Oliver Cowdery

Oliver Cowdery
Photograph of Oliver Cowdery found in the Library of Congress, taken in the 1840s by James Presley Ball
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Assistant Counselor in the First Presidency
September 3, 1837 (1837-09-03) – April 11, 1838 (1838-04-11)
End reason	Excommunication
Assistant President of the Church
December 5, 1834 (1834-12-05) – April 11, 1838 (1838-04-11)
Called by	Joseph Smith, Jr.
End reason	Excommunication
Second Elder of the Church
April 6, 1830 (1830-04-06) – December 5, 1834 (1834-12-05)
Called by	Joseph Smith, Jr.
End reason	Called as Assistant President of the Church
LDS Church Apostle
1829 (aged 22) – April 12, 1838 (1838-04-12)
Called by	Joseph Smith, Jr.
Reason	Restoration of priesthood
End reason	Excommunication for apostasy
Reorganization at end of term	No apostles immediately ordained[1]
Personal details
Born	Oliver H. P. Cowdery October 3, 1806(1806-10-03) Wells, Vermont, United States
Died	March 3, 1850(1850-03-03) (aged 43) Richmond, Missouri, United States
Resting place	Richmond Pioneer Cemetery, Missouri, United States 39°17′6.76″N 93°58′34.93″W / 39.2852111°N 93.9763694°W / 39.2852111; -93.9763694 (Richmond Pioneer Cemetery, Missouri)
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Oliver H. P. Cowdery^[2] (October 3, 1806 – March 3, 1850) was, with Joseph Smith, Jr., an important participant in the formative period of the Latter Day Saint movement between 1829 and 1836, becoming one of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon's golden plates, one of the first Latter Day Saint apostles, and the Second Elder of the church.

Biography

Family background

Cowdery was born October 3, 1806 in Wells, Vermont. His father, William, may have been a follower of sectarian leader Nathaniel Wood of Middletown, Vermont, whose small religious sect, the "New Israelites," practiced divining for buried treasure and for revelatory purposes.^[3]

View of the Hebrews controversy

The Cowdery family also attended the Congregational Church of Poultney, Vermont, where Ethan Smith was pastor.^[4] At the time, Ethan Smith was writing View of the Hebrews (1823), a book speculating that Native Americans were of Hebrew origin.^[5] David Persuitte argues that Cowdery had a knowledge of View of the Hebrews and that this acquaintance significantly contributed to the final version of the Book of Mormon.^[6] Even noted LDS scholar Richard Bushman has written in Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling that though "Joseph Smith is not known to have seen View of the Hebrews until later in life, the parallels seem strong enough for critics to argue that Ethan Smith provided the seeds for Joseph Smith's later compositions."^[7] Nevertheless, Mormon apologists such as Bushman and John W. Welch reject the connection and argue that there is little relationship between the contents of the two books.^[8]

Youth

Cowdery was reared in Poultney, but beginning at age twenty, he clerked at a store in New York for several years until 1829, when he taught school in the town of Manchester.^[9] While teaching, Cowdery lodged at different houses in the Manchester area, including that of Joseph Smith, Sr., who apparently provided Cowdery with additional information about the golden plates of which he had heard "from all quarters."^[10]

Book of Mormon scribe and witness

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Cowdery met Joseph Smith, Jr. on April 5, 1829—a year and a day before the official founding of the church—and heard from him how he had received golden plates containing ancient Native American writings.^[11] Like Smith, who was a distant relative,^[12] during his youth, Cowdery had engaged in hunting for buried treasure and had used a divining rod.^[13] Cowdery told Smith that he had seen the golden plates in a vision before the two ever met.^[14]

From April 7 to June 1829, Cowdery acted as Smith's primary scribe for the translation of the plates into what would later become the Book of Mormon. Cowdery also unsuccessfully attempted to translate part of the Book of Mormon himself.^[15] Before meeting Cowdery, Joseph Smith's translation had come to a near standstill after the first 116 pages were lost by Martin Harris. But after Smith met Cowdery, the manuscript was completed in a remarkably short period (April–June 1829) during what Richard Bushman called a "burst of rapid-fire translation." ^[16]

