Correlating Population with Bank Solvency

In the previous post we discussed two assumptions about Hill et al's 1977 argument regarding the prudence of opening a savings society in Kirtland in 1836. Recall that they had used Coover's enumeration of Ohio banks to conclude that the population in Kirtland should have been sizeable enough to support a modest bank. The presupposition of this claim is, as I noted

• Population size is a good predictor for bank success.

In this post I want to break down the claim that is wrapped in this statement into its constituent parts. The current formulation, though not an inappropriate assumption based on the data that Hill et al had used to make their case, sounds too statistical in nature, while the argument that Hill et al had in mind was in all likelihood more qualitative.

The basic observation is that banks require specie to operate. Specifically, they have to have specie to have their bank notes accepted and to make loans to customers (where the interest charged is part of the income that the bank produces). The way banks obtain specie, other than by accepting deposits, is to take down payments for subscribed stock that they issue. In my dissertation I detail some of the rules of how subscriptions worked and how much of the stock value had to be paid in as specie by what point during the subscription period by the subscribers [RCK15, 230-238] and I replicate the information from Coovers' research in the appendix [RCK15, 425f]. 

Since there is no residency requirement for subscription, subscribers can come either from 

• within the community wishing to have a bank; 
• or can be American financiers, usually at that point in time from the East Coast, 
• or Europeans engaged in trade with the US who wish to park their profits from their trade within the Americas within the US of A. 

Europeans here means wealthy non-Americans and in the majority, British traders. Though the world economy was rapidly moving toward integration---Joseph Smith Sr had been exporting East Coast Ginseng root to China in the years before Joseph Smith Jr had been born [RCK15, 79]---the wealthy traders from Africa, India or the Far East were not involved in American frontier banking.

As Charles Clifford Huntington showed in his 1915 thesis, A History of Banking and Currency in Ohio before the Civil War (available at the Internet Archive), there was much concern about capital flight in Ohio in the 1830s, due to the large number of financiers from the East Coast and even from outside the country proper that were involved in buying Ohio banking stock (Hunt15, 137f). In fact they owned over 70%, US$3.35 million of the US$4.73 million in capital stock in the state, before March of 1834 [RCK15, 233], as researched by the Cincinnati Republican.

There were examples of banks completely supported by the community, such as the infamous Owl Creek bank; or the Bank of Wooster that failed in spite of $150,000 paid-in stock and a leverage of 1.29 [RCK15, 245]; but the more typical case was the Ohio Life Insurance & Trust Company, who had only three residents of Ohio among its twenty board members and was held, in the words of the Ohio Monitor of March 14, 1836, "by the Wall Street gentry of New York" [RCK15, 234]. The company had given loans totalling almost US$2 million in 67 counties of Ohio, which were secured with some US$4.34 million worth of real estate---a very different league from the banks of Wooster mentioned above or of West Union, which had $20,000 of species at 2.42 leverage when it failed.

With this information at our fingertips, we can now note two things:

• For the successful banks, the majority of the capital stock was held by out-of-state financiers.
• Banks that were predominantly funded from within the community failed during the banking crisis of 1837.

Again, the Bank of Wooster is the most interesting example. Its was chartered in February of 1834 with US$100,000 and immediately oversubscribed by its population by 25% [Hunt15, 141]. In 1837, with a leverage of 1.29, it was almost stellar, $150,221 paid in for a circulation of $194,289 notes. Perhaps the easiest way to explain this is the lack of expertise? 

Argument Structures around the Kirtland Safety Society

While historians want to be both educated and corrected by their sources, it is often difficult to pin down that that exactly means. In the following, I want to look at a few examples of how this plays out in the case of the economic history of the Kirtland Safety Society (this is Chapter 10 in my dissertation).

The backbone of course is the chronology. Many narratives already fall apart due to not aligning with the basic chronology of the matter. Of course the selection of what elements to include in the chronology brings us back to the problem of enplotment.

It is important to realize that a chronology is not a sequence of dates, but a sequence of dated events. The distinction is crucial, because dates are just chronometric units, while events have actors and properties and are enmeshed in a event sequence, as well as a geometric positioning. The chronometric units have a canonical order, but it is independent of all semantic contents---which is precisely what makes them units.

Perhaps it is best to first to tease apart the pieces that can go into a historical argument. For an intentional action, we have to presuppose some kind of script, that is, a codification of the "usual" way to do this. This would be the usual way from the point of view of the contemporaries, of course, not from the point of view of the historian. 

The "usual way" is typically distilled in some form from another event that has a similar structure. As Eduard Meyer pointed out (1912) [cited in the dissertation], it is this compare-and-contrast operation that is at the root of the historical research effort for distinguishing the common from the unusual. In the Kirtland case, I used the Owl Creek Bank, which did occur in Ohio about two decades before the Mormon arrival, as well as the Old Bank of Michigan, in which Joseph Smith~Jr's uncle Stephen Mack had participated. In the end it was the cross-comparison between these three instances that provided the fodder for the historical reconstruction.

These three elements were underpinned on the one hand by a history of banking in Ohio, mainly a sequence of state legislature actions and bank foundations (which had to be chartered by the legislature), and a history of the more global economic settings both in Ohio proper and in the US. This was the place for wealthy East Coast magnates and European importers, mainly from England, that had a strong influence on the money supply. This was also the place for Jacksonian interventionism at the national level and the ins and outs of the federal land sale that had such an impact on the monetary supply. All of these lines had their own event sequence with its own "arc" so to speak, mostly expressed as supporting or blocking specific aspirations on the legislative side and injecting or removing money on the financiers' side. 

The final element was the chronology of the creation and dissolution of the Kirtland safety (anti-)banking society itself. The comparison with the other banking charters in Ohio as well as with the Owl Creek Bank highlighted the inversion of the order of steps (charter last) as well as the enormous leverage that had been prototypical of other bank failures in the past and would eventually be outlawed in 1839 by the legislature, requiring 1:3 at the most.

