Recollections of James A. Briggs

From October 1832 to the end of March 1834 I lived in Chagrin, Cuyahoga Co., Ohio. Near the end of that period the township was transferred to Geauga Co. and renamed "Willoughby." I studied law at Willoughby during most of my residence there, and was admitted to the bar in Oct. 1833, as a young and still inexperienced lawyer. One of my first clients, in fact, was the infamous "Doctor" Philastus Hurlbut, a man who, in those days, had sworn to expose and destroy Mormonism in nearby Kirtland.

I lived only about two and a half miles from the spot where the Mormons were building their temple, on the rise overlooking Kirtland Flats. I heard much of Mormonism by report and even more as an eyewitness to much that transpired in and around the Mormonite headquarters at Kirtland. When time permitted I went to hear the leaders of the sect preach, especially their most eloquent champion, Rev. Sidney Rigdon.

Rigdon was a natural orator, had a fine command of pious language, and was a very impressive speaker. He had much native genius and probably at least a smattering of a classical education. As I recall he was the first real preacher of Mormonism, having previously been employed in northern Ohio as a Baptist minister of no little fame. There were early rumors that Rigdon was the real founder of the Mormonite delusion and I eventually came to believe that he was the real brains of the concern. Smith exhibited a considerable imaginative qualities, coupled with a natural ability to fool many people in various ingenious ways, but he had not the capacity, natural or acquired, to found a religion and compile its unique "scriptures." He was cunning but not intellectual. Rigdon was both intelligent and devious, a man who could plan and execute deep laid schemes and put a plausible face upon all sorts of self-serving knavery.

While engaged in studying the law at Willoughby I became acquainted with several of the leading citizens and professional men of Chagrin, Painesville, and Mentor. Several of these gentlemen shared a growing concern that the Mormonites would soon increase their numbers to such a degree as to pose a serious political and economic threat to the "old settlers" of Geauga County. Professional men like Dr. George W. Card and Judge Nehemiah Allen had first-hand experience in dealing with these fanatical sectarians. They counseled their friends and neighbors that it might be a good idea to investigate the hidden origins and dark secrets of these people, and to deflate their ballooning expansion before they became a serious menace to their "Gentile" neighbors.

Just about the beginning of the winter of 1833-34 these gentlemen and their associates read in the newspapers of the Mormonites being ejected from their colony in Missouri and decided it was time to instigate some similar, if less violent, actions against the sect in Ohio. Col. Warren Corning, who knew most of the leading men in the region, graciously offered the use of his house in Mentor as a place for the "investigators" to hold their consultations. I accompanied Dr. Card to their first gathering in Mentor and there became more closely acquainted with Samuel Wilson, a prominent businessman, Judge Jonathan Lapham, Judge Allen, Mr. Corning, and his son. The non-Mormon town officials of Kirtland had recently held a public meeting and had decided that the great majority of the Mormonites under their jurisdiction were a public nuisance, barely able to feed themselves and totally unprepared to shoulder their fair share of responsibility in the township. Plans were underway to warn most of them out of Kirtland. The Campbellites of Mentor were also unhappy at the growth of the new sect at their own expense. They had lost almost all their members in Kirtland to Mormonite conversions and had barely rescued the congregation at Mentor from a similar fate. Mr. Corning was well acquainted with all of these opponents of Mormonism. He an a couple of neighbors with "deep pockets" had resolved to check the Mormonite political threat in the coming elections in Kirtland township.

So, although none of us actually held residence in Kirtland, we built upon the foundations laid by the recent town meeting in that place and styled ourselves as a "Committee" of that meeting, organized to consult together and report back to Mr. Corning's associates across the township line. I myself had little to contribute to the "Committee," except a youthful eagerness and a firm resolve to expose religious blasphemy wherever I might encounter it.

