Lucifer's Lantern

In May 1900, Theodore A. Schroeder published “A Bit of Original Evidence” in issue no. 9 of Lucifer’s Lantern . [1] The piece reproduces part of an 1887 letter apparently written by Mississippi attorney E. E. Baldwin to W. O. Norrell of Salt Lake City. [1] [2] Baldwin attributed the story to his uncle by marriage, James G. Horton, who allegedly said that Joseph Smith and several companions staged the discovery of the Book of Mormon plates as a practical joke and used a Bible-shaped box packed with sand. [1] The account is a late, secondhand recollection, and Horton’s identity and alleged role remain uncertain. [2] The scan used for this transcription contains a handwritten annotation (presumably from A.T. Schroeder) about the letter’s provenance. Because the annotation is difficult to read and its abbreviated name does not exactly match the documentary identification, the transcription below should be treated as provisional. This letter came to me from Mr. Morrell, a deputy US Mars...

Ezra Booth was a Methodist minister who joined Joseph Smith’s church in 1831 and abandoned it only a few months later. His time inside the movement was brief, but the nine letters he published after leaving became one of the earliest detailed critiques written by a former Mormon participant. A Methodist Minister Joins Mormonism Booth was born in Newtown, Connecticut, on February 14, 1792. He entered the Methodist ministry in 1816, became a deacon in 1818, and was ordained an elder in 1820. By 1831, he was serving as a Methodist minister in Mantua, Ohio. He had years of preaching experience and a reputation that gave weight to his sudden conversion to the new church. [1] Latter-day Saint accounts connect Booth’s conversion to a reported healing. Booth accompanied John and Elsa Johnson to meet Joseph Smith. Elsa had limited movement in one arm, and Smith was said to have restored it. Booth accepted the healing as miraculous and was baptized. He was ordained a high priest on June 4, 1831,...

By July 1831, reports of the new Mormon movement had begun appearing in newspapers well beyond Ohio and New York. The Church had recently commanded its members to gather to Jackson County, Missouri, which believers identified as the future site of Zion. As converts sold their property and departed westward, local newspapers covered the migration with a mixture of fascination and alarm. One such report, published in the Painesville Gazette, described dozens of newly ordained Mormon missionaries traveling "two and two" toward Missouri and repeated the movement's claims of miraculous healings, exorcisms, and other supernatural gifts.   This series looks back at how early critics of the church reacted to the rise of Mormonism. Some mocked it, others warned against it, and a few tried to make sense of it. Each post features a historical excerpt and some brief context to show how critics viewed the new faith as it was unfolding.  -The full series can be found here - Rober...

Less than a year after the publication of the Book of Mormon in March 1830, the movement had shifted from a small regional body in the Palmyra–Manchester area to a community organizing migration around new revelations. The immediate scriptural backdrop to this relocation appears in Doctrine and Covenants 37 (December 1830), which commands the Saints to “go to the Ohio.” This directive is reinforced in Doctrine and Covenants 38 (January 1831), which instructs believers to gather and promises spiritual endowment and protection. Shortly thereafter, Doctrine and Covenants 42 (February 1831) establish Kirtland as a place of organization and introduce the “law of consecration,” outlining principles of stewardships and communal property. In June 1831, just weeks before this article’s publication, Doctrine and Covenants 52 directed elders to travel west to Missouri. Within a month, Doctrine and Covenants 57 (July 1831) would identify Independence, Missouri, as the location of Zion. This ...

The article titled “Fanaticism” was published on February 11, 1831, in the United States Gazette , a Philadelphia paper with national circulation. It reprints material from the Painesville Gazette , reflecting local reports from northeastern Ohio rather than direct investigation by the Gazette itself. The author is unnamed, consistent with early-19th-century newspaper practice, and the tone reflects mainstream Protestant skepticism toward emerging religious movements. The piece focuses on Kirtland and nearby areas in Geauga and Cuyahoga counties at a very early stage in Mormon development, less than a year after the Book of Mormon’s publication. The article is an early hostile press account portraying the Mormon movement as a dangerous religious delusion rather than a legitimate faith. It frames belief in the Book of Mormon as self-evidently absurd and repeatedly emphasizes the rapid spread of the movement in northeastern Ohio as a social problem. It reports growing numbers in Kirtl...

  This article appeared in 1904, during the height of national scrutiny surrounding the LDS Church and the U.S. Senate investigation into whether Apostle Reed Smoot should be seated as a senator. At the center of that inquiry were questions the public had debated for decades but rarely heard addressed in sworn testimony.  What actually happened inside the Endowment House ?  What oaths were required?  Do the oaths conflict with civic loyalty, democratic norms, and basic transparency? The reporting below relies on testimony given under oath to the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections and presents the claims exactly as they were reported to a national audience. This was not written as theology or internal instruction. It was written as political journalism, aimed at informing a non-Mormon public that largely had no access to temple ceremonies and relied on secondhand descriptions. THE WASHINGTON TIMES DECEMBER 14, 1904 MORMONS TAKING OATHS OF ENDOWMENT HOUS...

In 1831 Alexander Campbell published An Analysis of the Book of Mormon , one of the earliest full-length critiques of Joseph Smith’s new scripture. The piece first appeared as a review in Campbell’s periodical The Millennial Harbinger and was republished the following year, in 1832, as a standalone pamphlet for wider circulation. Campbell was a prominent religious leader and editor, and he approached the Book of Mormon as a text that needed to be tested, line by line, against the Bible it claimed to supplement.   This series looks back at how early critics of the church reacted to the rise of Mormonism. Some mocked it, others warned against it, and a few tried to make sense of it. Each post features a historical excerpt and some brief context to show how critics viewed the new faith as it was unfolding.  -The full series can be found here - Unlike satirical responses such as Abner Cole’s Book of Pukei , Campbell did not parody Mormonism. He treated it as a serious theolog...