Hiram Page’s Seer Stone and Checking Your Sources
I’ve been almost finished for about a year and a half now with a little paper on Hiram Page’s seer stone and how two artifacts have been misidentified as the Hiram Page Stone. In a nutshell, there are two physical stones that have been identified as the stone Hiram Page used to receive his revelations (See below). I show in the paper that, using known documentary evidence, neither of these stones can be connected to Hiram Page and that there has been considerable confusion and a snowballing story connected with these stones that has occurred largely because of what seems to be carelessness with sources. Admittedly, the issue is small, but it made me wonder if this what happens when people aren’t careful, how often are people not careful? In writing this, I don’t mean to “call out” anyone, but just to illustrate how I think we need to be careful. Here is the discussion about one of these stones. The discussion of the other is just as interesting:
The Jacob Whitmer Stone
…There are two stones in existence, one in private possession and the other in the possession of the Community of Christ, that claim to be Hiram Page’s stone. The first of these, in private possession, comes from the Jacob Whitmer family. It was passed down through Jacob Whitmer’s descendants and was eventually sold by Rick Grunder to a private collector.[1] Apparently the first identification of this stone with Hiram Page comes from Alvin R. Dyer in his popular Refiner’s Fire.[2]
Dyer photographed the stone and the caption he wrote says, “The seer stone presumed to have been used by Hiram Page.”[3] The presumption is Dyer’s alone for he does not cite any sources either from the family or from historical records and tenuously forms his hypothesis solely on the fact that the Whitmers, Oliver Cowdery, and Page were related by marriage. Dyer can only say it is “highly probable” and “presumed” that this stone is Page’s. Finally, the stone in George A. Smith and Emer Harris’s descriptions was described as “black” whereas this rock was described as “light grey” by Dyer[4] and at best “grey-green” by Grunder.[5]
This misidentification has been perpetuated. In 1971, after reading in Dyer’s Refiner’s Fire about the “Page stone,” David C. Martin traveled to Missouri and purchased the stone from a daughter of Mayme Koontz. Martin visited the archives of the Reorganized Church and spoke to a Dr. Howard[6] in an attempt to verify that the stone he had purchased was indeed Hiram Page’s. Martin wrote, “They [the Reorganized Church] have two stones in their possession, also known as ‘Peep’ stones, but neither can be connected with the Page family. Indeed, they have no record of where they came from.” Howard then showed Martin a publication about Indian artifacts and indicated that the stones in question were likely Indian gorgets, a type of Indian amulet worn around the neck. This identification led Martin to speculate that Page “either found the stone in an Indian mound or was given the stone by someone who did.” Finally, Martin expressed disappointment at not finding any copies of the revelations Page received through the stone. By now the stone had successfully made its transition from “presumed to have been used by Hiram Page” to “the [Hiram] Page stone” (emphasis added).[7]
In 1983, Mormon Fundamentalist Ogden Kraut published his Seers and Seer Stones and featured a section about the Hiram Page stone, which included a picture of the Jacob Whitmer stone, of unknown origin, and an excerpt from Refiner’s Fire. Oddly, Kraut also quoted E. Cecil McGavin’s Historical Background of the Doctrine and Covenants in which McGavin claims to have been shown the Hiram Page stone housed in the archives of the RLDS Church (The George Schweich stone, discussed in greater detail below). Additionally, while Kraut follows Dyer’s measurements of the Whitmer stone as being 5 inches long, 3 inches wide, and ½ inch thick, the McGavin quote gives the dimensions of the stone in the RLDS archives as being “about seven inches long, four wide and one quarter inch in thickness.” Kraut describes its color as “light gray” following the Dyer description while the McGavin quote refers to the stone as being “dark gray.”[8] Kraut was apparently unaware that Dyer and McGavin were referring to two completely different stones.[9]
Four years later Bruce G. Stewart wrote his master’s thesis for the BYU history department on Hiram Page. In the appendix, Stewart reproduces the picture given in Seers and Seer Stones as well as the picture in Refiner’s Fire. In the caption for these pictures, Stewart introduces two new elements to the stone’s story. First, that it was by the holes (presumably by looking through them) that the “seeric gift” was exercised. Second, that the stone is “said” to have had a hole drilled for “a chain enabling the user to wear it around the neck.” [10] These two details are unattributed because neither Seers and Seer Stones nor Refiner’s Fire mention anything about the use of the seeric gift through the holes or a chain or the wearing of the stone around the neck.[11]