For all of these elements, the observation of the overdetermined asymmetry of causation was in effect. For example, only a small fraction of the notes issued by the Kirtland society survived, supporting reconstructive efforts such as simulations how many bills of which type might have been issued. Also, the stock subscription book survived, allowing to determine which families of the Mormon elite had taken out the most stock and subscribed how much of their money. Some newspaper editorials and similar statements survived, but many other actions and their direct and indirect effects remain inaccessible, lost to time.

William Heth Whitsitt's Sidney Rigdon MS, (Part 1)

William Heth Whitsitt's Sidney Rigdon MS, (Part 1) a long paper on how Rigdon must be the author of the Book of Mormon, based on the alignment with Disciple theology, by a Southern Baptist theologian.

I ended up not using this in my book.

A New York geography for the BoM

An old friend of mine, specialist in Indian languages, pointed me to this map comparison from a book by Verne Holley,  unfortunately out of print, which suggests that Joseph Smith Jr tried to write the local history during the American Antiquities of the area he grew up in.

The alignment of the names is quite fascinating; I suspect that Joseph Smith Jr must have felt like a linguistics scholar when decoding how the names had changed over time.

"Uncle" Dean Broadhurst now hosts the third edition of Holley's work from 1998, where the Spalding manuscript theory is used as the basis of the discussion that Holley pursues.

Consecration and Stewardship Revelations

In addition to D&C 42, the core revelation for the Law of Consecration and Stewardship,  there are other revelations relevant to stewardship and consecration.

• D&C 48 [received at Kirtland, Ohio, March 10, 1831] discusses the process of land procurement for the Saints, both around Kirtland and in the (yet undisclosed) Zion.
• D&C 51 [received at Thompson, Ohio, May 20, 1831] discusses the process by which Bishop Partridge is supposed to accommodate the newly arriving Eastern Saints.
• The organization by the Divine Laws is not optional, but necessary (vv.1f)
• Partridge is to appoint the "portions, every man equal according to his family, according to his circumstances and his wants and needs" (v.3).
• Partridge fills out a certificate for each portion, that designates that assigned as the man's inheritance, which he will lose if he "transgresses and is not accounted worthy by the voice of the church" (v.4).
• Consecrated stuff belongs to the work of the church, even if someone leaves; only their deed stays with them (v.5).
• All this shall happen without violating the laws of the land (v.6).

to be continued

Salvation History through Blood and Family Ties

It was with quite some shock that I realized that Joseph Smith Jr believed that he was a biological descendant of the Patriarchs through Ephraim. The stance of the LDS Church on this issue is expounded in a complicated article in the Ensign from 1991, written by Daniel H. Ludlow, editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Mormonism. Ludlow does a good job writing up the issue; the complexity hails from the fact that lots and lots of words have to be reworked to mean new things they never meant before, in order to make the theory come out. Of course, it is a modern day interpretation of what Joseph Smith Jr may or may not have meant, so we will have to recontextualize it afterwards.

Ludlow's Argument

Ludlow first tries to sort out the general terminology.

... for the literal seed of Abraham are the natural heirs to the remarkable promises given anciently to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 

Terms like literal descendants of Abraham by birth, tribe of Israel, house of Israel, lineage, and Gentiles are sometimes confused, and some terms have a range of meanings, referring to different ideas in different contexts.

Ludow works with the equivalence of Abraham -- Hebrew; Isaac -- Israelite; Juda -- Jew. Ludow argues that via his other wives, Abraham had children other than Isaac: Ishmael, Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak, and Shuah. Though the Midianites are thus literal seed of Abraham, they are not Israelites, much less Jews---though all Jews are Israelites and thus literal seed of Abraham.

In this context, Ludlow cites the Book of Abraham (3:14), a work whose translation from Egyptian papyri Joseph Smith Jr had begun in Kirtland in 1835 (the papyri have since been identified as funerary texts depicting Isis and Osiris). [On early criticism of the translation see Stenhouse's Rocky Mountain Saints, New York, 1873, who engaged an Egyptologist from the Louvre; and Franklin S. Spalding's Joseph Smith Jr as Translator,  New York, 1912, who received assistance from noted scholars like James H. Breasted or Flinders Petrie. See also Stephen E. Thompson on Egyptology and the Book of Mormon in Dialog 1995, pp.143ff.]

Ludlow emphasizes that lineages, esp. in patriarchical blessing, indicate blood lines, and are important for the privilege they convey, that is, "special promises and blessings attendant thereto". Thus it is important for patriarchical blessings that their lineage identifications "are not simply tribal identifications by assignment."

Ludlow then gives a long list of scriptural passages, OT and NT, which speak of the importance of lineage. Interestingly, of all of St Paul's letter to the Romans, the only passage cited is the one that insists on the preeminence of the Jews with respect to the Gentiles,  but not the elimination of that distinction in Christ.  This approach to inheritance goes counter to much of the arguments that St. Paul makes, whose insistence that neither Greek nor Jew, that is, neither Gentile nor Israelite matters for the story of salvation he is expounding. It is often claimed that Joseph Smith Jr is, like many Protestant reformators, inspired by Paul; but in this familial focus Smith Jr clearly is not. (I owe this point to Rahel Kahlert.)

Oddly, Ludlow lists Galatians (3:14), which clearly says that "That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ", not through the descent of blood. The baptism into Christ makes one partake of Abraham's seed, says Paul (3:26-29): "For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise."

In the Book of Mormon, the following passages are considered relevant by Ludlow:

• 1 Nephi: 1 Ne. 22:1–28.
• 2 Nephi: 2 Ne. 6:5–18; 2 Ne. 9:1–3; 2 Ne. 30:1–8.
• Jacob: Jacob 5:1–77; Jacob 6:1–4.
• Helaman: Hel. 15:1–17.
• Mormon: Morm. 7:10.

A look at Doctrines and Covenants shows that the development of this interest belongs in the Kirtland period, as the topic begins with D&C 45.

