Craig J. Ostler: On several occasions, the Prophet Joseph Smith stayed in the home of Josiah Stowell located near the Susquehanna River just southwest of the village of South Bainbridge. While here, Joseph discussed his spiritual experiences, Josiah’s Spanish silver mine project, and his own desire to marry Emma Hale, who also visited here.1 Since 1829, this home has been modernized several times and now has been restored to some of its original condition.
Alexander L. Baugh: It appears around 1825 that Josiah Stowell had some interest in a kind of get-rich-quick scheme. There were reports that down in the area of what, at that time, was known as Harmony, Pennsylvania, that there was Spanish treasure, a Spanish treasure mine and Stowell concocted the idea, well perhaps Joseph Smith, who has these unique abilities, could help me locate that treasure.2 Joseph Smith agreed to help Josiah Stowell along with his father and a few of the neighbors. Joseph was probably doing it probably not so much to help Stowell, but to help the family. We know coming due was a major mortgage payment, and the Smiths needed this money desperately.3 So the contract was struck, and Joseph reported down around the first of November to Josiah Stowell’s home. At the same time Stowell had made an agreement with Isaac Hale, who was a hunter in the area of Harmony, Pennsylvania, to actually put these men up as they tried to locate the purported treasure.4 It was at this time, of course, that Joseph and his companions would board in the Isaac Hale home and he meets his future wife, Emma Hale.5
Craig J. Ostler: After convincing Mr. Stowell to abandon his search for Spanish silver, Joseph worked on Josiah’s farm.6 Later, Joseph and Emma stayed here for a brief time immediately following their marriage.7 Josiah Stowell believed in Joseph to the last, saying that he never knew anything of him but that what was right and also knew Joseph was a seer and a prophet and that the Book of Mormon was true.8 Another item with which Josiah Stowell is involved deals with an attempt to go secure or sell the copyright of the Book of Mormon in Toronto, Canada. What took place, actually, is called the 23rd commandment in what was to be the Book of Commandments, and along with Oliver Cowdery and Hiram Page, Josiah Stowell is specifically mentioned to go up into the area of Canada so that they can secure copyright with us through selling according to the laws of the land, to secure copyright for this book in the entire world.9 It was a larger revelation. As they go to Canada, they go to Kingston area and what was then known as York, modern day Toronto. The revelation does not read the way that David Whitmer recalls it, and we find that Josiah Stowell in 1830, that is all we have is a revelation from 1830, is still very much involved with the coming forth of the Book of Mormon to all lands.10
Craig K. Manscill: The Zechariah Tarbill home was located here on the Afton County Fairgrounds.11 During one of her visits to the Stowell home in South Bainbridge, Emma and Joseph decided to marry without her parents’ permission. According to Lucy Mack Smith, more than a year before the wedding Joseph shared with his parents his desire to marry Emma. He thought that no young woman that he ever was acquainted with was better calculated to render the man of her choice happy than Emma Hale, a young lady whom he had been extremely fond of since his first introduction to her.12
Mary Jane Woodger: For Joseph it is love at first sight. He is completely mesmerized with her. I think he felt that she may have been a little bit out of his league. She is older, she has been a schoolteacher, and she is definitely more educated than he is.13 I think she was quite taken with him also. The problem, I think, was that Joseph’s reputation had preceded him.14 He came being known as a money-digger, as one who was talking about angels and gold bibles and you can imagine a future father-in-law; the prospects of Joseph supporting a wife were not extremely positive.
Craig K. Manscill: Joseph later wrote, “Owing to my continuing to assert that I had seen a vision, persecution still followed me, and my wife’s father’s family were very much opposed to our being married. I was therefore under that necessity of taking her elsewhere. So we went and were married at the house of Squire Tarbill”15 . Emma later related the story to her son, saying, “I had no intention of marrying when I left home, but during my visit at Mr. Stowell, Joseph visited me there. My folks were bitterly opposed to him, and being importuned by your father, aided by Mr. Stowell, who urged me to marry him, and preferring to marry him to any other man, I consented.”16 This mantel from the Tarble home is now preserved at the home of a local Afton resident.17
Charles Decker: This mantelpiece was from the home of what we call the Mormon house on the Afton fairgrounds. It was where the justice of the peace, Zechariah Tarbill, lived. He was the justice who married Joseph Smith and Emma Hale in 1827. The house was used as an exhibition hall and a dining hall for the Afton fair every year, but it got to be in a state of disrepair, so my father went and bought two mantelpieces. This one here and the one that is in the museum barn in Afton.
