Dan Vogel compiled and published 5 volumes he titled Early Mormon Documents. They are available on archive.org here:
https://archive.org/search?query=early+mormon+documents+vogel
As confidantes, the Smith family were intimately acquainted with their son’s and brother’s extraordinary supernatural encounters. Their narratives form an Urgeschichte that they repeated with considerable consistency over the years, despite the fact that Joseph’s published autobiography, which became the accepted, canonized version, differs significantly in several areas.
According to family tradition, the young seer retired to his bedroom one evening after discussing the Bible with his parents and siblings. In a night vision he saw an angelic messenger who told him that his sins were forgiven and that he would uncover an ancient record buried near their home. The next day, working in the fields alongside his older brother, he fainted from lack of sleep and again saw the messenger who commanded him to go and retrieve the sacred record.
He found the book, which was inscribed in an unknown script on gold leaves, hidden in a stone box with a pair of eye-glasses, the lenses of which were made of diamonds the size of “an English crown only slightly thicker.” By looking through the glasses, then at an opaque seer stone placed in a hat, the book’s script appeared as illuminated English words. He published his translation as the Book of Mormon. Later, in a friend’s bedroom, Joseph was impressed to ordain elders and to organize a new church. Almost immediately his followers performed miracles, beginning with a dramatic levitation and exorcism which inaugurated the restoration of primitive Christianity.
Early Mormon Documents: Volume Two provides all of the available statements by Harris and Oliver Cowdery (other witnesses are featured in subsequent volumes) so that readers can judge for themselves the meaning of these testimonies. In addition, Harris and Cowdery recall Joseph Smith’s treasure hunting, his spiritual gifts, and the process of translating the gold plates. Together their accounts constitute a thoroughly documented, first-person narrative of Mormon origins.
One section of Volume Two contains reminiscences by non-Mormon typesetter John Gilbert, whose contribution to the Book of Mormon has previously been inadequately acknowledged. When the printer’s manuscript was delivered to Gilbert’s office in downtown Palmyra, New York, it was unpunctuated—a stream of words without sentence breaks, commas, paragraph indentations, or capitalization—and Cowdery relied on Gilbert’s copy-editing skills. Smith was at the time living near his inlaws’ house in Pennsylvania. Gilbert’s interpretations have appeared in published editions of the Book of Mormon ever since.
Finally, editor Dan Vogel has included in this volume interviews with the Smiths’ Palmyra neighbors. That “a prophet is not without honor except in his home town” was true in Joseph Smith’s case. When he announced that God had called him to do a “marvelous work,” people reacted with astonishment. Not that he was a particularly troublesome young man; he simply lacked the credentials usually associated with religious leadership. He was “a clever, jovial boy” with a penchant for adventure and mischief, according to neighbors, and one who enjoyed a whiskey-and-water with friends and occasionally got into a scuffle. Such adolescent behavior assumed sinister overtones only later in light of Joseph’s blossoming religiosity. His claims antagonized not only the pious members of the local society but also his former treasure-hunting companions. Meanwhile the local press lampooned his vision of the “spirit of the money diggers,” describing this apparition as “a little old man . . . clad [in an] Indian blanket and moccasins” who spoke “reformed Egyptian.”
Although similar bias is evident in some neighbors’ accounts, their memories are significant in instances where they corroborate statements made by Smith family members and early Mormon converts. In addition, some of Smith’s early acquaintances—John Stafford, the brothers Benjamin, Lorenzo, and Orlando Saunders—are “friendly sources,” according to Vogel. Others provide information about the general cultural environment. For instance, Willard Chase, whose sister was a village scryer, criticized Smith for having borrowed a seer stone without returning it. While Chase and others denied belief in mysticism, they nonetheless confirmed its prevalence in western New York.
Note the personal odyssey of Ezra Thayre (see below) which tells about the world view of that place and time. Yet what should readers make of Thayre’s claim that an angel taught him how to blow a trumpet? Similarly in Solomon Chamberlain’s frank admission that he did not know whether “some genie or good spirit” had led him to Palmyra, New York, should one read into this a literary metaphor or an actual belief in supernatural guidance?
In part, the value one places on a source is determined by the questions one hopes to have answered by it. If one wants to know how the public initially reacted to the Book of Mormon, then the Rochester Gem’s light, gossipy report is welcome, though it is not a fair representation of the Book of Mormon’s contents.
Compare this to the more thoughtful work of Palmyra native Orsamus Turner. Though not a Mormon, he nevertheless strove to understand what effect Joseph Smith’s religiously divided parentage had on his life and church, a topic that remains of interest today. However, Turner cannot provide the details offered by those who were more intimately acquainted with the Smith family.
Nor should one expect to find a witness who is uncontaminated by his or her environment or by the tug of folklore. For example, it was reported that two pranksters one night convinced Calvin Stoddard—husband of Joseph Smith’s sister, Sophronia—that God was speaking to him from their hiding place near his door. No doubt this happened: that is, the jokesters probably played this trick. What is not known without corroboration is exactly how Stoddard responded, and there is thereby a high probability of embellishment.
People interpret “facts” according to prior expectations. For example, rumors that circulated among church members included the claim that “pyrotechnics” lit the sky when Joseph Smith removed the gold plates from the Hill Cumorah. These reminiscences—despite the fact that they were remembered years after the fact—describe everything from what seems to be shooting stars to one man’s memory of the literal armies of heaven marching across the firmament.
Therefore readers will find themselves making judgments along with the editor about which details are most valid, aided by Vogel’s comprehensive annotation. It is his hope that readers will consult the sources in tandem rather than in isolation, because only out of this collective pool of information can a reliable reconstruction of events be made.
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