Then in 1996, Dennis A. Wright delivered a paper which examined the Hiram Page incident as “a lesson in Church government.” Wright began the published version of his paper as follows, “It began with a curious, small, flat stone that Hiram Page wore on a chain around his neck.”[12] Two paragraphs later Wright again refers to the stone being worn around Hiram’s neck.[13] Wright drew this conclusion from the appendix of the Stewart Thesis.[14] Here “said to have had . . . a chain enabling the user to wear it around his neck” becomes “a . . . stone that Hiram Page wore on a chain around his neck” (emphasis added). His comment about the stone’s being flat came from personal observation of the picture of the stone in the Stewart thesis.[15]
In 2000 Joseph Fielding McConkie and Craig J. Ostler published Revelations of the Restoration and cited Wright’s paper saying,
“A ‘peepstone’ appearing to be the one used by Hiram Page to receive his revelations is now in the possession of the RLDS Church. It is a flat stone about seven inches long and four inches wide and one-quarter inch thick. It is dark gray in color with waves of brown and purple. It also has a small hole drilled through one end so that it could be worn on a chain around Hiram’s neck.”[16]
These details of the stone are not found in Wright’s article but instead are similar to the details found in E. Cecil McGavin’s account of the George Schweich Stone in the RLDS archives (discussed below). Compare the previous excerpt to McGavin’s account:
The Page “peepstone”, however, was preserved as a souvenir. It is now in the possession of the Reorganized Church. The writer was permitted to examine it. It is a flat stone about seven inches long, four wide, and one-quarter inch in thickness. It is dark gray in color with waves of brown and purple gracefully interwoven across the surface. A small hole has been drilled through one end of it as if a string had been threaded through it. It is simply impressive enough to make a good paper weight.[17]
McConkie and Ostler here, like Ogden Kraut, apparently confuse accounts of the two different stones since the McGavin account refers to the stone in the RLDS archives (the George Schweich Stone) and the Wright paper refers to the stone in private possession (the Jacob Whitmer Stone).
[1] Rick Grunder, a Mormonalia dealer, describes the stone’s provenance on his website. Grunder mediated the sale to its present collector (see Rick Grunder, “Whitmer Family Seer Stone”, http://www.rickgrunder.com/HistoricalArchive/whitmerstone.htm [accessed April 6, 2007]).
[2] See Alvin R. Dyer, Refiner’s Fire: The Significance of Events Transpiring in Missouri, 2nd ed. rev. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1968), 257-59. This identification is repeated in the third edition of Dyer’s book. Though Rick Grunder cites Dyer’s Refiner’s Fire in the item description on the website, he does not mention anything about the stone being connected with Page.
[3] Dyer, Refiner’s Fire, 257.
[4] Dyer, Refiner’s Fire, 257.
[5] http://www.rickgrunder.com/HistoricalArchive/whitmerstone.htm (accessed April 6, 2007).
[6] Probably Dr. Richard P. Howard who was serving as the Church Historian of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the time.
[7] See David C. Martin, “Hiram Page’s ‘Peep’ Stone,” Restoration Reporter 1 (June 1971): 7.
[8] E. Cecil McGavin, The Historical Background of the Doctrine and Covenants (Salt Lake City: Paragon Printing Company, 1949), 93.
[9] Ogden Kraut, Seers and Seer Stones (Genola, UT: Pioneer Publishing, 1983), 50-51.
[10] Stewart, Hiram Page, 181. David C. Martin had mentioned that stones (gorgets) such as these may have been worn around the neck by Indians, but this is the first time that it is suggested that this “Hiram Page” stone was worn around the neck. Even so, it is unclear how Stewart arrives at this conclusion since there is no indication that Stewart was aware of or used David C. Martin’s writings. Furthermore, the only two sources quoted by Stewart were Refiner’s Fire and Seers and Seer Stones, which do not mention anything about wearing the stone at all, much less around the neck.
[11] Seers and Seer Stones does quote E. Cecil McGavin as saying, “A small hole has been drilled through one end of it as if a string had been threaded through it” in speaking of the stone in the RLDS archives, but there is no mention of a chain or that it was ever worn around Hiram’s neck, or worn at all (Kraut, Seers and Seer Stones, 50).