• D&C 45:24–25
• D&C 58:45
• D&C 86:8–9*
• D&C 90:8–11*
• D&C 96:7;
• D&C 109:57–67 (D&C 109:57–58, 60, 67*)
• D&C 110:11–12
• D&C 113:7–8
• D&C 132:30

There is also a quote from the Mt-Retranslation that Joseph Smith Jr and Sidney Rigdon pursued in 1831 in Kirtland, Ohio.

• JS Mt Translation (JSTP Mt) of Mt 23:39-24

The problem remains that even passages like the Book of Abraham, 2:9-11, which hails from 1835, have a very non-blood interpretation. It is difficult to suss out the direction that a statement like

in thy seed after thee (that is to say, the literal seed, or the seed of the body) shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel

is supposed to be read in. In a sense, it inverts St Paul in Galatians, where by the acceptance of the Gospel, and baptism into Christ, all are made to Abraham's seed. Clearly it is Abraham's literal seed that makes this possible. 

Ludlow then "interviews" Church presidents and authorities to give more understanding. 

Apparently, President Joseph Smith Fielding felt that those that had joined the Church in the present days had a mix of Gentile and Israelite blood in their lineage. In this way, the Church is gathering the House of Israel.

The great majority of those who become members of the Church are literal descendants of Abraham through Ephraim, son of Joseph. 

President Spencer W. Kimball wrote

The Lamanite is a chosen child of God, but he is not the only chosen one. There are many other good people including the Anglos, the French, the German, and the English, who are also of Ephraim and Manasseh. They, with the Lamanites, are also chosen people, and they are a remnant of Jacob. 

This all could be read in a spiritual vein as well, in the sense of Galatians 3, but Brigham Young's talk of veins makes that impossible.

Will we go to the Gentile nations to preach the Gospel? Yes, and gather out the Israelites, wherever they are mixed among the nations of the earth. … Ephraim has become mixed with all the nations of the earth, and it is Ephraim that is gathering together. …

If there are any of the other tribes of Israel mixed with the Gentiles we are also searching for them. … We want the blood of Jacob, and that of his father Isaac and Abraham, which runs in the veins of the people. …

Crucially, Brigham Young notes in the same discourse,

The Book of Mormon came to Ephraim, for Joseph Smith was a pure Ephraimite, and the Book of Mormon was revealed to him.

Since it is crystal clear that Joseph Smith was from New England stock hailing from Old England, this is a rather surprising statement, and Ludlow turns to this point next.
Again, President Joseph Smith Fielding explains

In this Dispensation of the Fulness of Times, the gospel came first to the Gentiles and then is to go to the Jews. However, the Gentiles who receive the gospel are, in the greater part, Gentiles who have the blood of Israel in their veins. There is a very significant statement in the words of Moroni as recorded on the title page of the Book of Mormon that it was ”[Sealed by the hand of Moroni, and his up unto the Lord, … ‘To come forth … [in due time] by way of the Gentile. …’

But in the title face of the Book of Mormon,  it says

Written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of the house of Israel; and also to Jew and Gentile.

Thus, the issue of being of the house of Israel while being a Gentile is not really addressed here. This makes it doubtful that in April of 1829, Joseph Smith Jr had already decided that he was a descendant of Joseph.

The main argument for that is the 2 Neph 3, which says, as President Joseph Smith Fielding reminds the reader in the passage quoted by Ludlow, that

“How did the Book of Mormon come forth? By the hand of Joseph Smith. Yet we read in the Book of Mormon [see 2 Ne. 3:7–15; 2 Neph 2, p.67 in BoM 1830] that Joseph Smith is the descendant of Joseph who was sold into Egypt by his brethren, ....

What makes all of this so confusing is that the LDS leadership holds on to the Romans story of the Olive Tree (filtered through Jacob 5, which is expanded to fit in the fall of the Lamnites and the Nephites), and admits of the possibility of joining through faith. As Joseph Smith Fielding said:

Those who are not literal descendants of Abraham and Israel must become such, and when they are baptized and confirmed they are grafted into the tree and are entitled to all the rights and privileges as heirs.

But what then is the necessity of the mixed blood assumptions that are applied to the majority of the Saints?

The great majority of those who become members of the Church are literal descendants of Abraham through Ephraim, son of Joseph.

On top of that, they in some sense deny the "special" nature of the natural descendants, because it is the obedience to the commandments and the faithfulness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ that are decisive; whoever lapses here, cannot use their lineage to inherit (1 Neph 17:35; Rom 9:6). The big difference, according to Ludlow, is that Ephraim is responsible for performing the work of the Restoration and for directing it. Again, President Joseph Smith Fielding states

The members of the Church, most of us of the tribe of Ephraim, are of the remnant of Jacob. We know it to be the fact that the Lord called upon the descendants of Ephraim to commence his work in the earth in these last days. We know further that he has said that he set Ephraim, according to the promises of his birthright, at the head. Ephraim receives the ‘richer blessings,’ these blessings being those of presidency or direction. The keys are with Ephraim. It is Ephraim who is to be endowed with power to bless and give to the other tribes, including the Lamanites, their blessings.

(The allusion of the "richer blessing" here is to KJV Gen 48:19f.)

Discussion

Clearly there are all sorts of problems here. 

One issue that was already bothering the Jewish interpreters of the story of Joseph was the fact that Ephraim and Menasseh as sons of Asanet, an Egyptian girl whose father was the priest Potifera, could not have been Jewish. This has to do with the fact that the Jewish interpreters were projecting the laws of Ezra and Nehemia, that Jews have Jewish moms, back into Patriarchical times (cf. Karin Hügel, in her queer readings of Joseph, p.92, makes). Thus Joseph is made to marry an adopted niece of his to bring forth Ephraim and Menasseh.

Die Israelit_in Dina, eine Halbschwester Josefs, wäre die Tocher Jakobs und Leas, hätte also eine andere Mutter als Josef, und Sichem, der Sohn eines Hiwiters, käme aus einem kanaanäischen Stamm. Asenat wäre also Josefs Nichte gewesen.

