History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

JOSEPH'S MARRIAGE. 45
boarding at the house of Isaac Hale. After a month's
fruitless effort Stoal was induced by Joseph to abandon
the undertaking; but meanwhile the youth had
fallen in love with Hale's pretty daughter, Emma,
and wished to marry her. Hale objected, owing to
his continued assertions that he had seen visions, and
the resulting persecutions; so Joseph took Emma to
the house of Squire Tarbill, at South Bainbridge,
where they were married the 18th of January, 1827,
and thence returned to his father's farm, where he
worked during the following season. 7
Every year went Joseph to the hill Cumorah to
hold communion with the heavenly messenger, and on
the 22d of September, 1827, Moroni delivered to him
the plates, 8 and the urim and thummim with which
to translate them, charging him on pain of dire dis-
7 Among the many charges of wrong-doing ascribed to Smith from first to
last, was that of having stolen Hale's daughter. In answer it is said that
the young woman was of age, and had the right to marry whom and as she
chose.
8 ' When the appointed hour came, the prophet, assuming his practised
air of mystery, took in hand his money-digging spade and a large napkin,
and went off in silence and alone in the solitude of the forest, and after an
absence of some three hours, returned, apparently with his sacred charge concealed
within the folds of the napkin. Reminding the (Smith) family of the
original "command" as revealed to him, strict injunction of non-intervention
and non-inspection was given to them, under the same terrible penalty as before
denounced for its violation. Conflicting stories were afterwards told in
regard to the manner of keeping the book in concealment and safety, which
are not worth repeating, further than to mention that the first place of secretion
was said to be under a heavy hearthstone in the Smith family mansion.
Smith told a frightful story of the display of celestial pyrotechnics on the exposure
to his view of the sacred book—the angel who had led him to the discovery
again appearing as his guide and protector, and confronting ten thousand
devils gathered there, with their menacing sulphurous flame and smoke,
to deter him from his purpose ! This story was repeated and magnified by
the believers, and no doubt aided the experiment upon superstitious minds
which eventuated so successfully.' Tucker's Orlg. and Prog. Mor., 30-31.
'A great variety of contradictory stories were related by the Smith family
before they had any fixed plan of operation, respecting the finding of the
plates from which their book was translated. One is, that after the plates
were taken from their hiding-place by Jo, he again laid them down, looked
into the hole, where he saw a toad, which immediately transformed itself into
a spirit and gave him a tremendous blow. Another is, that after he had got
the plates, a spirit assaulted him with the intention of getting them from his
possession, and actually jerked them out of his hands. Jo, nothing daunted,
seized them again, and started to run, when his Satanic majesty, or the spirit,
applied his foot to the prophet's seat of honor which raised three or four feet
from the ground.' Howe's Mormonism Unveiled, 273-6. The excavation
was at the time said to be ICO feet in extent, though that is probably an ex-