The Ebensburg Alleghanian. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1865-1871, 1867-10-24
Zoe Smith, the Mormon Leader.

The Rochester Union and AdOertiser
publishes the following account of the
peculiarities which marked Joseph Smith,
the founder of Mormonism, previous to
the publication of his Reuelations [
knew him we'll before his book was pub
lished He was then a wood on
my farm, more willing to live by his wits
than his ak, and worked through the win
ter in company with some twenty or thirty
other rough backwoodsmen. He ana his
two associates built a rude cabin of poles
and brush, covered with leaves and earth,
in the woods open to the south. with a
camp-kettle in front for cooking; and
here, at night around huge fire, he and
his companions would gather, ten or a
dozen at time, to tell stories and sing
songs, and drink cheap wkiskey (two shil-
lings gallop), and although there were
some hard cases among them, Joe could
beat them all for tough stories and i'm
practicable adventures, and it was in this
school, believe, that he first conceived
the wonderful invention of the golden
plates and marvellous revelations.
And as these exercises were rehearsed
nightly to his hearers, aud as their ears
grew longer to receive them, so his tales
grew the more marvellous to please them,
uB til some of them supposed that he also
believed his own stories. Bu: OF this fact
there is no proof He was impudent and
assuming among his fellows, but ignorant
and dishonest, plausible and obsequious
to others, with sufficient low cunning to
conceal his ignorance, but, in my esuma-
ton, utterly unqualified to compose even
such jumble Of truth and fiction as this
book contained.
The most probable theory of It's origin
that l remember to have heard is that it
was the strange work of an eccentric Y eT-
mont clergyman, written to while away
the tedious hours of long confinement by
nervous debility, and that this idle pro-
ductop, after his decease, fell into Joe's
hands, and that having learned something
of the gullibility of his cronies, this in
cidcntal matter melted in him the first idea
of turning his foolish stories to account
and thus enable him to make the surrep-
titious manuscript the text book of his
gross imposition. [ Ispeak understanding
ly in saying he was shameless as well as
dishonest, and [ relate a small matter to
prove it. During the winter he was chop
ping for me, was in the habit Of riding
through the clearing daily to see that the
brush was piled as agreed, the wood fairly
corded, and no scattering trees left uncut,
and in this way became we'll acquainted
with the conduct of every man; and or
each Saturday took an account and paid
the hands. My mode was to ride around
while each party measured their ranks
and turned few sticks on the top to show
that they had been counted.
La this way [ one day took Joe's ac-
count, he accompanying me and removing
the sticks on the top of each rank. After
thus going the rounds and returning to
the shanty, he said he had another rank
or two that [ had not seen, and led me in
a different direction in a roundabout way,
to wood that [ had already measured, but
the sticks on top had all been laid back
to their places. [ saw the trick at once,
and could only make him confess his at
tempt to cheat by remeasuring the whole
lot; ; and all this he thought would have
So much for the man in small things.
After he left in the spring [ lost sight
of him until my friend Judge Whiting
dong since deceased), of the very respec-
table firm of Whiting & Butler, attorneys,
who was then loaning money on morsga-
ges for trust company, asked me if [
knew anything about Joe Smith. [ told
him that knew him for great rogue in
small way, when he Informed me that
he pretended to be prophet, and was
about publishing Book of Revelations !;
and had induced two credulous men