[12] Wright, “Hiram Page,” 85.
[13] “Hiram assumed that his own gift of seership, exercised through the stone he wore around his neck, was of divine origin” (Wright, “Hiram Page”, 86).
[14] Dennis A. Wright to Jared T., email correspondence, April 10, 2007.
[15] Wright to Jared T., April 10, 2007.
[16] Joseph Fielding McConkie and Craig J. Oslter, Revelations of the Restoration: A Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants and Other Modern Revelations (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2000), 210-11.
[17] McGavin, The Historical Background, 93.
[The Jacob Whitmer Family Stone, identified by Alvin R. Dyer as "presumed" to have been used by Hiram Page, currently in private possession, courtesy Rick Grunder.]
[The stone associated with George Schweich, currently in the archives of the Community of Christ, courtesy of LDS Church Archives.]
Nice write-up, Jared. I have to admit that I love this sort of stuff. Some of my favorite parts of Ashurst-McGees thesis was when he was tracking various transmissions of thinking about various items. I haven’t gone back to check, but do you diverge with him in the rest of your paper (or eve here – I can’t remember)? Are you going to publish this piece anywhere?
Comment by J. Stapley — September 3, 2008 @ 10:24 am
Jared: I can direct you to a private collector who claims to have the Page stone.
Comment by Mark Ashurst-McGee — September 3, 2008 @ 10:25 am
Thanks for the delineation. Just out of curiosity besides the “Page” stones, what other seer stones are in possession of the Community of Christ, the LDS Church, and private collectors? Anybody?
Comment by Tod Robbins — September 3, 2008 @ 10:36 am
Nice work. Thanks.
Comment by Edje — September 3, 2008 @ 10:46 am
Thanks all. J., I would like to publish it, we’ll see.
Mark, thanks for the lead.
Tod, there are a number of stones around. A good place to read about them is Mike Quinn’s book on Early Mormonism and the Magic World View. Also, Mark Ashurst-McGee’s thesis. Basically, there are a number of stones in private possession that I know of and the LDS Church is supposed to have at least one in its possession. The CofC does have another, which I examined along with the stone in question, and I don’t get the sense that much is known about its origins. For my purposes, it has never been put out there as Hiram Page’s nor is there much to say anything about it.
Comment by Jared T — September 3, 2008 @ 11:47 am
/clears throat/
coughDialoguecough
Comment by Kristine — September 3, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
Kristine, here’s a tissue
Comment by Jared T — September 3, 2008 @ 1:25 pm
Is Mike still at the UU? He has lots of fascinating seer stone connections.
Comment by J. Stapley — September 3, 2008 @ 1:57 pm
Mike Van Wagenen? I’ll have to check, but I thought he’d moved on to greener pastures…
Comment by Jared T — September 3, 2008 @ 2:00 pm
Mike’s still writing the dissertation under the auspices of the U, but he’s teaching in Brownsville, Texas this year. He’s accessible by email, though. Drop me a line if you’d like it.
And yep, he claims to have held in his hands several seer stones.
Comment by matt b — September 3, 2008 @ 2:33 pm
Thanks for this, Jared. Hurry up and get the article published.
Comment by Christopher — September 3, 2008 @ 4:13 pm
FWIW, S.E. Black asserts that the Hiram Page stone “was handed down in the Whitmer family from one generation to another and is currently held by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints” (Who’s Who in the Doctrine and Covenants, 210). She also states that the stone was “five-by-three inches in length and one-half inch thick with two holes,” but she does not give a reference (she references Stewart in other footnotes).
Comment by Justin — September 3, 2008 @ 4:48 pm
Well, that settles it: if S.E. Black says so, then so it is.
Comment by Ben — September 3, 2008 @ 6:00 pm
So Justin got me curious. I looked up what Woodford had to say in his dissy…and he quotes McGavin.
Comment by J. Stapley — September 3, 2008 @ 6:15 pm
#12-14
I treat all of that. It’s fun.
Comment by Jared T — September 3, 2008 @ 9:15 pm
Chris gets after me every few months to just get it over with already
It’s true.
Comment by Jared T — September 3, 2008 @ 9:15 pm
#15:
Jared, you’re holding back on us. Release the sealed portion.
Comment by Justin — September 4, 2008 @ 8:24 am
Jared has the sealed portion? I would have thought that Justin or Rick Grunder would have it.
