Mormon Publications: 19th Century - Letters by Oliver Cowdery

Cowdery, Oliver. Letters by Oliver Cowdery, to W. W. Phelps, on the origin of the Book of Mormon, and the rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Liverpool, Published by Thomas Ward and John Cairns, 36, Chapel Street, 1844.

48 p. 17 cm.

View Document

Oliver Cowdery’s eight letters to W. W. Phelps, first published in the Messenger and Advocate between October 1834 and October 1835, constitute the earliest printed account of the birth of Mormonism. Extracts from the letters were in the Millennial Star for June and September–November 1840, and the letters were printed more or less in full in the Times and Seasons of November 1–December 15, 1840, and March 15–May 1, 1841. They were again published in the sixth number of the Gospel Reflector.

Cowdery’s first letter describes his initial contact with Joseph Smith, his participation in translating the Book of Mormon, and the appearance of John the Baptist which he and Joseph Smith shared. In the third letter he moves back in time and discusses the revival of Rev. Lane in the Palmyra area, the attendant religious excitement, and the Smith family’s religious seeking–events that are usually associated with Joseph Smith’s 1820 vision.

At this pont an intriguing textual change occurs. The version of this letter in the Messenger and Advocate states that this religious excitement occurred during Joseph Smith’s fifteenth year. In the pamphlet 15th is changed to 17th. The fourth letter picks up the narrative and, in the original version, it states that the reference to the fifteenth year in Letter III was “an error in the type—it should have been in the 17th. . . . This would bring the date down to the year 1823.” The pamphlet version eliminates any reference to an error and, like the original, proceeds from this point with an account of the appearance of the angel to Joseph Smith on September 21, 1823; an event that is entirely unrelated to the religious excitement described in the third letter. These changes follow the Gospel Reflector.

Whatever was intended in letter III, certain problems persist. Joseph Smith’s seventeenth year was 1822, not 1823, and Rev. George Lane was most prominently in the Palmyra area in 1824–25. It is conceivable that Cowdery shifted the date after realizing he had introduced Lane at the wrong time. It is also possible that he described the events leading up to Joseph Smith’s 1820 vision in letter III with the intent of recounting it in Letter IV; then, after Letter III was printed, he decided not to mention the vision, which at the time was not openly discussed.

Letter VII continues the account of the angelic visitation on September 21, 1823, and of the events just following. It includes a description of the Hill Cumorah, where Joseph Smith obtained the plates. Letter VIII further describes Cumorah and relates the vision he had at this spot. The next-to-last paragraph refers to a trial he was subjected to sometime between 1823 and 1827—undoubtedly the trial at South Brainbridge, New York, in 1826. The pamphlet concludes with a short letter from Joseph Smith, first published in the Messenger and Advocate of December 1834, in which he comments on his early life.

Excerpted and edited from Peter Crawley, A Descriptive Bibliography of the Mormon Church. Volume One, 1830–1847. (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University, Religious Studies Center, [1997]). Item 197, p. 237-40.

Used by permission of the author and the Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University.