The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-05-05
BEGINNING OF M0RMONISM
RECOLLECTTONS OF ONE WHO KNEW
JOE SMITH VERY WE'LL,

Smiths Untidy Attire-The Finding of the
Golden Plates and How the Inscriptions
Were Misunderstanding the Bible.
San Jacinto, Cal. Feb. 2.-Danel
Hendrix, one of the two persons now
living who were associated with the
members of the earliest Mormon church
at Palmyra, N. Y, lives at the home of
his son in this vicinity. He is eighty
seven years of age, and retains his full
mental faculties. Although a disbe-
liever in any part of the Mormon faith,
he is often visited by descendants of
Joseph Smith and of Sidney Rigdon,
the founders of Mormonism, for remi-
niscences of the early days of the
Latter Day Saints in Wayne county,
N. Y. Edgar Smith, a grandson of Jo-
seph Smith, told the writer less than q
year ago that he found Daniel Hen
dirk, the last man living who had the
closest personal acquaintance with his
grand-parent at the time of the finding
of the golden Bible.
Mr.. Hendricks mind is wonderfully
retentive of events of sixty-fve years
ago. He has a few proof sheets of the
original Mormon Bible, as printed by
Major John Gilbert at Palmyra in 1884
and at one time had copy of the first
complete Bible He sold it twenty
years ago for two hundred dollars to a
gentleman who acted as an agent for
Lord Beaconsfield. He has since
learned that two Mormon Bibles of the
irct n1i how SID
rope for about seven hundred dollars
each The present Joseph Smith has
tried hard to procure a copy of that edi-
ton for Mr.. Gladstone, who sent word
to San Francisco that he would be will
ling to pay handsome price for the
book.
II was very young man in store
in Palmyra, N. Y, from 1922 until
$780," said Mr.. Hendrix to us recently
in talking of his recollections of the orr
gin of Mormonism, "and among the
daily visitors at the establishment was
Joseph Smith, Jr. Every one knew him
as Joe Smith. He had lived in Palmyra
a few years previous to my going there
from Rochester. Joe was the most
ragged, lazy fellow in the place, and
that is saying good deal. He was
about twenty-five years old I can see
him now in my minds eye, with his
torn and patched trousers held to his
form by pair of suspenders made out
of sheeting, with his calico shirt as
dirty and black as the earth, and his
uncombed hair sticking through the
holes in his old battered hat. In VIM
ter I used to pity him. for his shoes
were so old and worn out that he must
have suffered in the snow and slush;
yet Joe had jovial, easy, dont-care
way about him that made him a lot of
warm friends. He was a good talker,
and would have made fine stump
speaker If he had had the training. He
was known among the young men ] as
ISOLATED with as a. romancer of the first
water. I never knew so ignorant a
man as Joe was to have such a fertile
Imagination. He never could tell q
common occurrence in his daily life
without embellshing the story with
his Imagination; yet remember that
he was grieved one day when old Par
son Reed told Joe that he was going to
hell for his lying habits.
MRS. Smith, Joe's mother, was a
stanch Presbyterian, and was a great
and provoking ways. She always de-
clared that he was born with a genius,
and did not have to work. Never
mind about my son Joseph said she
one day, when my employer had rallied
her upon her heirs useless ways, for
the boy will be able some of these fine
days to buy the whole of Palmyra and
all the folks in it. You don't know
what brain my boy has under that
old hat
For over two years Joe Smiths chief
occupation was digging for gold at
might and sleeping in the daytime. He
was close-mouthed on the subject Of his
gold-seeking operations around on the
farms Of Wayne county, where not a
speck of gold was ever mined and
when people joked him too severely
concerning his progress in getting the
precious metal, he would turn his back
upon the jokers and bystanders and go
home as fast as possible With some
of us young men, however, who were
always serious with him and affected
an interest in his work, he was more
confidential.
"Joe, in his excursion after gold, car
ried divining rod to tell him where
there was hidden treasure, and he left
many holes in the ground about that
region, which testified that he could
work If the spirit moved. He had all
the superstitions of the money diggers
of the day, one of which was that the
digging must be done at night, and not
"a word must be spoken, for at the first
utterance the gold would fly away to
some other locality; in fact, Joe claimed
that he had more than once been on the
point of reaching some great treasure
when, in his eagerness, some unlucky
exclamation would escape him, and
presto! the treasure would vanish from
under his feet.
"Finally in the fall-in September,