Craig K. Manscill: Today a historical marker on the site of the Tarbill home, erected in 1932, by the New York State Department of Education mistakenly identifies Emma as Emily Hale.18
Craig J. Ostler: A probable location of the court trial held against the Prophet Joseph Smith in Broome County, New York, is the Nathaniel Cole Tavern. Remnants of the foundation of the tavern are found here in Harpursville, New York.19 In operation by 1800, it was located near the corner of what now is Colesville Road and Watrous road. The post office, established here in 1806 with Nathaniel Cole Sr. as the first postmaster, was evidently at the right rear of the building. A local resident, Mrs. Daisy Hurd Decker, recalled, “the front door opened into a large front hall, with a wide staircase which ended in a huge ballroom across the front of the building, with windows in front and ends, and doors opening into the bedrooms on the back.”20
John P. Livingstone: In 19th century America, you have these taverns in communities. Today in our day we think of them as drinking spots, but in the earlier days these taverns were literally community centers. People would go there to hold courts, as in the case with Joseph Smith at Cole’s Tavern, people would come for dances, for recreation, and other things like that.21 It is almost as if taverns have evolved now in the 20th and 21st centuries into quite respectable places if you think about it. Even our church cultural halls have become community centers. When we first built our chapels, they were almost Protestant-ish buildings with pews and a pulpit at the front. Then we began adding these cultural halls to them, and we have what we have today.22 Our churches literally become a place where we can dance and we can have fun and we can put on programs and things like that.
Craig J. Ostler: The Prophet Joseph Smith related that in June 1830, the evening after his acquittal in South Bainbridge, he was immediately taken by a constable to a tavern in nearby Broome County for trial there.23 The next day, a trial was held before a magistrate.
Alexander L. Baugh: It is an interesting trial. We do not know a lot about it, but it was brought forward by a man by the name of Peter Bridgman. He was the nephew of Josiah Stowell on his wife Mariam’s side of the family. Peter Bridgman charges Joseph Smith with being a glass-looker and a disorderly person.24 We do not know much about the hearing and really what went on—there is a small amount of records there to kind of piece things together—but it is interesting that in the court hearing, Josiah Stowell came as really a defense witness for Joseph Smith. Basically he said, “I believe in him; that he has a unique, spiritual capabilities. And Josiah Stowell puts his stamp of endorsement on Joseph Smith as a prophet and seer.25
Craig J. Ostler: John Reid, one of Joseph’s attorneys, related, “Whilst I was engaged in the case…I was inspired with an eloquence which was altogether new to me, and which was overpowering and irresistible. I succeeded, as I expected, in obtaining the prisoner’s discharge.”26 The charge is vagrancy, and the individual who’s being charged is Joseph Smith the glass-looker, or Joseph Smith, the imposter.27 He is not being taken to court to see if he really is a glass-looker or if he is an imposter, it is whether he is a vagrant.28 They are using these derogatory terms, the glass-looker, in trying to sway the court with a character assassination. Even though this is not a very solid charge that he is a vagrant, because that does not make sense at all, he is there working for Josiah Stowell, so how is he a vagrant? But that does not matter, what our real concern is that he is a glass-looker, or he’s an imposter, which they cannot prove anyway. It is just a derogatory term to say that Joseph has gifts of seership.Joseph was acquitted, and even the abusive constable apologized to Joseph and asked his forgiveness. The mob persisted however and the constable eventually helped Joseph escape to safety.29
Alexander L. Baugh: Stowell’s constantly coming to the aid of Joseph Smith, particularly his character reference to show that this is indeed a remarkable person, regardless of whatever rumors have been circulating. I know this young man and he is a noble character.
