherein an original text changes with each iteration, the variations may not have surprised Joseph since he often lamented the perception-warping ability of editors. However, the means and culture of the nineteenth-century press enabled the widespread flow of Joseph’s visionary experiences through the veins of the newspaper exchange as the variations diffused into the young country.

Unlike the nineteenth century in which newspapers were the medium, the twenty-first century has seen the drastic decline of printed newspapers and notable reductions in journalism staff. Nevertheless, professional journalists, despite many of their unabashed and polarized views, are governed by expectations of accuracy developed through the twentieth century. The current digital age has, instead, filled the gap with “citizen journalism,” that is, people without journalistic training who publish information via countless social media and communication venues such as websites, blogs, podcasts, and apps.[60] As with editors of the nineteenth century, little or no oversight governs the claims and information pushed to consumers who swipe, scroll, click, and tap through the constantly streaming content. However, even the disclaimer “Important If True”[61]—used by nineteenth-century editors to shirk the responsibility of verifying their content—has been abandoned. Latter-day Saint history, doctrines, practices, and policies are routinely fabricated, parroted, and warped by critics, yet they are duplicated and distributed at the speed of electrons. The illusion of legitimacy results, as it did in Joseph’s day, from the quantity of repetition but is calculated today with numbers of hits and followers. Likes, views, shares, and unsubstantiated comments can perpetuate misperceptions and outright lies with long-term effects and create so-called crises of faith. One prominent Latter-day Saint scholar compared such intellectual dishonesty to zombies: “The same arguments reappear ad nauseam, no matter how often they’ve been refuted.”[62] “[They] just keep coming back.”[63]

Nevertheless, lessons from the past, summarized in the Times and Seasons masthead “Truth will Prevail,”[64] remind us that the adversary’s bounds are set[65] and that we, of the last days, should expect a sifting of wheat and tares. The effects of misinformation discussed in this essay can be viewed through a faith-building lens—namely, that editors then and mass communication today unwittingly fulfill, in part, Moroni’s proclamation that Joseph’s “name should be had for good and evil, among all nations, kindreds, and tongues; or that it should be both good and evil spoken of among all people.”[66] Most importantly, the Lord has the power to turn even the harshest antagonistic publishing to the benefit of the Restoration insomuch that readers whose attention was (and is today) caught “from rumor” perpetuated in the pages of newspapers were, as Joseph printed, “anxiously inquiring and have been excited to [ascertain] correctly what my principles are.”[67]

Notes

[1]“From the N. Y. Evangelist, July 21, 1842,” Times and Seasons, September 1, 1842, 905–6; emphasis removed and capitalization modernized for readability. Joseph Smith is listed as editor of the Times and Seasons in 1842, when this article was printed, but historians are unsure of the extent of his authorship throughout each issue.

[2] Chronicling America, the Library of Congress repository of historic American newspapers from 1770 to 1963, lists the names and biographical information of nearly nineteen thousand newspapers in the decades of the 1830s and 1840s.

[3] Joseph Smith Jr., “To the Elders of the Church of the Latter Day Saints,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate, November 1835, 209.

[4] J. Spencer Fluhman described the limited categorical options publishers in Joseph’s day faced when accepting or rejecting the authenticity of religions, including the Church. See J. Spencer Fluhman, “Anti-Mormonism and the Question of Religious Authenticity in Antebellum America,” Journal of Religion & Society 7 (2005): 1–10; and Fluhman, “A Peculiar People”: Anti-Mormonism and the Making of Religion in Nineteenth-Century America (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012), 29–39.

[5] See Richard A. Schwarzlose, The Nation’s Newsbrokers, vol. 1, The Formative Years: From Pretelegraph to 1865 (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1989).

[6] The author’s collection of 12,845 historically rich newspaper articles on the Saints from 1829 to 1844 is a unique database retrieved from publicly accessible digital archives that continue to grow with expanding digitization efforts. The field of journalism history studies the cultural history that newspapers provide and that is essential to an understanding of people’s attitudes of the time.