At about the time the "Committee" met for the third time in Mentor, we heard of a man who was just then lecturing against the Mormonites in the little Methodist chapel adjacent to their half-built temple at Kirtland. We were then operating under the impression that this man was a well qualified physician who had uncovered many embarrassing secrets relating to the "Latter Day Saints" and their leaders. This Doctor met with us at the Corning home and solicited our financial assistance in sending him back to his previous home in Ontario, County, new York, the very place where Mormonism had first reared its displeasing head. This "Doctor" Hurlbut promised to return with many incriminating signed affidavits taken from the former neighbors of the Mormon Smith family. This much I heard him say myself. The man also dropped dark hints about his being able to prove the altogether human origin of the Mormon Bible in the writings of a certain deceased clergyman. The details of this impending disclosure Hurlbut shared only with Judge Allen, Dr. Card and Col. Corning. However, I was later informed that he had displayed to them and to three other men, not members of the "Committee," two personal statements he had recently obtained from the brother and sister-in-law of this mysterious deceased clergyman -- depositions which detailed the true origin of the so-called Book of Mormon.

With funds supplied to some extent from our own pockets (but largely by the three non-members of the group), Dr. Hurlbut disappeared from our view for several weeks, during which time he communicated with us by letters sent to a magistrate in Kirtland who was a Campbellite and a friend of Mr. Corning. Near the end of December, in 1833, Hurlbut returned to Ohio and the first we heard confirming that event was that the fellow was again lecturing in and around Kirtland. A few days before Christmas our "Committee" reassembled itself in Mentor and prepared a few sharp words for Hurlbut. The man presented himself with copious apologies for having let the cat out of the bag before sharing his findings with our little group. His excuse was that he had obtained such startling evidence documenting the Mormon fraud that he feared for his life and thought it best to make the exposure public to as many persons as possible and as quickly as possible. This justification of his aroused the curiosity of the Committee members and we all sat down to pour over dozens of signed and certified statements Hurlbut had brought back from Ontario and Wayne counties in New York. But, as he then said and as I still now believe, his "biggest fish" was a pile of tattered old manuscripts, retrieved from an old attic near Syracuse and a defunct publishing firm in Pittsburgh, or so he said. These, he remarked, were the "bones upon which Sidney Rigdon hung the meat of Mormonism."

The manuscripts were written with a quill pen and in a crabbed, old-fashioned hand. They appeared to us to be little more than a useless pile of rubbish, until Hurlbut began pointing out words, names, phrases, and then, whole sentences, that matched in partly or fully their numerous counterparts in his well-thumbed Book of Mormon. The style of composition, the names, etc., were the same. "This is it!" exclaimed Samuel Wilson, with a broad grin. "We publish these papers, along with certificates testifying to their authenticity, and the Mormon hoax is finished."

Dr. Hurlbut solicited still more funds from the Committee, and promised to compile the lot of his documents into a readable book, to be published at Chardon within six weeks. By this time we had all become more than a little aware of the man's deficiencies in scholarly attainments, and the common feeling was that Hurlbut should retire from the field and allow more capable hands to carry out the publicizing of his great discoveries. This idea Hurlbut protested with much bombast and a great show of hurt feelings. The meeting broke up without a clear plan of action determined upon, and with Dr. Hurlbut retaining all but a few specimens of his collection of wondrous documents. Those left temporarily in our keeping were a sheaf of letters penned by those who had known the deceased clergyman. From these and from other facts related by Hurlbut, we were convinced that Sidney Rigdon, when he had lived near Pittsburgh, copied a work of fiction, "The Manuscript Found," and from that and other things made up the Mormon Bible. The Committee did not come together again to discuss this dilemma until after Christmas, and during that slack time matters quickly spun entirely out of hand.

For several reasons I do not need to relate here, Dr. Hurlbut, who had once been a Mormon himself, was involved in serious trouble with "the Saints" in Kirtland. His boisterious lecturing and defiant exhibitions of the documents he had recently collected did not set well with Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet. One night he got into a brawl with Joe Smith on the very steps of the unfinished Mormon temple at Kirtland. No blood was drawn and the two pugilists came away from the hostile encounter none the worse from the wear. But, from that moment onward, I think, Hurlbut realized that discretion was the better part of valor, and that he had far fewer friends to defend him than the Mormons had ruffians to follow him about on dark nights. He moved out of Kirtland Flats and into the security of Cambellite Mentor that very night.