On May 15, 1829, Cowdery and Smith said that they received the Aaronic priesthood from John the Baptist, after which they baptized each other in the Susquehanna River.^[17] Cowdery also said that he and Smith later went into the forest and prayed "until a glorious light encircled us, and as we arose on account of the light, three persons stood before us dressed in white, their faces beaming with glory." One of the three announced that he was the Apostle Peter and said the others were the Apostles James and John.^[18]

Later that year, Cowdery reported experiencing a vision along with Smith and David Whitmer in which an angel showed him the golden plates. Martin Harris said he saw a similar vision later that day, and Cowdery, Whitmer and Harris signed a statement to that effect. They became known as the Three Witnesses, and their testimony has been published with nearly every edition of the Book of Mormon.

Second Elder of the church

When the Church was organized on April 6, 1830, Joseph Smith, Jr. became "First Elder" and Cowdery "Second Elder." Although Cowdery was technically second in authority to Smith from the organization of the church through 1838, in practice Sidney Rigdon, Smith's "spokesman" and counselor in the First Presidency, began to supplant Cowdery as early as 1831. Cowdery held the position of Assistant President of the Church from 1834 until his excommunication in 1838.^[19]

On December 18, 1832, Cowdery married Elizabeth Ann Whitmer, the daughter of Peter Whitmer, Sr. and sister of David, John, Jacob and Peter Whitmer, Jr.. They had five children, only one of whom survived to maturity.^[20]

Cowdery helped Smith publish a series of Smith's revelations first called the Book of Commandments and later, as revised and expanded, the Doctrine and Covenants. Cowdery was also the editor or on the editorial board of several early church publications including the Evening and Morning Star, the Messenger and Advocate, and the Northern Times.

When the Church created a bank known as the Kirtland Safety Society in 1837, Cowdery obtained the money-printing plates. Sent by Smith to Monroe, Michigan, he became president of the Bank of Monroe, in which the church had a controlling interest.^[21] Both banks failed that same year. Cowdery moved to the newly founded Latter Day Saint settlement in Far West, Missouri and suffered ill health through the winter of 1837-38.

Early written history of the church

In 1834 and 1835, with the help of Smith, Cowdery published a contribution to an anticipated "full history of the rise of the church of Latter Day Saints" as a series of articles in the church's Messenger and Advocate, a version not entirely congruent with the later official history of the church.^[22] For instance, Cowdery ignored the First Vision but described an angel (rather than God or Jesus) who called Smith to his work in September 1823, placing the religious revival that stimulated Smith to ask which church to join in 1823 (rather than 1820) and stating that this revival experience had caused Smith to pray in his bedroom (rather than the woods).^[23] Further, after first asserting that the revival had occurred in 1821, when Smith was in his "fifteenth year," Cowdery corrected the date to 1823—Smith's 17th (actually, 18th) year.^[24]

Excommunication

By early 1838 Smith and Cowdery disagreed on three significant issues. First, Cowdery competed with Smith for leadership of the new church and "disagreed with the Prophet's economic and political program and sought a personal financial independence [from the] Zion society that Joseph Smith envisioned."^[25] Then too, in March 1838, Smith and Rigdon moved to Far West, which had been under the presidency of W. W. Phelps and Cowdery's brothers-in-law, David and John Whitmer. There Smith and Rigdon took charge of the Missouri church and initiated policies that Cowdery, Phelps, and the Whitmers believed violated separation of church and state. Finally, in January 1838, Cowdery wrote his brother Warren that he and Joseph Smith had "had some conversation in which in every instance I did not fail to affirm that which I had said was strictly true. A dirty, nasty, filthy affair of his and Fanny Alger's was talked over in which I strictly declared that I had never deserted from the truth in the matter, and as I supposed was admitted by himself." Alger, a teenage maid living with the Smiths, may have been Joseph Smith's first plural wife, a practice that Cowdery opposed.^[26]

