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Hiram Page (c. 1800 – August 12, 1852) was an early member of the Latter Day Saint movement and one of the Eight Witnesses to the Book of Mormon's golden plates.
Early Life
Page was born in Vermont. Earlier in his life, he studied medicine which he practiced during his travels throughout New York and Canada. On November 10, 1825, Page married Catherine Whitmer, daughter of Peter Whitmer Sr. and Mary Musselman. The two had nine children together: John, Elizabeth, Philander, Mary, Peter, Nancy, Hiram, Oliver, and Kate.
Page as a Mormon
Page became one of the Eight Witnesses during June 1829.[1]
He and Catherine were baptized into in the Church of Christ (later renamed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints)[2][3] on April 11, 1830, by Oliver Cowdery. On June 9, he was ordained a teacher in the church, one of the church's first twelve officers.[4]
Seer stone and revelations
Page was living with his in-laws the Whitmers in Fayette, New York. Joseph Smith Jr. arrived in August 1830 to discover Page using a black "seerstone" to produce revelations for the church. The revelations were regarding the organization and location of Zion. Cowdery and the Whitmer family believed the revelations were authentic. In response, Smith announced in a new revelation during the church's September conference that Page's revelations were of the devil.
Read the Revelation: Doctrine and Covenants, Section 28:11
Read the Revelation: Doctrine and Covenants, Section 28:11
1 Behold, I say unto thee, Oliver, that it shall be given unto thee that thou shalt be heard by the church in all things whatsoever thou shalt teach them by the Comforter, concerning the revelations and commandments which I have given.
2 But, behold, verily, verily, I say unto thee, no one shall be appointed to receive commandments and revelations in this church excepting my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., for he receiveth them even as Moses.
3 And thou shalt be obedient unto the things which I shall give unto him, even as Aaron, to declare faithfully the commandments and the revelations, with power and authority unto the church.
4 And if thou art led at any time by the Comforter to speak or teach, or at all times by the way of commandment unto the church, thou mayest do it.
5 But thou shalt not write by way of commandment, but by wisdom;
6 And thou shalt not command him who is at thy head, and at the head of the church;
7 For I have given him the keys of the mysteries, and the revelations which are sealed, until I shall appoint unto them another in his stead.
8 And now, behold, I say unto you that you shall go unto the Lamanites and preach my gospel unto them; and inasmuch as they receive thy teachings thou shalt cause my church to be established among them; and thou shalt have revelations, but write them not by way of commandment.
9 And now, behold, I say unto you that it is not revealed, and no man knoweth where the city Zion shall be built, but it shall be given hereafter. Behold, I say unto you that it shall be on the borders by the Lamanites.
10 Thou shalt not leave this place until after the conference; and my servant Joseph shall be appointed to preside over the conference by the voice of it, and what he saith to thee thou shalt tell.
11 And again, thou shalt take thy brother, Hiram Page, between him and thee alone, and tell him that those things which he hath written from that stone are not of me and that Satan deceiveth him;
12 For, behold, these things have not been appointed unto him, neither shall anything be appointed unto any of this church contrary to the church covenants.
13 For all things must be done in order, and by common consent in the church, by the prayer of faith.
14 And thou shalt assist to settle all these things, according to the covenants of the church, before thou shalt take thy journey among the Lamanites.
15 And it shall be given thee from the time thou shalt go, until the time thou shalt return, what thou shalt do.
16 And thou must open thy mouth at all times, declaring my gospel with the sound of rejoicing. Amen.
Aftermath of the Conference
Page agreed to discard the stone and the revelations and join in following Smith as the sole revelator for the church. The members present confirmed this unanimously with a vote. The fate of the stone and revelations was not recorded by contemporary sources and has been the subject of interest ever since.[5] Martin Harris's brother Emer stated second-hand in 1856 that the stone was ground to powder and the associated revelations were burned.[6] Apostle Alvin R. Dyer stated that he had discovered Page's seerstone in 1955, that it had been passed down through Jacob Whitmer's family.[7] The validity of this claim has been questioned.[5]
Migration to Ohio and Missouri
In January 1831, Page accompanied Lucy Mack Smith and a company of saints from Waterloo, New York, to Buffalo on the Erie Canal, on their way to Fairport and Kirtland, Ohio. In May 1831, Page moved his family to Thompson, Ohio, under Lucy Mack Smith's direction. He again moved his family to Jackson County, Missouri, in 1832 and joined the Latter Day Saints gathering there. With the other Whitmers, they formed a cluster of ten or twelve homes called the "Whitmer Settlement". Hiram owned 120 acres (490,000 m2) of land in the area.
During the growing anti-Mormon hostilities in Jackson County, Page was severely beaten by a group of non-Mormon vigilantes on October 31, 1833. On July 31 and August 6, 1834, he testified to the facts of the beatings. By 1834, Page and his family were expelled from the county along with the other Latter Day Saints, and lived for a time in neighboring Clay County, before moving to Far West.