[The Israelite Dina, a half-sister of Joseph, would be the Daughter of Jacob and Leah, thus had a different Mother than Joseph, and Sichen, the Son of a Hiwite, would come from a canaanite tribe. Asenat would have been Joseph's niece, then. translation RCK]

The biggest issue remains why it was not sufficient to be counted among the seed through the Gospel; perhaps it was not sufficient to be non-Israel in that sense?

 

May 1837 complaint against Frederick G. Williams

In the First Minute Book, p.226, there is an interesting complaint against Frederick G. Williams and several other members of the church leadership from May of 1837, when the banking crisis was hitting the US hard.

Trial for Lack of Benevolence

In the First Minute Book, p.212ff, there are several trials against church members for not paying their due. The trial seems to date from the Kirtland period, June 1836.

Potash and Pioneering in the US of A

In his 1951 article Origin and Occurrence of Commercial Potash Deposits in the Proceeding of the Academy of Science of Oklahoma, Volume 32, Section D, p.123-125, Robert Fite gives a one paragraph summary of potash production before 1850 in the US of A (1851 was the year the Germans discovered natural or geological potash in Strassfurt).

Potash has been an important item of commerce for centuries. Until recently, its use was restricted to the manufacture of soap, glass, and black gunpowder. The salt was obtained by leaching ashes of wood and other vegetative wastes tn large iron pots-hence, the name "potash," It became the principal product of the chemical Industries in America before 1850 as a byproduct of clearing the virgin forest lands for agriculture. The total annual supply for these chemical uses, however, never amounted to more than a few thousand tons for the entire world. (p.123)

As far as the production is concerned, the American Academy of Sciences ran a short article in 1793 that may be relevant to this, Aaron Dexter, Observations on the Manufacture of Pot Ash [sic!],  in: Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1793), pp. 165-170.

First of all, the book repeats the information given by Mark L. Staker in his Whitney in Ohio article for BYU Studies 42.1 (2003), pp.75ff. So this makes it likely that when Staker speaks about "manuals", he had something this information in mind.

Dexter argues that quality of the potash needs to be improved (p.165) and that this low quality is not the fault of either the equipment or the impurities (p.166), but rather of the technique.

Too often, not all of the salts are extracted from the ashes.

For this purpose, rain or river water ought always to be preferred. The ashes should be saturated, and remain with about an inch of water over the top of them for twelve hours at least. (p.166)

By straining the leach out of the tub, either with a small hole or a false bottom, so that none of the ashes can escape, water can be continuously replenished. The lies needs to be boiled

... until they are so reduced in strength, as they will no longer pay the expense of boiling. The ashes however, still to be preserved; and fresh water applied as before. And when drawn off, they may be used with profit on fresh ashes, as long as there remain in the lies any salts, which may be discovered by the taste. (p.166-167)

Next, Dexter recommends double-filtering the lie, as it exits the tub and as it enters the receiver. Then it needs to sit for 24 hours. When transferred into the kettle, the sediment needs to be left behind in the receiver (p.167).

Every precaution should be taken to let nothing fall into the lies previous to, and whilst boiling. Therefore, that injurious practice of laying wood on the kettles for drying must be avoided. (p.167)

[[RCK: it is hard to believe that putting wood on the kettles did dry them instead of steaming them.]]

The first drawn lie should be boiled down to half; later lies even more so. At that point, lime can be added, though mixing the lie into the ashes is fine too.

The lie should now cool off to the point that it is body temperature ("to the state of blood heat" (p.167)), and again there will be sedimentation,  a "chalky earth", which needs to be detained. Once the earthy matters and the common salt (p.168) have been removed, using the same process as salpeter production uses for the common salt, the lie is ready to be fluxed. This involves boiling the lie down completely (p.168). Then the fire is increased to "for the purpose of destroying the inflammable substance" (p.169). Dexter provides a sliver-based test for evaluating the quality of the potash, which is re-dissolved in water and then a silver coin turned dark or black with it if the "inflammable substance" has not been removed. If the potash contains the "inflammable substance", then either re-dissolving in pure water and re-fluxing is required; or the potash is turned into "pearl ashes ... by calcination" (p.169).

Dexter knows that the process is discouragingly long, believes that the cleaned lie not only fluxes faster, but that the superior quality of the potash with fetch a better price (pp.169-170).

Dexter closes with the observation (p.170), that the importance of the subject matter, since potash production is even discussed by legislatures, and the need to be comprehensible to the business people and workers who produce the chemical, have led him to write the article in the straight-forward language chosen. (As an example, on (p.169), Dexter uses the term "oily substance" as an analogon for his "inflammable substance", because that is the term the workers use.)

Walter Scott on Experimental Religion

In The Christian Baptist, IV.7 1827-2-5 309f, Walter Scott (under the alias of Philip) started a discussion of what he called experimental Religion (309:1), which refers to "those personal proofs and evidences of our individual adoption into the family of God, which are to be found in the character of every genuine christian" (309:1), which he finds predominantly expressed in the letter of John (presumably 1 Joh 3:1f), Peter and Jude. In this context, Scott validates that describing people as the sons and daughters of God is a legitimate view of the Campbellite position.

... the scriptures inform us that, 1st, Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is begotten by God. 2d, Whosoever loves, has been begotten by God. 3d, That whosoever has the hope of the gospel in him, is an heir of God; and, finally, that all christians know that they have been begotten by God by the spirit which he has given them. Thus the faith, love, and hope of the gospel, with the gift of the Holy Spirit, are all proofs our individual personal adoption. (309:2)

This,  Mormonism appears like a literal version of Campbellism at times.

When Campbell's Delusions were published

Oh my Goodness, I had no idea that Alexander Campbell published his Delusions an analysis of the Book of Mormon already on February 7th, 1831, two days before Joseph Smith Jr received the first part of his revelation on the Law of Consecration (D&C 42). And Rigdon only converted in November of 1830. That's a three month turn-around time!