[7] See the historical introduction to White’s interview and newspaper article at “Interview, 29 August 1843,” in Christian K. Heimburger et al., eds., Documents, Volume 13: August–December 1843, vol. 13 of the Documents series of The Joseph Smith Papers, ed. Matthew C. Godfrey et al. (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2022), 84–92.

[8] David Nye White, “The Prairies, Nauvoo, Joe Smith, the Temple, the Mormons, &c.,” Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette, September 15, 1843, 3. White printed both daily and weekly issues of the Pittsburgh Gazette.

[9] White, “Prairies, Nauvoo, Joe Smith,” 3. To view a digital scan of this portion of the article, see “Interview, 29 August 1843, Extract,” p. 3, www.josephsmithpapers.org. To present the reader with a sense of nineteenth-century writing, spelling, grammar, emphases, and punctuation, quotations from the articles are given throughout this essay as found in the newspapers unless otherwise indicated.

[10] White, “Prairies, Nauvoo, Joe Smith,” 3.

[11] Not the Prophet, “To the Editor of the Neighbor,” Nauvoo Neighbor, December 27, 1843, 3.

[12] See “The Prairies, Nauvoo, Joe Smith, The Temple, The Mormons, &c.,” Alexandria (VA) Gazette, September 19, 1843, 2; “The Prairies, Nauvoo, Joe Smith, the Temple, the Mormons, &c.,” Buffalo Commercial Advertiser, September 20, 1843, 2; “The Mormon Prophet,” New York American, September 21, 1843, 3; “The Prairies, Nauvoo, Joe Smith, the Temple, the Mormons, &c.,” New York Evening Express, September 23, 1843, 1; “The Prairies, Nauvoo, Joe Smith, the Temple, the Mormons,” Cleveland Herald, September 23, 1843, 2–3; “The Mormon Prophet,” Manufacturers’ and Farmers’ Journal (RI), September 25, 1843, 4; “The Mormon Prophet, Joe Smith,” Brooklyn Evening Star, September 26, 1843, 2; “The Prairies, Nauvoo, Joe Smith, the Temple, the Mormons,” Cleveland Herald, September 27, 1843, 2–3; “The Prairies, Nauvoo, Joe Smith, the Temple, the Mormons, &c.,” New York Weekly Express, September 29, 1843, 5; “The Prairies, Nauvoo, Joe Smith, the Temple, the Mormons, &c.,” Painesville (OH) Telegraph, October 4, 1843, 1; “The Prairies, Nauvoo, Joe Smith, the Temple, the Mormons, &c.,” Massachusetts Spy, October 4, 1843, 1; “A Visit to the Mormon Imposter,” Pennsylvania Inquirer, October 5, 1843, 1; “THE PRAIRIES, NAUVOO, JOE SMITH, THE TEMPLE, THE MORMONS, &c.,” Weekly Ohio State Journal, October 11, 1843, 1; “The Mormon Prophet,” Salem Register, October 12, 1843, 1; “Nauvoo and the Mormons,” Democratic Standard (Goshen, NY), October 31, 1843, 1; and “The Mormon Prophet,” Quincy (IL) Whig, November 1, 1843, 1.

[13]“Jo. Smith,” Spirit of the Times (Philadelphia, PA), September 27, 1843, 2.

[14]“Kirtland, Ohio. October, 1837,” Elders’ Journal of the Church of Latter Day Saints, October 1837, 15; emphasis in original.

[15] See “Joe Smith,” Wisconsin Democrat, November 2, 1843, 2.

[16]“Monday, May 16, 1842,” Times and Seasons, May 16, 1842, 790; see “The N. Y. Weekly Herald,” Times and Seasons, December 15, 1841, 632; and “New York Weekly Herald—James Gordon Bennett,” Times and Seasons, January 1, 1842, 652–53.

[17] The historians of the Joseph Smith Papers published an informative examination of the various accounts, authors, and connections between Joseph’s Church history publications. See “‘Church History,’ 1 March 1842—Historical Introduction,” www.josephsmithpapers.org; see also Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church, 1830–1847 (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 1997), 1:127–28, 241–43.

[18] Joseph Smith Jr., “Church History,” Times and Seasons, March 1, 1842, 706.

