By Pete Wosnik

This week I’ve been reading through primary sources of converts to Mormonism who lived in Kirtland- and the surrounding counties- in 1830. In my initial research, I have used boap.org and saintswithouthalos.com to examine narratives by Levi Hancock, Lyman Wight, and Josiah Jones. Saintswithouthalos.com also has the Ohio 1830 census uploaded which has proven to be very helpful. I’ve also consulted Staker’s Hearken O Ye People, Givens and Grow’s Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of Mormonism, and Van Wagoner’s Sidney Rigdon: Portrait of Religious Excess. These resources have laid a groundwork for my thesis; however, I plan to consult original documents and other sources in the archives at BYU, U of U, and the CHL.

My findings so far have been in some ways consistent with my original thesis, that early Mormons were most compelled theologically by religious charisma, while in other ways the sources tell a different story. I have struggled finding many direct allusions to excitement about religious charisma from convert narratives, but I have found other telling evidence I will explicate here.

Key to this project is an understanding of the religious backgrounds of Parley P. Pratt and Sidney Rigdon, since their influence on conversion in the Western Reserve was paramount. Both Pratt and Rigdon saw spiritual gifts as necessary to the restoration of primitive Christianity. Rigdon had several public disagreements with Alexander Campbell through newspaper articles. And Pratt disagreed with a leader of a Baptist congregation over the essentiality of modern-day religious charisma (Givens and Grow, 26). The two men viewed other theological principles as compelling: Pratt was interested in the authority Mormonism provided, preaching to the American Indians, and the gathering of Israel; for Rigdon, Mormonism confirmed his views of pre-millennialism and provided him with the Book of Mormon which gave him answers to pertinent theological quandaries.

Rigdon and Pratt, while both mentioning spiritual gifts as being important to their worldview, were most drawn to Mormonism by the Book of Mormon. Pratt, after reading the Book of Mormon, was converted to Mormonism before he ever met with Joseph Smith. It is no surprise, then, that the converts in the Western Reserve emphasized the Book of Mormon being essential to their conversions. Lyman Wight’s simple narrative was archetypal of Kirtland conversions: “We called meeting and one testified that he had seen angels, and another that had seen the plates, and that the gifts were back in the church again… The meeting became so interesting withal that I did not get away till the sun was about an hour high at night.” Additionally, Wight testified in a conference in 1831 that he had, “seen the savior.” Levi Hancock, in a more enthusiastic way, wrote about his response upon hearing the news of the Book of Mormon: “At these last words I gathered faith and there seemed to fall on me something pleasant and delightful. It seemed like a wash of something warm took me in the face and ran over my body which gave me a feeling I cannot describe. The first word I said was, ‘It is the truth, I can feel it.'” Hancock’s account of spiritual experience points to a larger spiritual phenomenon in Kirtland in the 1830. A local citizen, Josiah Jones, was one of the few members in Kirtland that stayed true to his Campbellite convictions, and in 1831 he wrote an account of the history of Mormonism in the area. He emphasized the enthusiastic religion of the early members. He cited attempted healings, prophesying, visions, dramatic reception of the spirit, speaking in tongues, and other spiritual practices that permeated the religious lives of the new converts. And while Jones’s bias must be taken to account, his observation of the period seem to be generally accurate.

While most of the narratives emphasize the Book of Mormon, rather than charisma, as a reason for conversion, undoubtedly, religious enthusiasm played a large role in early Mormonism in Kirtland. The Book of Mormon itself may have added to the religious enthusiasm in Kirtland. When Cowdrey explained the book to the citizens of Kirtland, he mentioned the angel Moroni, its translation from ancient plates by a supernatural power, and the authority received to baptize and confirm the holy ghost. The text of the Book of Mormon is also filled with stories of the miraculous, and God dealing directly in the lives of people. For Kirtland citizens, accepting the Book of Mormon meant believing in contemporary revelatory experience. The acceptance of these beliefs may have augmented their religious enthusiasm.