One thing that this implies is that Campbell in the Delusions, when speaking of common stock [via the Munster incident, RCK] (p.6), cannot criticize the Smith version of the common stock system of D&C 42---similarly to how his father, in his exchange with Rigdon, cannot have (Hayden 1875, p.217) [= (Howe 1834, pp.116-123), since that dates from February 4th, 1831, cannot have meant the Smith version (Howe 1834, p.121)---but must be targeting the Rigdon version that Campbell had only heard about at the Austintown Mahoning Society Meeting that summer (Hayden 1875, p.299).

Criddle on similarities Mormonism and Campbellites

In trying to establish that Sidney Rigdon was the author of the Book of Mormon (Sidney Rigdon: Creating the Book of Mormon), Criddle would be much supported by showing that the Book of Mormon held theories that only a Campbellite could hold.

As part and parcel of this view, Criddle argues

Walter Scott took Campbell's idea of a restoration a step further, even calling for a "new Bible." Hayden described Scott's preaching in the winter of 1827-1828 this way: "He contended ably for the restoration of the true, original apostolic order which would restore to the church the ancient gospel as preached by the apostles. The interest became an excitement; ...the air was thick with rumors of a 'new religion,' a 'new Bible.'" [not an entirely different Bible, but rather, Alexander Campbell's 1820's edition of the New Testament].

First, let's look at the quote from Hayden (1875) in context (p.120).

He contended ably for the restoration of the true, original apostolic order which would restore to the church the ancient gospel as preached by the apostles. The interest became an excitement. All tongues were set loose in investigation, in defense, or in op- position ; which foreshadowed good results. Nothing so disastrous to the sailor as a dead calm. Let the vessel heave under a tempest, rather. The Bibles were looked up, the dust brushed off, and the people began to read. " I don't believe the preacher [i.e. Walter Scott, RCK] read that Scripture right." "My Bible does not read that way," says another. The book is opened, and lo ! there stand the very words ! In the first gospel sermon, too — the model sermon — as what "began at Jerusalem" was to be " preached to the ends of the earth." The air was thick with rumors of a "new religion," a "new Bible," and all sorts of injurious, and even slanderous imputations — so new had become the things which are as old as the days of the apostles. (Hayden 1875, p.120)

So Criddle makes a mistake in attribution. Walter Scott, though he supported the Campbell effort for a better bible, no doubt, was not here arguing for a new Bible.  Hayden indicates this to us by writing "The book is opened, and lo ! there stand the very words !" This is not a difference between the Campbell translation and the KJV that Hayden is focusing on.

Rather, people who were surprised to read their Bible afresh were insinuating that Scott was using a different translation; that what Scott was preaching them was not their old religion from their old Bible, but a new religion from a changed Bible. This is why Hayden uses "all sorts of injurious, and even slanderous imputations" --- that's not a compliment!

In fact, for someone who is trying to perform a Restoration, the ultimate insult is that it is "new". It would never be something that Walter Scott were actively calling for.

Hayden is trying to make an argument of estrangement, so the rumors must be false for that argument to work.

Sorry, Criddle.

The Early Baptist Career of Sidney Rigdon in Warren, Ohio - BYU Studies

Just a reading note:

The Early Baptist Career of Sidney Rigdon in Warren, Ohio - BYU Studies

Joseph Welles White's 1947 thesis on Sidney Rigdon

As always, Uncle Dale sniffed out Joseph Welles White's 1947 thesis on The Influence of Sidney Rigdon upon the Theology of Mormonism for us. Dale had only transcripted some of the contents, mostly to respect the possibility of later publication by the heirs of White. Eventually, the digitization process at USC, where White wrote his thesis, overtook those good intentions and made the whole thesis available as scanned PDF pages.

White makes interesting points

• White wonders (p.26) to what extent Rigdon was influenced by a community of Shakers in Warren County by his interest in "communism, divine healings, speaking in tongues, visions, revelations, and sundry other items" (ibid).
• White observed that Rigdon "intimated that the doctrines popular with the Baptists were not altogether in harmony with the scriptures" (p.26), but mistakenly contextualizes that with the charismata, not with the general notion of the Campbellites that Baptists were as bad as Presbyterians, as Campbell put it at the McCalla debate evening discussion (Richardson 1870, 2:88).
• White's chronology suggests (pp.26f) that Rigdon took the job in 1822, was tried and withdrew in 1824, worked [as a tanner RCK] till 1826,  and then somehow found time to collaborate with Scott before going to Ohio to be a Campbellite preacher no later than 1827, when Scott was at Steubenville.
• White cites (Gates 1904, p.93) in support of the fact how strongly Scott and Rigdon had permeated the Western Reserve (see also the influence of Scott's phase plan on Whitney's wife). 
• The Pittsburg Baptist church to accept the "ancient order of things" was a fusion of the congregations presided over by Scott and Rigdon. (p.27)
• For his depiction of the Austintown show-down (p.30), White uses Fawn Brodie's assessment of Rigdon (p.94 of 1946 edition) as "most fanatical and literal-minded of the Disciples of Christ" and Hayden's version (Hayden 1875, p.299). 
• White (p.31) observes that "Rigdon did set up a small communistic colony in Kirtland", which supplied "the few converts that Rigdon drew from the Disciples to the Mormons" [which is an inaccurate depiction, RCK].
• White (p.31, Fn 27) simplifies the matters when he focuses on Hayden's first-hand knowledge; the chapter is subtly dependent on Eber D. Howe's writings, even if Howe is not explicitly quoted. Thus, the phrase "At this, Rigdon seemed much displeased." (Hayden 1875, p.211) is actually a verbatim quote of a sentence start in (Howe 1834, p.103), down to the italics.

(to be continued)

White also brings good literature.