You might imagine my surprise when none other than the good Doctor sent word that I should come to meet him at once at his new residence. His stated reason for calling upon my services without notice was that three other capable attorneys had turned down an important prosecution he was determined to bring against the Mormon leader, Joe Smith. Telling me right off that he hoped my services would be rendered gratis, Hurlbut requested that I at once go with him to a Justice of the Peace in order to file a complaint against the Mormon prophet, on the charge of assault and battery. He had his witnesses and they were prepared to swear under oath that Smith had struck first in their recebt passage at arms in front of the temple. Deciding that Dr. Hurlbut might find his best opportunity to pursue such a course of action among the magistrates in Painesville, the two of us immediately repaired to that town, and not long after the break of day he had his writ against Smith, returnable to Judge Holbrook. However, before a copy of the order could even be placed in the hands of the Painesville constable, word reached us that Benjamin Bissell, Esq. had secured the issuance of a similar warrant, against my client, from Judge Dowen in Kirtland. The attorney for the Mormon Prophet had accused Hurlbut of planning to murder Smith, following their nocturnal bout of fisticuffs in Kirtland.

So began an extraordinary game of cat and mouse, in which my client, Dr. Hurlbut, played the mouse and was soon after arrested in Painesville. Joe Smith surrendered his own person to the tender mercies of Judge Dowen and the Kirtland constable, and ended up under arrest in his own house, if that may be properly called an arrest at all. Benjamin Bissell was a consummate practitioner of the art of legal defense and I harbored little hope of success in a battle against his lawyer's wits. By some slight of hand, Bissell was able to have our intended prosecution of Joe Smith suspended until Smith's own case against my client could be set in motion. The result of this skillful lawyering was that the magistrate hearings for both Hurlbut's prosecution and Smith's counter-prosecution were combined, in a three day legal farce, the recollection of which I would most happily relinquish altogether.

Hurlbut was released from the constable's arms into my keeping for the three days of the hearing in Painesville. Judge Holbrook determined that the public curiosity had been so much aroused as to render holding the proceedings in the court-house impractical. The old Methodist chapel on the southeast corner of the square in Painesville was requisitioned, and for three days the dual-hearing circus was performed daily to a full crowd of gawking spectators, all eager to catch a glimpse of the Mormon Elijah. If there had been court recorders in those days the verbatim report of the combined hearings would have been a rare curiosity. The presiding Judge had attended Hurlbut's lectures and he had handled some of the same manuscripts our Committee had perused at the Corning home in Mentor a few days before. My hopes were that he would quietly assist us gain some publicity in the county papers for our battle against Mormonism. But the best I was able to obtain was a knowing aside from His Honor, at the bench, saying that the Court of Common Pleas would doubtless exonerate Dr. Hurlbut -- and that such an outcome would spread the good Doctor's marvelous discoveries across the front pages of papers from Detroit to Buffalo. In the meanwhile, Hurlbut was placed under bonds to keep the peace in his relations with all men, and with Joe Smith in particular.

The most interesting part of the hearing was certainly not in listening to the catalog of deadly threats recited by the witnesses restating my client's regrettable outpourings among the Mormonites. Even Hurlbut conceded he may have said such things, in th heat of anger. He meant to say he would kill Mormonism -- but that may have come out as "I'll kill Joe Smith and his church too."

The truly memorable two days of the hearing occurred when I had Prophet Smith called to the witness stand to tell his side of the story. He left off talking about Hurlbut and began telling of his purported discovery of the book of plates that was the original to the Mormon Bible and the judge, after some hesitation, allowed Smith's sworn testimony. According to the teller of the tale, under oath, he found some golden plates buried in the earth in a field in Palmyra, New York. The fortunate digger had barely obtained the precious plates from his diggings, when a malevolent spirit assaulted him with the intention of getting them from his possession, and actually jerked them out of his hands -- Smith, not at all daunted, in return seized them back again, whereupon the demonic power applied his cloven hoof to the seat of the prophet's pantaloons, and raised him a good four feet into the atmosphere. The whole trial was exceedingly rich, and the old church was crowded with incredulous spectators. In my summation I must have played a little rough with Morminite sentiments, for as soon as the proceedings had ended, one of the leaders of the Kirtland Mormons confessed aloud, "if it were not for his religion he would whup that skinny fledgling, Briggs." My offer to forget the fanatic's "religion" for the moment was declined and I perhaps became the only lawyer who has ever escaped a beating on account of his opponent being a Mormon.