Comment by Researcher — September 4, 2008 @ 8:48 am
Whoops! Forgot this:
Comment by Researcher — September 4, 2008 @ 8:50 am
No, I do not have it, and I cannot read a sealed…
Comment by Justin — September 4, 2008 @ 9:51 am
I don’t have it, but I know someone who claimed to have found it on the internet…maybe a post for another day.
Comment by Jared T — September 4, 2008 @ 9:59 am
Jared
This is a fact that is often found in the antiques business. Folks are out there making replica items and not marking them because they say it is obviously not an original and they hold up the original and say see they are obviously close but not the same (easy to see when held up next to each other). Case in point here in Utah some one is making fake Western badges, he does not mark them as replica or fakes in any way and it can be very difficult to see the differences between them and the real McCoys. These badges are sold once or twice and then someone claims they are real. This deceptive practice then hurts the value of real badges because the fakes are so good it is hard to tell the difference.
This problem of not verifying the provenance can be a really serious one in academia and collecting.
Comment by Donnie Morris - Deseret Antique Times — September 4, 2008 @ 10:34 am
Good point, Donnie, and congrats on your Deseret Antique Times newspaper.
Comment by Jared T — September 4, 2008 @ 10:49 am
I’ve got like six sealed portions from various sources on my laptop’s hard drive. I keep meaning to write about them, but that would require I read them. And they’re really really long.
Comment by matt b — September 4, 2008 @ 11:43 am
Jared, are the Joseph Smith Papers going to be published before your paper?
Comment by Bret — September 4, 2008 @ 12:31 pm
Haha…good to see you on here, Bret…I look more forward to the Papers than to my paper being published, so I hope so, and I’ll be sad if this gets out before that.
Comment by Jared T — September 4, 2008 @ 12:51 pm
Has anyone checked with Mark Hoffman. Since he’s making license plates, perhaps he has also attempted to make a seer stone in his spare time. Based on his previous work which so many people accepted, his stone may actually be able to locate the gold plates including the sealed portion.
Comment by Karl S — September 4, 2008 @ 5:58 pm
Great work, Jared, informative and amusing!
I was among the once-bedazzled regarding the Hiram Page attribution (based on Alvin R. Dyer’s assumption), although my traditionally conservative bookseller catalog wording covered my backside sufficiently, I guess. When I first sold the stone, my entry began as follows:
“WHITMER FAMILY SEER STONE; SAID TO BE THE SEER STONE OF HIRAM PAGE. An Indian gorget of polished grey green slate 50 X 81 X 9 mm. Two small holes drilled. $4,500:: SOLD”
- Like a Fire: An Offering of Early Mormon Background and Parallels. . . . Catalogue Six (Bloomington, Indiana: Rick Grunder – Books, [1984]), item 91.
The most complete particulars which I can offer appear in my recent Mormon Parallels. . . (2008 ed.), entry 373 (pp. 1524-26).
Comment by Rick Grunder — September 4, 2008 @ 8:34 pm
Thanks, Rick. Your Mormon Parallels is a tremendous resource, which I hope to get around to reviewing here in the near future.
Comment by Jared T. — September 5, 2008 @ 9:54 am
Nice write-up Jared. Just a couple of quick comments.
That darn Rick Grunder has all the answers for starters.:-) It really is amazing that Rick was a broker for this incredible piece of history.
I know the Community of Christ currently has two stones, both are Indian gorgets. If I remember correctly both of those stones are most likely Whitmer stones. If this is true then the Whitmers had at least three stones.
Quinn has photos of four stones in “Early Mormonism and the Magic World View”. One of the photos is of the Jacob Whitmer stone and Quinn writes “Page’s stone was destroyed at Joseph Smith’s orders”. One photo is of the George Schweich stone that you have displayed and Quinn writes this was David Whitmer’s stone (housed at Community of Christ). The other two are equally interesting on is currently at the Wilford Wood museum and the other at Princeton University Library. The Wood one is for sure a Smith stone that was passed from Emma to Lewis Bidamon and then I would guess to his son who sold it to Wood.
The Howard mentioned by Martin is Richard Paul Howard, former church historian for the RLDS. He is a wonderful man and I would highly recommend his book “Restoration Scriptures”. The best single volume on Mormon scriptures.
Comment by Joe Geisner — September 7, 2008 @ 5:54 pm
Thanks, Joe!