On April 12, 1838, a church court excommunicated Cowdery after he failed to appear at a hearing on his membership and sent a letter resigning from the Church instead.^[27] David Whitmer was also excommunicated from the church at the same time and apostle Lyman E. Johnson was disfellowshipped;^[28] John Whitmer and Phelps had been excommunicated for similar reasons a month earlier.^[29]

Cowdery and the Whitmers became known as "the dissenters," but they continued to live in and around Far West, where they owned a great deal of property. On June 17, 1838, President Sidney Rigdon announced to a large Mormon congregation that the dissenters were "as salt that had lost its savor" and that it was the duty of the faithful to cast them out "to be trodden beneath the feet of men." Cowdery and the Whitmers, taking this Salt Sermon as a threat against their lives and as an implicit instruction to the Danites, a secret vigilante group, fled the county. Stories about their treatment circulated in nearby non-Mormon communities and increased the tension that led to the 1838 Mormon War.^[30]

Life apart from the church

From 1838 to 1848, Cowdery put the Latter Day Saint church behind him. He may even have briefly denied his testimony regarding the Golden Plates because in 1841, the Mormon periodical Times and Seasons published the following verse: "Or does it prove there is no time,/Because some watches will not go?/...Or prove that Christ was not the Lord/Because that Peter cursed and swore?/Or Book of Mormon not His word/Because denied, by Oliver?"^[31] Nevertheless, there is no direct evidence that Cowdery denied his testimony, and he may have repeated it while estranged from the church.^[32][33]

Cowdery studied law and practiced at Tiffin, Ohio, where he became a civic and political leader. He also joined the Methodist church there and served as secretary in 1844.^[34] Cowdery edited the local Democratic newspaper until it was learned that he was one of the Book of Mormon witnesses; then he took the position of assistant editor. In 1846, Cowdery was nominated as his district's Democratic party candidate for the state senate, but when his Mormon background was discovered, he was defeated.^[32]

Final Latter Day Saint contacts

After Joseph Smith was assassinated, Cowdery's brother Lyman recognized James J. Strang as Smith's successor to the church presidency, and in 1847, Oliver moved to Elkhorn, Wisconsin near Strang's headquarters in Voree and entered law practice with his brother. He became co-editor of the Walworth County Democrat and in 1848 he ran for state assemblyman. However, his Mormon ties were once again discovered and he was defeated.^[32]

In 1848, Cowdery traveled to meet with followers of Brigham Young and the Quorum of the Twelve encamped at Winter Quarters, Nebraska, and he asked to be reunited with the Church.^[35] On November 12, 1848, Cowdery was rebaptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Orson Hyde of the Quorum of the Twelve in Indian Creek at Kanesville, Iowa. Cowdery never again held high office in the church. He developed a respiratory illness, and on March 3, 1850, he died in David Whitmer's home in Richmond, Missouri.^[36]

