Customer Reviews

Early Mormon Documents, Vol. 5

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Dan Vogel finishes his series of books on Early Mormon Documents with Volume V just as strongly as he started. Over five volumes, he has successfully gathered, collated and correlated a vast amount of data. These documents represent a wide view and a fair and balanced approach to events that, to say the least, were mysterious, strange and even wonderful to many faithful LDS. Volume V covers documents from those individuals associated with Joseph Smith in Fayette. Among these, the Peter Whitmer family are most prominent. Documents related to David Whitmer, the only one of the three witnesses who did not rejoin the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints headed by Brigham Young, are found to be eye-opening and yet still an enigma.
The timeline at the conclusion of Volume V constructed by the author must be considered as one of the most authoritative overviews of the events in the life of Joseph Smith leading up to and including the foundation of the Church.
Dan Vogel has done a great service for historians and researchers of Joseph Smith and the early period of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This is about as unbiased as any reasonable person could expect. Thus I would predict that some will find these documents faith-promoting and others will find them faith-limiting depending on the individual reader's outlook and intent.
For myself, I see no reason for LDS to avoid the details of the early aspect of their church. Dan Vogel has brought a great deal of information to light because these events transpired in the modern era. Surely there would be even less savory accounts of early Christianity or Islam if we had the luxury of the types of extant documents that this author has compiled.
I recommend this book wholehearedly, along with its prior volumes, to anyone with a more than passing curiosity as to the events in the life of the young Joseph Smith and the formation of what must be recognized as a new world religion.

Volume 5 of this series focuses on Mormon origins in Fayette, New York, and as such is primarily based on records regarding the Whitmer family, including interviews with the last (and most interviewed) of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, David Whitmer. It also contains statements, testimonies, letters and reminiscences by well known early church members: Hiram Page, William E. McClellin, Sidney Rigdon, John Whitmer and Parley P. Pratt.

Dan Vogel is a well known, non-Mormon historian. This collection is his attempt at publishing authentic historical accounts that are not common knowledge to the average inquirer, as well as containing excerpts from well known, published accounts.

From the Introduction:

"The present compilation includes numerous statements by and interviews with David Whitmer, followed by statements of his brother John Whitmer, brother-in-law Hiram Page, sister Elizabeth Ann Whitmer Cowdery, and nephew John C. Whitmer. Also included are accounts by area residents, including the early letters of farmer Lucius Fenn and the Reverend Diedrich Willers; the later statements of Lee Yost, Diedrich Willers, Sr., Diedrich Willers, Jr., and Harrison Chamberlain; and two published histories. Statements from non-residents or visitors to the Fayette area have also been provided. Finally, the miscellaneous documents section contains the Testimony of Three Witnesses, priesthood licences for Joseph Smith, Sr., John Whitmer, and Christian Whitmer, and excerpts from the Far West Record"

While this volume, as per the previous volumes, contains mostly *excerpts* of the accounts it publishes, I found it to be personally the best of all five.

This is the fifth and final in a five-volume set compiled by Dan Vogel. These primary source documents can be located elsewhere. However, it is quite convenient to have them all in a multi-volume collection. These sources are those which are rarely, if ever used by the LDS Church since many, if not most of these documents raise issues regarding early LDS history. The only criticism I have is that the organization of the documents is initially a bit confusing, but works fine once the compiler's system is understood.

Kay Burningham, Attorney

Author of "An American Fraud: One Lawyer's Case against Mormonism."