[PDF] Full The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal Download eBook

Eighth Witness

Author: Ronald E. Romig

Publisher:

Published: 2014-11-24

Total Pages: 722

ISBN-13: 9781934901281

John Whitmer one of the most familiar names in early Mormonism. As one of Joseph Smith's earliest supporters and associates, John was a member of one of the founding families of Smith's Restoration movement. He was also one of the eight witnesses to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, Mormonism's founding document. His name is reproduced in each of the millions of copies of that work that exist in dozens of different editions. Many know no more than his name, but the better informed likewise know that he also became wary of Joseph Smith and Mormonism, turned his back on what had been a sublime adventure, and thus became a cautionary tale to the faithful. John Whitmer's rise and fall within Mormonism is an exhilarating narrative, his conversion very much a movement of his family into the new church. Paralleling this movement, his exodus out of Mormonism was also a clan movement as the Whitmers, after less than a decade, experienced difficulties with Joseph's leadership.

Visions in a Seer Stone

Author: William L. Davis

Publisher: UNC Press Books

Published: 2020-04-08

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1469655675

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In this interdisciplinary work, William L. Davis examines Joseph Smith's 1829 creation of the Book of Mormon, the foundational text of the Latter Day Saint movement. Positioning the text in the history of early American oratorical techniques, sermon culture, educational practices, and the passion for self-improvement, Davis elucidates both the fascinating cultural context for the creation of the Book of Mormon and the central role of oral culture in early nineteenth-century America. Drawing on performance studies, religious studies, literary culture, and the history of early American education, Davis analyzes Smith's process of oral composition. How did he produce a history spanning a period of 1,000 years, filled with hundreds of distinct characters and episodes, all cohesively tied together in an overarching narrative? Eyewitnesses claimed that Smith never looked at notes, manuscripts, or books—he simply spoke the words of this American religious epic into existence. Judging the truth of this process is not Davis's interest. Rather, he reveals a kaleidoscope of practices and styles that converged around Smith's creation, with an emphasis on the evangelical preaching styles popularized by the renowned George Whitefield and John Wesley.

Kirtland Temple

Author: David J. Howlett

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 2014-05-30

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0252096371

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The only temple completed by Mormonism's founder, Joseph Smith Jr., the Kirtland Temple in Kirtland, Ohio, receives 30,000 Mormon pilgrims every year. Though the site is sacred to all Mormons, the temple’s religious significance and the space itself are contested by rival Mormon dominations: its owner, the relatively liberal Community of Christ, and the larger Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. David J. Howlett sets the biography of Kirtland Temple against the backdrop of religious rivalry. The two sides have long contested the temple's ownership, purpose, and significance in both the courts and Mormon literature. Yet members of each denomination have occasionally cooperated to establish periods of co-worship, host joint tours, and create friendships. Howlett uses the temple to build a model for understanding what he calls parallel pilgrimage--the set of dynamics of disagreement and alliance by religious rivals at a shared sacred site. At the same time, he illuminates social and intellectual changes in the two main branches of Mormonism since the 1830s, providing a much-needed history of the lesser-known Community of Christ.

Joseph and Lucy Smith's Tunbridge Farm: An Archaeology and Landscape Study

Author: Donald L. Enders

Publisher: John Whitmer Books

Published: 2021-03-02

Total Pages: 122

ISBN-13: 9781934901212

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Although Mark Staker and Don Enders' book Joseph and Lucy Smith's Tunbridge Farm is a thin volume, it is thick with new information on Mormon founder Joseph Smith's parents' first home in the mountains of Vermont. The home is best known as the birthplace of his older brother Hyrum Smith. The subtitle, An Archaeology and Landscape Study, identifies the source of much of this information. But the book also includes new documentary evidence of the Smith family's time in Tunbridge, Vermont.The authors carried out an archaeological dig at the home that the prophet's father Joseph Smith Sr. and uncle Jesse built for their family in 1791. When Joseph Sr. married Lucy, the newlyweds moved into the house with the rest of the Smith family until Joseph's parents Asael and Mary Smith moved with the rest of their children to a nearby lot.The excavation recovered high-society ceramics but suggested the rural setting in which the Smith family lived. The book details the size and nature of their home. In addition, the landscape study suggests details about how their farm was used, including the type of cows Mary had in her dairy, the layout of the property, the probable location of a buttery on the Smith farm, and possible crops that Joseph and Lucy cultivated.The authors explore the collapse of Smith Settlement as the family experienced financial trouble and sold off their land. Finally, the details of the farm suggest a location for the site where Lucy went to pray shortly before leaving her farm and the setting featured in her first prophetic dream, which concerned her husband and his brother.

Differing Visions

Author: Roger D. Launius

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 1998-01-15

Total Pages: 420

ISBN-13: 9780252067310

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The first serious attempt to analyze the careers of converts who later left the Mormon church, this book contains selections about 18 Mormon dissenters--David Whitmer, Fawn Brody, and Sonia Johnson, among them--contributed by Richard N. Holzapfel, John S. McCormick, Kenneth M. Godfrey, William D. Russell, Dan Vogel, Jessie L. Embry, and many others.

Life and Times of John Pierce Hawley

Author: Melvin C. Johnson

Publisher: Greg Kofford Books, Incorporated

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781589587656

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John Pierce Hawley's forty-year odyssey in the American interior was in pursuit of his dream to find a true Mormon restoration faith. The story describes John Pierce Hawley and Mormonism, particularly the Latter-day Saints and the Wightites, and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

Joseph Smith III

Author: Roger D. Launius

Publisher: University of Illinois Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 436

ISBN-13: 9780252065156

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This interesting, well-researched biography of the founder of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints covers the 54 years of his presidency, a tenure marked by Mormon factionalism that he succeeded in controlling. The son of the founder of Mormonism, Joseph Smith III at first resisted succeeding his father as leader and prophet but, as his biographer underscores, his governance from 1860 until his death in 1914 was fiercely committed to the religious legacy of his parent. Differing in style from the elder Smith's "sometimes disastrous impracticality," his son exemplified rugged individualism with a secular pragmatism that sprang from his legal education. An opponent of polygamy, as proclaimed by Brigham Young, the younger Smith established a viable bureaucracy and a style of leadership that characterizes the Mormon community today, notes the author, a military historian.

The Sword of Laban

Author: William D. Morain

Publisher: American Psychiatric Pub

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 284

ISBN-13: 9780880488648

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Dr. Morain's remarkable psychological study of Joseph Smith, Jr. will be of interest to a wide spectrum of readers -- as a social history, religious biography, an account of the dissociative elements in poetic and spiritual genius, or simply a gripping portrait of an ill-fated and tragic man.