Footnotes

1. ^ On 1841-01-24, Hyrum Smith was ordained and replaced Cowdery as Assistant President of the Church.
2. ^ Prior to the winter of 1830-31, Cowdery generally signed his name "Oliver H P Cowdery", the "H P" possibly standing for "Hervy" and "Pliny," two of his father's relatives. For unknown reasons Cowdery discontinued using his middle initials about 1831. Cowdery may have wished his name to match the form in which it was printed in the 1830 Book of Mormon. [1]. It is also possible that teasing by the Palmyra Reflector (June 1, 1830) about Cowdery's pretentious moniker may have influenced Cowdery to abandon the initials.
3. ^ D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, Revised and enlarged (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 34-36; Alan Taylor, "The New Jerusalem of the American Frontier"; Barnes Frisbie, The History of Middletown, Vermont in Three Discourses.... (Rutland, VT: Tuttle and Company, 1867), 43, 62.
4. ^ Grant H. Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 58-60.
5. ^ During the colonial and early national periods many Americans speculated about a possible connection between the Hebrews and the Americans Indians. Richard Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 94-97.
6. ^ David Persuitte, Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon (McFarland & Company, 2000), 125: "Oliver Cowdery surely had a copy of View of the Hebrews—a book that was published in his home town of Poultney, Vermont by the minister of the church his family was associated with. Considering his joint venture with Joseph Smith in 'translating' The Book of Mormon and the common subject matter, Cowdery could have shared his copy of Ethan Smith's book with Joseph, perhaps even sometime before Joseph began the 'translation' process."
7. ^ Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 96.
8. ^ John W. Welch, Reexploring the Book of Mormon, 83-7, and A Sure Foundation: Answers to Difficult Gospel Questions (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1988); John W. Welch, "An Unparallel" (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1985); Spencer J. Palmer and William L. Knecht, "View of the Hebrews: Substitute for Inspiration?" BYU Studies 5/2 (1964): 105-13.
9. ^ Lucy Cowdery Young to Andrew Jenson, March 7, 1887, Church Archives
10. ^ Junius F. Wells, "Oliver Cowdery", Improvement Era XIV:5 (March 1911); Lucy Mack Smith, "Preliminary Manuscript," 90 in Early Mormon Documents 1: 374-75.
11. ^ Joseph Smith—History 1:66.
12. ^ Cowdery genealogy; Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1984), 222; Bushman, RSR, 578, n.51. There is also a distant geographical connection between the Smiths and the Cowderys. During the 1790s, both Joseph Smith, Sr. and two of Oliver Cowdery's relatives were living in Tunbridge, Vermont.
13. ^ EMD, 1: 603-05, 619-20; Quinn, 37.
14. ^ Grant Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 2002), 179. According to Lucy Mack Smith, the "Lord appeared unto a young man by the name of Oliver Cowdery and showed unto him the plates in a vision." EMD 1: 379.
15. ^ History of the Church 1:36-38; D&C 8, 9.
16. ^ Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 70."
17. ^ Messenger and Advocate 1:14–16 (October 1834); Bushman, 74–75.
18. ^ Charles M. Nielsen to Heber Grant, February 10, 1898, in Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1998), 2: 476; History of the Church 1:39-42.
19. ^ Bushman, 124; Dan Vogel, Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004), 548.
20. ^ Maria Louise Cowdery, born August 11, 1835.
21. ^ See Mark L. Staker, “Raising Money in Righteousness: Oliver Cowdery as Banker,” in Days Never to Be Forgotten: Oliver Cowdery, ed. Alexander L. Baugh (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009), 143–254.
22. ^ W. W. Phelps to Oliver Cowdery, December 25, 1834, EMD, 3: 28
23. ^ Grant Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 239; Richard Abanes, One Nation Under Gods: A History of the Mormon Church (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2002), 26; Vogel, EMD, 2: 428.
24. ^ Cowdery also said that the final battle between the Nephites and the Lamanites had occurred in the vicinity of the Hill Cumorah, where Smith claimed he found the golden plates. There is little evidence for mass graves for tens of thousands of soldiers at the site and most modern Mormon apologists now argue that the events likely took place in Central America. Messenger and Advocate, 1, no. 3 (December 1834),42, 78-79. “You will recollect that I mentioned the time of a religious excitement, in Palmyra and vicinity to have been in the 15th year of our brother J. Smith Jr.’s age — that was an error in the type — it should have been in the 17th. — You will please remember this correction, as it will be necessary for the full understanding of what will follow in time. This would bring the date down to the year 1823."
25. ^ "Cowdery, Oliver". Encyclopedia of Mormonism. 1. Macmillan Publishing Company. 1992. http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/people/oliver_cowdery.html. Retrieved 2006-08-02. 
26. ^ Richard Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 323-25, 347-49.
27. ^ Bushman, 347–48. Among other things, Cowdery was accused of "virtually denying the faith by declaring that he would not be governed by any ecclesiastical authority nor Revelations whatever in his temporal affairs."
28. ^ History of the Church 3:16–20.
29. ^ History of the Church 3:7.
30. ^ Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 349-53.
31. ^ J. H. Johnsons, Times and Seasons 2: 482 (July 15, 1841). Charles Augustus Shook, The True Origin of the Book of Mormon (Cincinnati: Standard Publishing Co., 1914), 54: "At this time it was freely admitted by the Mormons that he had denied his testimony."
32. ^ ^{a b c} Stanley R. Gunn, Oliver Cowdery, Second Elder and Scribe (Salt Lake City, 1962).
33. ^ Cowdery is supposed to have affirmed his Book of Mormon testimony before a court of law while he was acting as a prosecuting attorney. "However, the claim rests on less than satisfactory grounds. The various accounts are inconsistent and some elements of the story troubling. In the earliest account, for instance, Brigham Young (1855) states that the trial occurred in Michigan, while George Q. Cannon (1881) claims that it was in Ohio. Charles M. Neilson (1909-35) inconsistently names Michigan and Illinois. Seymour B. Young (1921) fails to give the trial's location. Presently there is no evidence for Cowdery practicing law in either Michigan or Illinois." Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents, 2: 468. The documents themselves are given at 2: 471-90. Two other associates of Cowdery in Tiffin, Ohio claimed that Cowdery never discussed Mormonism at all in public or in private. Charles Augustus Shook, The True Origin of the Book of Mormon (Cincinnati: Standard Publishing Co., 1914), 56–57.
34. ^ Vogel, ed. EMD, 2: 504. One Gabriel J. Keen, a leading member of the Tiffin Methodist Church, swore in 1885 that Cowdery had publicly renounced Mormonism before being admitted as a member, but there is no corroborative evidence for Keen's claim. The document is at 2: 504-07.
35. ^ "Brethren, for a number of years, I have been separated from you. I now desire to come back. I wish to come humble and be one in your midst. I seek no station. I only wish to be identified with you. I am out of the Church, but I wish to become a member. I wish to come in at the door; I know the door, I have not come here to seek precedence. I come humbly and throw myself upon the decision of the body, knowing as I do, that its decisions are right." Stanley R. Gunn, "Oliver Cowdery Second Elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Division of Religion, Brigham Young University," (1942), 166, as cited in Improvement Era, 24, p. 620.)
36. ^ Of Cowdery's death, David Whitmer said: "Oliver died the happiest man I ever saw. After shaking hands with the family and kissing his wife and daughter, he said ‘Now I lay down for the last time; I am going to my Saviour’; and he died immediately with a smile on his face." (Stanley R. Gunn, Oliver Cowdery Second Elder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Division of Religion, Brigham Young University. (Stanley R. Gunn: 1942), 170-71, as cited in Mill, Star, XII, p. 207.)