[19] For an explanation of the likely assistance Joseph received and for influencing and supporting documents, see “‘Church History,’ 1 March 1842—Historical Introduction.”

[20] Smith Jr., “Church History,” 706. To view a color scan of the original newspaper article and issue, see “‘Church History,’ 1 March 1842,” www.josephsmithpapers.org.

[21] See Jeffrey L. Pasley, “The Tyranny of Printers”: Newspaper Politics in the Early American Republic (Charlottesville: University of Virginia, 2001).

[22]“The Mormon Prophet,” New York American, September 21, 1843, 3.

[23] The New York Commercial Advertiser is not extant but is referenced in multiple exchange papers that reprinted the article, including the Salem (MA) Register quoted here (“The Mormon Prophet,” October 12, 1843, 1). Compare “THE MORMON PROPHET,” Freeman’s Journal (NY), October 2, 1843, 1.

[24]“A Visit to the Mormon Impostor,” Pennsylvania Inquirer and National Gazette, October 5, 1843, 1.

[25] Painesville Telegraph, December 14, 1830, 2. Eber D. Howe, editor of the Painesville Telegraph, reprinted this article from a nonextant Ohio exchange newspaper eighty-six miles away, the Milan Free Press.

[26]“Golden Bible,” Painesville Telegraph, September 22, 1829, 3. Compare “Golden Bible,” Palmyra Freeman, August 11, 1829.

[27] James Gordon Bennett, “Mormon Religion,” Vermont Gazette, September 13, 1831, 1; compare “Mormon Religion,” Morning Courier and New York Enquirer, September 1, 1831. For an examination of editor James Gordon Bennett’s description of the Saints, see Leonard J. Arrington, “James Gordon Bennett’s 1831 Report on ‘The Mormonites,’” BYU Studies 10, no. 3 (1970): 1–10.

[28] See “Histories,” www.josephsmithpapers.org/site/histories.

[29] Joseph learned this by an unsatisfactory experience in 1833. He submitted a text to the editor of a New York evangelical newspaper that solicited liberal contributions of free discussion and investigation of the duties of Christianity. The editor, Noah C. Saxton, printed only a portion of the document despite Joseph’s strong warning in another letter to print the entire content. Saxton never did. For further information and links to Joseph’s letters to Saxton, see “Letter to Noah C. Saxton, 4 January 1833—Historical Introduction,” www.josephsmithpapers.org.

[30] Smith Jr., “Church History,” 707.

[31] Smith Jr., “Church History,” 707.

[32] Smith Jr., “Church History,” 707.

[33] Joseph Smith Jr., “History of Joseph Smith,” Times and Seasons, April 15, 1842, 753–54.

[34] For insight into Abner Cole’s engagement in Freethought philosophy counteracting the religious commodification of the Second Great Awakening and his brush with Joseph and the Book of Mormon, see Kimberley Mangun and Jeremy J. Chatelain, “For ‘The Cause of Civil and Religious Liberty’: Abner Cole and the Palmyra, New York, Reflector,” American Journalism 32, no. 2 (Summer 2015): 184–205.

[35] Abner Cole, “Gold Bible, No. 4,” Reflector (Palmyra, NY), February 14, 1831, 101.

[36]“Gold Bible,” Painesville Telegraph, February 22, 1831, 3; and “Golden Bible,” Ashtabula (OH) Journal, February 26, 1831, 2–3.

[37]“More of Imposture,” New York Spectator, July 28, 1836.

[38] See “History of Mormonism,” United States Telegraph (Washington City [DC]), August 10, 1836.

[39] Truman Coe, “Mormonism,” Ohio Observer, August 11, 1836, 1.

[40] Coe, “Mormonism,” Ohio Observer, August 11, 1836, 1.

[41] Truman Coe, “Mormonism,” Cincinnati Journal and Western Luminary, August 25, 1836, 4. For more information on the author, Truman Coe, see Milton V. Backman Jr., “Truman Coe’s 1836 Description of Mormonism,” BYU Studies 17, no. 3 (Spring 1977): 1–7.

[42] B. Stokely, “From the Mercer Press,” Harrisburg (PA) Chronicle, February 27, 1832, 1; spelling modernized.