• Catherine Cleveland, The Great Revival in the West: 1797-1805, Chicago (University of Chicago Press) 1916; (here), Private Edition (here) [seem to be page identical, RCK]
• Erret Gates, The Early Relation and Separation of Baptists and Disciples, Chicago 1904 (various scans: one, two, three and four).
• Eva L. Pancoast, Mormons in Kirtland, unpublished M.A. Thesis, Western Reserve University, 1929 (partial transcript at Uncle Dale's)
• William Warren Sweet, Religion on the American Frontier: 1783-1850: A Collection of Source Materials: New York (Cooper Square Publishers)

• Volume III: The Congregationalists 1964.
• --, Circuit-rider days along the Ohio:  being the journals of the Ohio Conference from its organization in 1812 to 1826, New York -- Cincinnati, 1923 (here). 

1843 claim to another Book of Mormon

The Quincy Whig was probably jesting when they reported, under the heading "Material for another Book of Mormon" in 1843 that in the neighboring village of Kinderhook, in Pike County, a man had found six brass plates fixed together with wiring. The Nauvoo Times & Seasons carried the article, Vol IV, No 12, Wednesday May 1 1843, here p.187.

Since the finder, a Robert Wiley, was known to be a respectable merchant, the editors used the opportunity to show that treasure digging was not a disreputable activity that only Joseph Smith Jr pursued (p.186).

Whether Joseph Smith Jr ever got a chance to try his chops on the hieroglyphs as the editor hoped is unclear.

Updated March 2015: In January 1844, the Nauvoo Neighbor was selling facsimile [their word!] of the plates found at Kinderhook; cf. Nauvoo Neighbor, January 3, 1844, page 3, column 4.

Mormon 9:33 and Reformed Egyptian

In Mormon 9:33 it says

v34: But the Lord knoweth the things which we have written, and also that none other people knoweth our language; and because that none other people knoweth our language, therefore he hath prepared means for the interpretation thereof.

And as Joseph Smith Jr expanded the point in his note to the Times & Season (Vol IV, Nr.13, May 15, 1843, p.194) on the meaning of the word Mormon.

Here then the subject is put to silence, for "none other people knoweth our language", therefore the Lord and not man had to interpret, after the people were all dead.

However, the certainty of that translation was marred by an article in the same publication (p.190), an exposition on the influence of the principles of truth, where the writers admitted that the orthographic and grammatical correctness of the revelation was dependent on the vessel of transmission.

But a ridiculous notion is frequently expressed, that the dictates of the spirit, through whatsoever channel they may flow, must necessarily be correctly constructed and perfectly grammatical.

Acts 4:13 allows them to point out that lack of rhetorical training of Peter and John was obvious and commented upon, in spite of the power of their argument.
Here the argument takes the anti-learning turn that was prevalent in the Western Reserve and other frontier areas as a rejection of the types of learning the Eastern and European universities could provide, as (White 1947) points out.

But the truth is, ..., every instrument which the Lord employs will be at any rate gifted with simplicity and sincerity, and whatever the Lord shall be pleased to give unto his people, by them shall be given naturally and without hypocrisy. (p.190)

And almost in order to level the playing field for the wise and the less so, they note that

... the learned and the unlearned are strangely overcome (p.191)

by the principle of truth, and the "superior minds" still become "subject to the principles of truth", even if per se the gospel has nothing that "attracts the self-opinionated and the proud".

James Kennedy's Early days of Mormonism (1888)

James Kennedy's Early days of Mormonism : Palmyra, Kirtland from 1888 tries to be an unbiased history of the Mormons, focusing especially, in the face of the Utah question, on the beginnings. But already a few pages in Smith Jr has been declared a fraud and a planless one at that.

Nevertheless, Kennedy has, so far, some nice characterizations, including the following:

The early years of the nineteenth century were filled with doctrinal jousts, in which denomination set itself against denomination, and creed made war upon creed. The religious crusades of new and aggressive churches were || waged upon the older organizations with unusual fury, and with that relentless purpose that is possible only to ignorance well armed with zeal. There had been no period yet seen in America, and there has been none since, in which fanaticism and spiritual fervor took so close a hold upon the life and thought of the people. (pp.2f)

(to be continued)

John D Lee's Mormonism unveiled

John D. Lee's autobiography Mormonism unveiled; or, The life and confession... is a fascinating read of a boy grown up on the Ohio frontier that voluntarily joins the Mormons in Missouri, eventually gaining notoriety as a member of the Danites and finally as a convicted and executed participant in the Mountain Meadow Massacre.

I was brought to this post via a misleading footnote (Fn 102 on page 41) in Eva L. Pancoast 1929 thesis Mormons in Kirtland.

Troubles finding the Millennial Harbinger

Archive.org only has the Volume 3 (1832) of the Millennial Harbinger of Alexander Campbell. Thereafter, it is mostly volumes from the new series, dated from the late 1830s and so on. This is unfortunate.

Interactions between Alexander Campbell and Sidney Rigdon (Part 2)

(continued from Part 1)

Chapter 11: Churches in Mantua, Hiram and Garrettsville (pp.237-266)

After establishing itself in January of 1827 (p.237), the Church in Mantua grew to just about thirty members by its first year (p.238) and had Sidney Rigdon as its occasional minister. February 1828 Walter Scott visited and converted many in Nelson, Hiram and Mantua. In May, Thomas Campbell visited, which not only stabilized the community but brought Symonds Ryder into the fold.

In April 1829, the church in Hiram formed, and a group from Mantua went to Shalersville. By 1830, led by ministers with youth but little experience (p.239), and assisted by a seasoned Baptist, Oliver Snow, who found much fault with the young men, the young community in Mantua, was sorely tried by the incursion of the Mormons. Atwater, with whom Hayden corresponded here in 1873, felt that Sidney Rigdon's popularity helped the Mormons. Atwater also believed that Sidney Rigdon knew ahead of time that the book of Mormon was coming (p.239), having talked at Atwater's fathers' house about the Indian mounds and other American antiquities (p.239), and was looking forward to a book to be published on these accounts (p.240). Under the influence of Rigdon Oliver Snow, Symonds Ryder, Ezra Booth, and others joined the new dispensation, with Eliza Snow leading the way.