Notes
1 Joseph Smith, “History Drafts, 1831—Circa 1847,” The Joseph Smith Papers: Histories, Volume 1: Joseph Smith Histories, 1832-1844, eds. Kern Lynn Davidson, David J. Whitaker, Mark Ashurst-McGee, Richard L. Jensen, (Salt Lake City: The Church Historians Press, 2012), 1:88,235-236.
2 Lucy’s Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith’s Family Memoir, ed. Lavina Fielding Anderson, (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001), 360.
3 Lucy’s Book, 361.
4 The Susquehanna Register [Montrose], May 1, 1834, accessed at http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/BOMP/id/869/rec/3.
5 Lucy’s Book, 360-363. See also, Joseph Smith Papers: Histories 1:237.
6 Joseph Smith Papers: Histories, 1:234-236.
7 The Joseph Smith Papers: Histories, 1: 234-236.
8 Josiah Stowell, Jr. to J S Fullmer, February 17, 1843, Church Archives.
9 Joseph Smith Papers: Revelations and Translations; Manuscript Revelation, 33.
10 Ibid.
11 Larry C. Porter, “A Study of the Origins of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the States of New York and Pennsylvania, 1816-1831” (Ph.D. diss., Brigham Young University, 1976), 187; BYU studies reprint, 2000, 75.
12 Lucy’s Book, 362-363
13 Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith Prophets wife, “Elect Lady,” Polygamy’s Foe, (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1984), 17.
14 Joseph Smith Papers: Histories 1:426-432.
15 Joseph Smith Papers: Histories 1:58.
16 The Saints Herald [Plano], October 1, 1879.
17 Larry C. Porter, “Central New York,” Sacred Places: New York and Pennsylvania, A Comprehensive Guide to Early LDS Historical Sites, ed. LaMar C. Berrett, (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book Company, 2000), 118-119.
18 Ibid.
19 “Cole’s Tavern,” By the Way: a Collection of Stories, Essays, and Poems About the Town of Colesville, ed. Fran Bromley, in cooperation with the Old Onaquaga Historical Society and the Town of Colesville, (Printed at DCMO-BOCES Print Shop, Norwich, New York, circa 2000), 52.
20 Ibid., 53.
21 Steven Struzinski, “The Tavern in Colonial America,” The Gettysburg Historical Journal: Vol. 1: Iss. 1, Article 7. Available at: http://cupola.gettysburg.edu/ghj/vol1/iss1/7 or http://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1026&context=ghj
22 Christine Sismondo, America Walks into a Bar: A Spirited History of Taverns and Saloons, Speakeasies and Grog Shops (Oxford University Press, New York: 2011)
23 Joseph Smith Papers: Histories 1:402-404, see also HC 1:89-91.
24 Joseph Smith Papers: Histories 1:396
25 Joseph Smith Papers: Histories 1:400-403.
26 Lucy’s Book, 485-486; also see Dean Jesse, “Joseph Knight’s Recollection of Early Mormon History,” BYU Studies, 17:1[Autumn 1976]:38.
27 Joseph Smith Papers: Histories 1:403-403.
28 Copy of bill for the earlier 1826 trial for court costs mentioning Joseph Smith the glass-looker, March 20, 1826, In possession of Craig Ostler; For 1826 court trial also see Gordon A. Madsen, “Joseph Smith’s 1826 Trial: The Legal Setting,” BYU Studies, Vol 30 No. 2, 91-108; Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The life of Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet, [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966], 16; For connection between charges in 1826 and 1830 trials, see Joseph Smith Papers: Histories, 1:397, note 183.
29 Joseph Smith Papers: Histories 1:412; “Some of the Remarks of John S. Reed, esq., As Delivered Before the State Convention,” Times and Seasons, Vol 5, No. 11, 549-552, accessed at http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/NCMP1820-1846/id/8375
