Difference between revisions of "Hiram Page"

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Hiram Page (1800–1852), was an early member of the Latter-day Saint movement and one of the Eight Witnesses to the Book of Mormon's Golden Plates.

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 became one of the Eight Witnesses to the Book of Mormon during June of 1829. He and Catherine were baptized on April 11, 1830, by Oliver Cowdery. On June 9, he was ordained a teacher in the church, one of the first twelve officers. While Page was living with the Whitmers in Fayette, New York, Joseph Smith, Jr. arrived in August of 1830 to discover Hiram using a "seerstone" to receive revelations for the church. The only available detail about the stone was that it was black. The revelations were regarding the organization and location of Zion. Oliver Cowdery and the Whitmer family (and probably others) believed the revelations Page had received were true.

Newel Knight remembered “quite a roll of papers full of these revelations,” which were “in contradiction to the New Testament and the revelations of these last days.” He also remembered that Joseph was deeply concerned: “That night before the conference I occupied the same room that he did and the greater part of the night was spent in prayer and supplication.”¹ Joseph Smith received a revelation during the conference. The revelation, now Section 28 of the Doctrine and Covenants, said Hiram Page had been deceived: personal inspiration is a true principle—yet no one but the president of the Church may write revelations for the Church (see Doctrine and Covenants 28:4–5, 2). Since the Spirit bore witness of these truths, all (including Hiram Page) renounced the false messages and were filled with the gifts of “peace, and faith, and hope, and charity” (History of the Church, 1:115). Hiram agreed to discard the stone and the revelations he received and join in following Joseph Smith as the sole revelator for the church. The members present confirmed this unanimously with a vote. Later, the stone was ground to powder and the revelations purportedly received through it were burned.

In May of 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 (486,000 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 he and his family were expelled along with the other Latter Day Saints, and lived for a time in neighboring Clay County, before moving to Far West.

Page and other members of the Whitmer family were excommunicated from the Latter-day Saint church in 1838. He later bought a farm in Excelsior Springs, Missouri, back in Clay County.

William E. McLellin baptized Hiram Page, David Whitmer, John Whitmer, and Jacob Whitmer on September 6, 1847, into his newly-formed Church of Christ (Whitmerite). William ordained Hiram a high priest in the church. Hiram participated in the subsequent ordinations of the others.

He died in a farming accident in Excelsior Springs on August 12, 1852, still affirming his testimony of the Book of Mormon.

A commemorative marker was placed April 27, 2002, on the rediscovered Hiram Page grave, near Excelsior Springs, Missouri.

1- “Newel Knight’s Journal,” Scraps of Biography, Faith Promoting Series, no. 10 (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1883), pp. 64–65.