I parted company with Hurlbut following the unfortunate outcome of the hearing. The "Committee" held a few more meetings in Mentor to discuss matters, but by the beginning of February, 1834 it was evident to everyone that Hurlbut either no longer had all the manuscripts we had read through in his current possession, or he was unwilling to further share their contents. In either case, he broke the agreement he had previously made with the Committee in half a dozen different ways. A good deal of his affidavits and other papers ended up in the care of Painesville editor Eber D. Howe, and, from that time forward the "Committee" washed its hands of Hurlbut and, except for its financing non-Mormon candidates for local office and underwriting a few lawsuits against leaders of the sect, was effectively disbanded. When Howe published his interesting book some months later, practically all the best discoveries of Dr. Hurlbut were left unmentioned, or, if mentioned at all, were wholly undocumented.

Hurlbut's case came before the Court of Common Pleas at the end of March and he again sent word, inquiring if I would represent him at that trial. I do not recall now whether I even sent him a reply, as I was then busy packing my belongings in order to remove from Willoughby to a law office in Cleveland. The last I heard of the man in Ohio was in a cock-crowing editorial published in the pages of the Mormon journal issued at Kirtland. He lost the case brought against him in Chardon and thenceforth disappeared from the sight of all, leaving behind only an earful of unsavory rumors as to the questionable nature of his personal character.

In later years the account of Rev. Solomon Spaulding having written a good deal of the Book of Mormon was bandied about in the papers, and it even appeared in various forms in a number of books, complete with fresh affidavits and additional particulars. One report I recall reading said that D. P. Hurlbut boasted of having made $400 from his sale of Spaulding's "Manuscript Found" to the Kirtland Mormons. Another said that it was common knowledge among former important Mormons living in Missouri that such a nefarious transaction did take place at an earlier date, but that Smith and Company had neglected to pay the agreed upon sum in full and that all Hurlbut ended up with was a postage-stamp piece of worthless swamp land, located somewhere in Erie Co., Pennsylvania.

I have read the story written by Solomon Spaulding and published recently by the non-polygamous Josephite Mormons of Iowa. I have no doubt, as they profess, that Mr. Howe obtained this piece of work from Hurlbut early in 1834. We had this thin tale before us on the table in Mentor, along with a few other scribblings of a similar kind. I remember then reading about the ancient ruined fort on Conneaut Creek, the mound within which the writer claimed to find some ancient records, etc. But we also had before us, and we compared it closely with the Mormon Bible, a longer, more finished story, which I have ever since believed was the "Manuscript Found" and the basis for the Book of Mormon. The words if that story were written in the same style as the text of the Mormon Bible. The unique names -- singular examples of concoction -- were the same as in the Mormon book, not to be forgotten. This other, larger manuscript was not put into the hands of Mr. Howe. What did Hurlbut do with it? Some years back I wrote to him, reminding him that he and I were the two surviving participants in those almost forgotten meetings at Mentor, and asking him what he had done with the "Manuscript Found." He died without ever replying to my questions.

Besides my own remembrances of the evidence put before us in Corning's drawing room, a great deal of supporting evidence has been subsequently brought forth and placed before the public eye. I have ever believed that I once held in my hands the Spaulding original of the Book of Mormon, and I can honestly say that all I have learned of these matters since then only serves to confirm my long-held beliefs in this respect. Mormonism was founded upon a fraud and it is a pity that so many have been, and continue to be, so badly deceived. I can only hope that those who read my statement will allow it enough credence that they will look into this affair more deeply on their own account, and thus help to promote the cause of truth and justice in a world sorely beset by such aggravations as Mormonism, Rigdonism and Brighamism.

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