A series I am going to occasionally come back to on my takes on early Church primary sources that I’m reading. We have a tendency to only read secondary takes, whether a talk, book, or commonly shared anecdote, but there are often insights buried in the primary sources that don’t make it into the collective consciousness.

John Corrill’s A Brief History of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints (Commonly Called Mormons)

Text here. 

John Corrill’s History is considered one of the most valuable first hand accounts of the Church in the Missouri era. An early convert who left in the aftermath of the Missouri fog of war, he is considered a good-faith, reasonable recorder of historical events.

Tidbits:

• His report of his conversion is a testament to the “no bad publicity” idea, since he was drawn to the Church because of the attacks against it. One of the Russian missionaries in  my parents’ mission in Russia got in contact with the Church after seeing the Joseph Smith South Park episode, so who knows what will happen with the deluge of so-bad-it’s-almost-good-for-us Netflix/Hulu series coming out. 

I became much excited in my feelings; for in that society were several men for whom I had formed the most favorable opinion, and for whom I felt the greatest veneration and respect.

Scarcely a day passed but I heard of some evil report against the new sect. These reports I need not relate. Suffice it to say, that every thing bad was reported against them, as I thought, that could be invented by man. I was always careful, however, to inquire after the author, and the truth or ground-work of his statement, and always found these reports to be without foundation. 

• Relevant to current rhetoric about poor emigrants flooding in; we were very much in those shoes.  

They saw their county filling up with emigrants, principally poor. They disliked their religion, and saw also, that if let alone, they would in s short time become a majority, and, of course, rule the country. The church kept increasing, and the old citizens became more and more dissatisfied, and from time to time offered to sell their farms and possessions, but the Mormons, though desirous, were too poor to purchase them. 

• Firsthand, early account of Mormonism’s penchant for education. I love the term “extravagant thirst after knowledge.”  

Some studied grammar and other branches: they also employed the celebrated Hebrew teacher, Mr. Seixas, who gave them much insight, in a short time, into that language. They had been previously commanded to seek learning and study the best books, and get a knowledge of countries, kingdoms, languages, etc., which inspired them with an extravagant thirst after knowledge. 

• Rather sophisticated take that goes beyond the pro- and anti-Mormon dichotomy. Also, another take on Brigham Young’s point that if the mobs let us alone we will go to hell, but if they persecute us we will stay up nights preaching the gospel (or something). 

Several publications have appeared against them, as well as newspaper prints, but the misfortune generally has been, that they contained so much misrepresentation, that it has destroyed the confidence of the public in the truth they did contain. Men of influence in the Church have, at different times, turned against it, become its violent enemies, and tried to destroy it, but generally without success. If Smith, Rigden and others, of the leaders, had managed wisely and prudently, in all things, and manifested truly a Christian spirit, it would have been very difficult to put them down. But their imprudence and miscalculations, and manifest desire for power and property, have opened the eyes of many, and did more to destroy them than could possibly have been done otherwise. My opinion is, that if the Church had been let alone by the citizens, they would have divided and subdivided so as to have completely destroyed themselves and their power, as a people, in a short time.  

John Whitmer’s History

John Whitmer was the first appointed Church historian, and kept a record of the Church dutifully until his excommunication, after which he refused to turn over the manuscript and added some additional content, so it represents the first official Church history (and is one reason for the name of the John Whitmer Historical Association). 

Text here. 

Tidbits:

• His writing style is like the high schooler who strings together a bunch of quotes for a paper, so it doesn’t make for the most exciting readings. That’s not to demean him, it was probably pretty good for their day given the average literacy and education of the time. 

 

• He refers to “Hubble the prophetess,” a member who claimed to receive revelations for the Church which instigated Joseph Smith’s revelation clarifying that he was the only one with the right to do so. Before I read this I had never heard of Hubble; we always frame the early Church tension between personal and institutional-wide revelation through the lens of Hiram Page and the seer stone. I’m sure there’s some gender studies-type take on either the fact that Hiram Page is the one we know about, or on the idea that an early female member had taken on herself the prophetic mantle. It is possibly informative that the pushback against Hubble by Smith and Whitmer wasn’t gendered; the problem was not that a woman was claiming to receive revelation, but rather that somebody else besides Joseph was. 

 

• He refers to an earthquake in China that killed one million people as a sign of the times. The JSP editors wisely footnoted that to say that “newspapers reported” an earthquake of that size in Peking. I say wisely because after looking around for a few moments I can’t find a record of an 1831 earthquake that killed that many people in China. 

 

• I knew that the early Church had “gifts of the spirit” in the traditional sense of rolling around and speaking in tongues, but I didn’t know about cases where the traditional gifts were given a Mormon-specific patina, with people who would fancy to themselves that they had the sword of Laban and would wield it as expert as a light dragoon, some would act like an Indian in the act of scalping, some would slide or scoot and [on] the floor, with the rapidity of a serpent, which the[y] termed sailing in the boat to the Lamanites, preaching the gospel. And many other vain and foolish manoeuvers that are unseeming, and unprofitable to mention. 

 

• Finally, we members like to emphasize how the witnesses never lost their testimony of the Book of Mormon, but with John Whitmer we can go further, not only did he not deny what he had seen, but even after he turned against Joseph he was very sincerely drawing on the Book of Mormon to make his theological points. Ironically, for example, Porter Rockwell was a gadianton robber, and Joseph Smith was unlike the Lamanites in that he didn’t repent after being shown the truth.