Why did Hiram Page leave Joseph Smith's church?
When the members of the Whitmer family were excommunicated from the church in 1838, Page withdrew from church fellowship. One historian summarizes the situation as follows:
As a result of these events, Hiram became estranged from mainstream Mormonism. Though there is no evidence of excommunication or withdrawal of his [preaching] license, after 1838 there is no record of Page's association with the main body of the church. Hiram continued residence in the Richmond, [Ray County] area until his death in 1852. Catherine gave birth to four more children, the last being born in the year that Hiram died.[8]
Post-Mormon
On September 6, 1847, William E. McLellin baptized Page, David Whitmer, John Whitmer, and Jacob Whitmer into his newly formed Church of Christ (Whitmerite). McLellin ordained Page a high priest in the church. Page participated in the subsequent ordinations of the others, and never denied his testimony of the Book of Mormon. He wrote:
it would be doing injustice to myself and to the work of God of the last days, to say that I could know a thing to be true in 1830, and know the same thing to be false in 1847. To say my mind was so treacherous that I had forgotten what I saw. To say that a man of Joseph’s ability, who at that time did not know how to pronounce the word Nephi, could write a book of six hundred pages, as correct as the Book of Mormon, without supernatural power. And to say that those holy angels who came and showed themselves to me as I was walking through the field, to confirm me in the work of the Lord of the last days—three of whom came to me afterwards and sang an hymn in their own pure language. Yea, it would be treating the God of heaven with contempt to deny these testimonies, with too many others to mention here.[10]
Page died on the farm he had bought in Excelsior Springs, when his wagon overturned, crushing him underneath.
For almost 150 years, the final resting place of Page was unknown.[9] However, in 2000, it was located near Excelsior Springs, on property purchased by Charles and Molly Fulkerson in 1917.[9] Page's burial location was the last of the 11 Book of Mormon witnesses to be identified.[9] A commemorative marker was placed on Page's grave on April 27, 2002.[11]
Resources
Jenson, Andrew (1901). Latter-day Saint biographical encyclopedia: A compilation of biographical sketches of prominent men and women in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Vol. 1. Salt Lake City, Utah: The Andrew Jenson History Company (Printed by The Deseret News Press). pp. 277–278.
"The Joseph Smith Papers Project: Page, Hiram: Biography". The Church Historian's Press: The Church History Department of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Retrieved February 11, 2014.
Mays, Kenneth (December 5, 2012). "Picturing history: Hiram Page's grave". Deseret News. Archived from the original on February 24, 2014. Retrieved February 11, 2014.
Notes/Sources
Testimony of Eight Witnesses Deprecated link archived July 9, 2012, at archive.today, The Joseph Smith Papers (accessed May 1, 2012)
Manuscript History of the Church, LDS Church Archives, book A-1, p. 37; reproduced in Dean C. Jessee (comp.) (1989). The Papers of Joseph Smith: Autobiographical and Historical Writings (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book) 1:302–303.
H. Michael Marquardt and Wesley P. Walters (1994). Inventing Mormonism: Tradition and the Historical Record (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books) p. 160.
Minutes of 9 June 1830 meeting, The Joseph Smith Papers (accessed May 1, 2012)
MacKay, Michael Hubbard; Frederick, Nicholas J. (August 29, 2016). Joseph Smith's Seer Stones. Deseret Book Company. ISBN 9781944394059.
Emer Harris statement in Provo Utah Central Stake general minutes, Apr. 6, 1856, Local Record 9629, ser. 11 vol. 10 (1855–60), Church History Library, Salt Lake City, 273. (spelling, punctuation, and capitalization modernized): “Father [Emer] Harris said the Apostle said we have to fight against principalities and powers in high places. Bro. Hiram Page dug out of the earth a black stone [and] put it in his pocket. When he got home, he looked at it. It contained a sentence on paper to befit it. As soon as he wrote one sentence, another sentence came on the stone, until he wrote 16 pages. Bro. Joseph was told of the fact. One person asked Joseph if it is right. He said he did not know, but he prayed and got revelation that the stone was of the devil. Then it was broke to powder and the writings burnt. It was a work of the power of darkness. Amen.”
Dyer, Alvin R., Refiner's Fire: The Significance of Events Transpiring in Missouri, 2nd ed. rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1968), 257-259
Stewart, Bruce (January 1987). "Hiram Page: An Historical and Sociological Analysis of an Early Mormon Prototype". Theses and Dissertations: 57.
Shull, Sharon (January 6, 2001). "Hiram Page's grave identified". Deseret News. Retrieved February 11, 2014.
Hiram Page to William McLellin, May 30, 1847, in Ensign of Liberty, January 1848, 63.
"Ray County Genealogy: A Missouri GenWeb Project: Historical Markers: Hiram Page". Kentucky Comprehensive Genealogy Database. Retrieved February 11, 2014.
Source Notice:
This article contains material adapted from Wikipedia under the CC BY-SA license. Original article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiram_Page
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