Then Symonds Ryder returned to the disciples, "and exposed Mormonism in its true light",  working with the community to restore it. Marcus Bosworth continued to preach for Mantua. From 1840-1841 (p.241), A.S. Hayden worked in Mantua. Hayden then sketches Atwater's life (p.242), who had prepared for the ministry in the academy at Warren (p.242) and then married into the Judge Clapp family (p.243). When his first wife died, he married the daughter of Marcus Bosworth (p.244). 

Symond Ryder was the key elder for the church at Hiram (p.244), drawing upon the funeral oration of him preached by President B.A. Hinsdale of Hiram College (p.244) on August 3rd, 1870. A Mayflower descendant from Vermont (p.246). After serving his apprenticeship he went west, "missing" the British burning of Buffalo on December 28, 1813, arriving in Hiram, a Vermont colony, on January 6, 1814. Here he bought land and developed his property. In the Winter of 1814/5, Symond returned to Vermont to bring his family. In terms of his religion, he had brought the "severe puritanical sort" of "teachings and impressions of religion" "which prevailed in New England during the last [i.e. 18th, RCK] century" (p.247). When the Church of Bethesda, in Nelson, an 1808 member of the Mahoning Association, evicted over a dozen members on heresy, these remnants organized under Darwin Atwater and "adopted the advanced views of Campbell and Scott".

In 1828, Marcus Bosworth preached in Hiram, and Symonds Ryder was pleased with the sermon (p.248). After poring all week over the NT to understand Bosworth's discourse, Ryder managed to catch Thomas Campbell in Mantua (p.248) and was converted (p.249) (p.238). Ryder was first overseer of the Hiram Nelson church until 1835. Ryder was content as a disciple in all things save one.

He [i.e. Symond Ryder, RCK] read in the New Testament of the gift of the Holy Spirit; and, in his mind, it was in some way associated with the laying on of hands, and with some special spiritual illumination. These words, "the signs shall follow them that believe." seemed to him not yet to have been comprehended or realized. (p.249)

Then, in late 1830, Sidney Rigdon joined the Mormon movement in northern Ohio. Ezra Booth, a Methodist preacher of Mantua (p.250) and his wife, joined after an interview with Joseph Smith Jr in Kirtland, where Mr and Mrs Johnson were present and where Joseph Smith Jr healed her rheumatic lame arm, so that "on her return home the next day she was able to do her washing without difficulty or pain" (p.250). President Hinsdale emphasized the cognitive relief that the supposed resolution of the twin problem of the lost tribes and the origins of the red men gave (p.251) to "students of sacred and profane history".

When Ezra Booth addressed the Hiram community after a Ryder sermon (p.251), Ryder himself became unsure, eventually converting when an earthquake hit Peking, as predicted by a young Mormon girl.

Shortly after this, he openly professed his adhesion to the Mormon faith; but he and Ezra Booth, who were most intimate friends, promised that they would faithfully aid each other in discerning the truth or the falsity of the new doctrine. (p.251)

Famously, Ryder was turned off by a commission to be an elder in the Mormon church that misspelled his name (p.252).

His commission came, and he found his name misspelled. Was the Holy Spirit so fallible as to fail even in orthography? (p.252)

Since Ezra Booth had been similarly buffeted by the journey to Missouri to help set up Zion [cf. (Howe 1834, Chapter XV, pp.175ff), which letters were partially addressed to Edward Partridge, another friend, RCK], they both left the Mormons in September of 1831, and focused on stemming the tide, a difficult task, given the "large number of the citizens of Hiram [htat] had given in their adhesion to the doctrines of Smith and Rigdon" (p.252).

Hinsdale then reminds the listeners that Mormonism of 1870 in Utah was quite a separate matter from Mormonism in 1831, and correctly points to the intellectual climate of that age.

... it was a formative period in religious history; new ideas were fermenting in the minds of men; and, considering the facts before stated, it is not inexplicable that so strong a nature [as Symonds Ryder, RCK] should have given way to the fanaticism. (p.252)

Hinsdale then points out the succession problem the church of Hiram had faced (p.254) when Ryder could no longer be there: "no suitable provision was made for a new and different age" (p.254).

Hinsdale then speculates that, given the size and constitution of Symonds Ryder, it was the size of the pioneer tasks that he undertook that robbed him of the few years.

He was one of the most laborious men of that generation which bore off upon its broad shoulders, as Sampson did the gates of Gaza, the heavy forest which covered this land---the generation which performed the most wonderful work of the kind that history has witnessed; for in no age, and in no country, has the face of nature been so suddenly transformed as in the Northern States of the American Union. (p.255)

After the conclusion of the funerary oration reprint, A.S. Hayden returns as the host of the reader. It turns out that A.S. Hayden was co-elder with Ryder for the Eclectic Institute in Hiram (p.259), an institution that had been dear to Hayden's brother William as well--cf. pp.260ff.

Chapter 13: Great Meeting in Austintown 1830 (pp.295-310)

Hayden finally turns to the Great Meeting in Austintown of 1830 (p.295), which axed the association in place of an annual meeting (p.296). It was only on recollection that the loss of the evangelical preachers, which had been tied to the association but could not be to a meeting, was observed (p.297), and eloquently expressed in the Millennial Harbinger of 1849 by Alexander Campbell (p.297), who cautioned against reformation and annihilation as synonymous terms (p.298). 

Hayden now comes to the showdown between Rigdon and Campbell. Rigdon argued that the model of the church at Jerusalem of a community of goods required those who wished to imitate the apostles of the New Testament to imitate that example as well (pp.298f). Campbell "saw at once the confusion and ruin that would result from such doctrines", and rejoined, to which Rigdon replied however in zeal (p.299). Campbell then destroyed the argument in three points by observing that the early Church had ended the community system after Ananias and Sapphira, as the passages in the Pauline letters show, thus indicating that the "community system" in Acts was "formed not to make property, but to consume it, under the special circumstances attending that case" (p.299). 