Comment by Jared T — September 8, 2008 @ 12:23 am
A couple of other thoughts.
In the email response from Mike about your essay he commented that “the [Page]stone was evidently grounded up”. I also suggest you check out Marvin Hill’s excellent, but ignored, “Quest for Refuge” to see what he writes about Page’s revelations. If I recall correctly Joseph also had those destroyed. I know you are focusing on mistakes in history writing, but I think there is a big story in Joseph’s reaction to the entire Page stone. One of complete and utter annihilation.
Comment by Joe Geisner — September 10, 2008 @ 10:41 am
I take up that issue of its destruction in the Paper. It was Emer Harris that made the statement and the first time it was published, to my knowledge, was in Mike Quinn’s Early Mormonism and the Magic World View. The same Emer Harris says that the revelations were burned. Interestingly, the manuscript record has a little more information about what Harris said about the stone than Quinn puts in his book. Fun Fun.
Thanks for the nudge towards Hill.
Comment by Jared T — September 10, 2008 @ 10:54 am
As I think about this I wonder if your entire thesis about the mistakes does not laying within the broader idea of Smith and the annihilation of the stone and revelations.
Just a thought and thanks for listening.
Comment by Joe Geisner — September 10, 2008 @ 1:13 pm
[...] Joseph Smith only looking through the stone, or at the stone. If Joseph Smith’s seer stone was a Native American gorget or some other treasure yielded up by the earth, then there is perhaps no essential [...]
Pingback by Relics | Times & Seasons — December 9, 2008 @ 6:44 pm
I find the history of seer and peep stones fascinating. Roberts’ A Comprehensive History of the Church vol. VI pg.230 mentions how President Woodruff consecrated Joseph Smith’s seer stone on the alter of the newly built Manti Temple. In a footnote he adds: “What became of the Seer Stone immediately after this is not known. The writer knows, however, that it was in the possession of the president of the church for possession of it by him was a matter of conversation between President Joseph F. Smith and himself; and the writer has reasons for knowing that it is now in the possession of the church–this year of 1930.”
Comment by Lee Rickerson — December 18, 2008 @ 3:25 am
How did Hiram obtain the stone in the first place?
Also, I read that the stone afterward was destroyed and grinded into powder.
Comment by Joshua — June 18, 2009 @ 7:53 am
Joshua, that’s in the other part of the paper…stay tuned
Comment by Jared T. — June 18, 2009 @ 10:11 am
[...] history, I chose to research the folklore surrounding a significant artifact of Mormon history, the Hiram Page Seer Stone, for my sophomore historical methodology class. As a budding historian, I found the prospect of [...]
Pingback by Juvenile Instructor » In Support of Ron Romig–Please Read — July 6, 2009 @ 3:09 am
My grandpa Page would be surprised that this is still an issue, “well” past his death to saythe least.
Comment by Ray — September 8, 2009 @ 10:22 am
I have found this web-site and discussion totally by accident. I can add a little info. I purchased the “Hiram Page” seer stone from Rick Grunder in ’84-’85, I don’t remember exactly when at the present moment. It was in my possesion for a period of time. ( There’s a substantial story that goes along with that.) I believe Rick Grunder’s sale info gives a good provenance, at least from Mayme Koontz to him. I made several attempts to expand it’s provenace. Alvin R. Dyer makes the basic claim for it being Hiram Page’s. In a foot note at the bottom of page 263 in the 3rd edition of Refiner’s Fire he refers to a letter to him from Mayme Koontz. I tried to find that letter. By 1985 Alvin Dyer had passed away, so I tracked down his son and inquired after the letter. Presumably, there was more information in the letter, which would be helpful in making a better determination as to the stone’s authenticity. I made no headway with Dyer’s son partly due to the fact that the Dyer family was in a small dispute with the LDS church about what of Dyer’s material was personal and what belonged to the church. As you can imagine the Church took the more expansive view, the family just the opposite. Anyway, as times were tight in those days I was obliged to sell the stone through Curt Bench to an unknown collector, who remains unknown to me to this day. I took a number of color photos of the stone and still retain those. I hope this has been helpful.
Comment by Shannon P. Flynn — September 8, 2009 @ 10:54 pm
Shannon, thank you very much for that information. I will be contacting you privately with some questions.
Comment by Jared T — September 8, 2009 @ 11:14 pm