References

• Gunn, Stanley R. Oliver Cowdery, Second Elder and Scribe. Bookcraft: Salt Lake City, 1962. 250-51.
• Legg, Phillip R., Oliver Cowdery: The Elusive Second Elder of the Restoration, Herald House: Independence, Missouri, 1989.
• Mehling, Mary, Cowdrey-Cowdery-Cowdray Genealogy p. 181, Frank Allaben: 1911.
• Morris, Larry E. (2000). "Oliver Cowdery's Vermont Years and the Origins of Mormonism" (PDF). BYU Studies 39 (1): 105–129. http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/u?/byustudies,4245. Retrieved 2009-06-23. 
• Quinn, D. Michael, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, Revised and enlarged (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 36-39.
• Smith, Joseph, B. H. Roberts, ed., History of the Church (Salt Lake City: Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1902), seven volumes.
• Vogel, Dan, ed., Early Mormon Documents [EMD] (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), five volumes.
• Welch, John W. and Morris, Larry E., eds., Oliver Cowdery: Scribe, Elder, Witness (Provo, UT: The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2006); ISBN 0842526617.

External links

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• Oliver Cowdery biography reprinted from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism
• A believer's perspective on Cowdery's life.
• The Return of Oliver Cowdery - FARMS Papers
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• Oliver Cowdery's Genealogy
• Works by or about Oliver Cowdery in libraries (WorldCat catalog)