[43]“M����Ѱ���������,” Salem Gazette, December 6, 1831, 2; see also “Mormonism,” Herald of Truth [Philadelphia], December 1831, 406; “M����Ѱ���������,” New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette, December 26, 1831, 3; “M����Ѱ���������,” General Advertiser (Easton, Maryland), December 27, 1831, 4.

[44]“M�ǰ����DzԾ��ٱ��,” Connecticut Courant, July 12, 1831, 1; punctuation modernized.

[45]“The Mormonites,” Daily Chronicle (Philadelphia), October 11, 1831, 2. See “THE MORMONITES,” Daily National Journal (Washington, DC), October 19, 1831, 2; “THE MORMONITES,” Rhode-Island Republican, October 25, 1831, 4; “Mormonism,” New-Hampshire Gazette, October 25, 1831, 4; “Mormonism,” Richmond Enquirer, October 25, 1831, 2; and “The Mormonites,” Huron Reflector (Norwalk, OH), October 31, 1831, 1.

[46]“M����Ѱ���������,” New York Mercury, October 19, 1831, 54.

[47] For an explanation of the falsified origin of the Kinderhook plates and Joseph’s association with them, see Don Bradley and Mark Ashurst-McGee, “Joseph Smith and the Kinderhook Plates,” in A Reason for Faith: Navigating LDS Doctrine and Church History, ed. Laura Harris Hales (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2016), 93–115.

[48]“M�ǰ����DzԾ������ܲ�,” Liberale Beobachter (Reading, PA), September 19, 1843, 2; emphasis added.

[49] See National Endowment for the Humanities, “Der Liberale Beobachter Und Berks, Montgomery Und Schuylkill Caunties Allgemeine Anzeiger,” Chronicling America (Arnold Puwelle), https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn87052123/.

[50] See, for example, “FANATICISM IN AMERICA,” Courier (London, England), October 22, 1838, 3.

[51]“Mormonism in America,” Observer (London), October 21, 1838, 2; internal quotation marks omitted.

[52]Freestone is “any species of stone composed of sand or grit, so called because it is easily cut or wrought.” Websters Dictionary 1828, s.v. “freestone,” https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/Freestone.

[53]“Mormonism in America,” Observer, October 21, 1838, 2.

[54]“Mormonism in America,” Observer, October 22, 1838, 3.

[55] For an example of a London paper that received “from our own [American] correspondent” the report of Moroni’s visitation, see “PHILADELPHIA, October 4,” Sunday Times, October 21, 1838, 3.

[56] See “M����Ѱ���������,” New-Bedford (MA) Mercury, November 29, 1838, 2; and “Mormonism,” Adams Sentinel (Gettysburg, PA), December 3, 1838, 1–2.

[57] William W. Phelps, “Free People of Color,” The Evening and the Morning Star, July 1833, 110.

[58]“Mormonism in America,” Observer, October 21, 1838, 2; the possibly unintended word hand has been removed for clarity.

[59]Warsaw (IL) Message, September 20, 1843, 2.

[60] See Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, s.v. “citizen journalism,” https://www.britannica.com.

[61] See Andie Tucher, Not Exactly Lying: Fake News and Fake Journalism in American History (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022). See Walt Brown, “The Federal Era III: Scissors, Paste, and Ink,” in The American Journalism History Reader: Critical and Primary Texts, ed. Bonnie Brennen and Hanno Hardt (New York: Routledge, 2011), 124.

[62] Daniel C. Peterson, “Reflections on Secular Anti-Mormonism,” FAIR: Faithful Answers, Informed Response, www.fairlatterdaysaints.org.

[63] Daniel C. Peterson, “Some Reflections on That Letter to a CES Director,” FAIR: Faithful Answers, Informed Response, www.fairlatterdaysaints.org.

[64] See, for example, the front page of the March 1, 1842, issue of Times and Seasons containing the Wentworth letter. See also Smith Jr., “Church History,” 703.

[65] See Doctrine and Covenants 122:9.

[66] Smith Jr., “History of Joseph Smith,” 753.

[67] Smith Jr., “To the Elders of the Church of the Latter Day Saints,” 209; punctuation modernized.