This put an end to it. Rigdon finding himself foiled in his cherished purpose of ingrafting on the reformation his new community scheme, went away from the meeting at its close, chafed and chagrined, and never met with the Disciples in a general meeting afterward. (p.299)

Venting to Brother Austin afterwards in Warren, Rigdon observed

I have done as much in this reformation as Campbell or Scott, and yet they get all the honor of it. (p.299)

Hayden then turns to the community of Farmington, which was inspired by the great reformatory movement in Kirtland under Bentley and Rigdon in 1828 (p,306).

The Church in Shalersville received discourses preached in 1828 by Thomas Campbell and Sidney Rigdon (p.334). Ebenezer Williams, former Universalist, had preached there as well, as recounted previously (pp.155-157). Shalersville is a good example of a community that needed no full time minister.

... the church, like most of the congregations, had learned to "edify one another in love." This reliance on the talent of the church quickens the zeal and develops the abilities of the members; and if it is not depended on to the exclusion of preaching, it is a direct and powerful means of imparting strength and permanency to the churches. (p.336)

Chapter 15: Awakening in Perry (pp.346ff)

In August of 1829, Sidney Rigdon organized the church in Perry (p.346). The precipitating event had been the exclusion of David Parmly from the Baptist fellowship for communing with "Campbellites" (p.347). The new church mopped up those Baptists "who saw too clearly the spirit of the inquisition" (p.347).

Painesville [home of Eber D. Howe, RCK] received impulses from Mentor in 1828 (p.349), and had Clapp, Collins, William Hayden and Moss preaching there.

Chapter 16: Gospel in Ravenna, Aurora, etc (pp.369ff)

The church in Ravenna had been started by Marcus Bosworth and expanded by Ebenezer Williams (p.369). William Hayden sustained them through 1830 (p.370). In the summer, Walter Scott preached there, comparing the creed to a small coin that, if held close enough to the eye, can block out the sun (p.370). In 1831, Campbell came to Western Reserve, to help check Mormonism, and preached at Ravenna against it (p.371). 

A.G. Riddle, in his romance The Portrait: A Romance of the Cuyahoga Valley, contrasted Campbell and Rigdon, in allusion to a 1831 meeting in a grove in Aurora, Ohio (p.377).

At a glance he [i.e. Alexander Campbell, RCK] took the measure and level of the average mind before him---a Scotchman's estimate of the Yankee---and began at that level; and as he rose from it, he took the assembled host with him. In nothing was he like Rigdon; calm, clear, strong, logical, yet perfectly sim- || ple. Men felt themselves lifted and carried, and wondered at the ease and apparent want of effort with which it was done. (pp.377f)

Chapter 20: Euclid (pp.408ff)

In 1820, a Baptist Church had been established in Euclid, and Luther Dille was its deacon (p.408). His wife was a Disciple from Mentor and frustrated by her inability to commune with her husband. Requesting Sidney Rigdon's support during a visit to Mentor (p.409), Rigdon came to Euclid in the fall of 1829, and converted a rump church. Then Rigdon asked Luther to be the caretaker of the young converts, and Luther converted as well (p.409). Later (p.410) the church was visited by Thomas Campbell and J.J. Moss. 

Rigdon's fall staggered many, but Mormonism never made a convert in Euclid. This is much owing to the presence of Moss. (p.410) 

Chapter 24: Abbreviated Account (pp.465ff)

Rigdon, together with Clapp, founded the church in Birmingham, Erie County, in 1829 (p.465). During the same tour, the church of Elyria, in Lorain County, was established by Rigdon and Clapp (p.467).

Other Interests

Chapter 23: Lessons (pp.454ff)

Lesson II (p.455) The evangelical work cannot be the only one (p.455); "thoughtful men predicted" "the absence of a system for holding and training the converts" (p.456). As a result of this discrepancy between the evangelical and the pastoral, both members and congregations fell away (p.457). 

If the due adjustment of these two agencies had been suitably disposed at the beginning, it would have resulted in far greater strength and prosperity. (p.457)

Lesson III (p.457) recognized that it "was a mistake to start so many churches. This error was a result of the exuberance of evangelical zeal already noticed" (p.457).

Is it surprising that intelligent, discerning citizens, casting about for a "home", turn from a people where they see evidences of looseness in plan, and weakness in system, and yield themselves up in membership to organized bodies who conduct their enterprises systematically and successfully? (p.458)

Lesson IV (p.459) bemoans the lack of records that were kept, especially after 1828, when both the authority and the restriction of freedom to maintain even member lists was missing (p.459). And Hayden blames scriptural over-interpretation for it.

So, as the Scriptures gave no instructions about church records the whole matter was ruled out of order, and out of the church. (p.459)

What would we not give now for a continuance of the records of the Mahoning Association, which met two years under that name after the records ceased? Why were there no records of our yearly meetings? What rich and abundant materials for future history and instruction? (p.459)

Oh that Scott had kept a diary! that our earlier men had written as well as talk! (p.460)  

 [[RCK this really underscores the insights of Joseph Smith Jr, especially given the fact that the Millennium was considered to be coming.]]

Lesson V (p.461) says that it is not optional for the associations to combine their efforts to advance the gospel. Because the delegates had selected the evangelists, the "churches felt bound by the action of their delegates" (p.461). The field of labor had been determined, the compensation arranged. Consequently, the churches provided material support (p.462).

Bro. Campbell was the prime mover and the active leader in this scheme of associational effort to bring an evangelist into the field. (p.462)

The replacement of the association system by the annual meeting system wreaked havoc on the evangelist work, for the meetings were no substitute (p.462). Retroactively re-instituting cooperation was blasted by the suspicion of priest craft or sectarianism (p.462). Substituting for this cooperation was in fact one of the tasks of the Eclectic Institute, in whose formation Hayden was crucially involved.

Lesson VI (p.464) is that all the success that was achieved stems from preaching the word.

We must "preach the word," not something about the gospel, but the gospel itself. (p.464)

Bibliographic Record

A.S. Hayden, Early History of the Disciples in the Western Reserve, Ohio, Cincinnati (Chase & Hall) 1875 (Internet Archive copy here).