Mormons Deny Papers Exist That Contradict Origins

Contradicting reports first circulated more than a year ago, Mormon Church officials denied Thursday that the church owns an early history of Mormonism that contradicts the official story of the church’s origins.

An announcement from the church headquarters in Salt Lake City said “a careful search of the historical collections of the church” disclosed no such history. Moreover, the church said no documents in the files corroborate the central contention of the alleged history--that Alvin Smith, older brother of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, played a previously undisclosed role in the discovery of the Book of Mormon.

Church officials were responding to published reports by The Times and other newspapers in the spring of 1985. The Times report was based on an interview with a source familiar with church documents who said he was shown, in the church’s headquarters offices, some pages from a handwritten history by Oliver Cowdery, the church’s first historian and a scribe to Joseph Smith.

The source, who spoke to The Times on the condition that he not be identified, said the account he saw said Alvin Smith--not Joseph--was the first to find buried golden plates covered with inscriptions later translated as the Book of Mormon. The source said the history said a “taunting salamander” first rebuffed Alvin’s attempt to take the gold, and turned Joseph away in later years.

Alvin died late in 1823. Church histories say that Joseph took possession of the plates in 1827, at the age of 21. By 1830 the first editions of the Book of Mormon were published, and the church was organized in New York state.

At the time the church declined to say whether such a history was in its files.

The claim that the church has been covering up its ownership of a book potentially harmful to faith arose last year in the midst of a debate over the significance of newly discovered and supposedly authenticated Mormon documents.

The most talked-about writing then was a letter allegedly penned in 1830 by Martin Harris, another early follower of Joseph Smith. Harris allegedly wrote that Joseph told him that a “white salamander” turned into an old spirit, who fended off Joseph’s attempts to take the golden plates--a magical image quite different from the angel the church says Smith encountered.

Doubt was later cast on the authenticity of the Martin Harris “salamander” letter, however, after the man who had obtained the letter, documents dealer Mark Hofmann, of Salt Lake City, was charged this year with the bombing murders in October, 1985, of two people, purportedly to prevent his exposure as a documents forger. Hofmann has also been charged with fraud in connection with his manuscript dealings. George Throckmorton, a documents expert with the Utah attorney general’s office, determined that 11 documents, including the “salamander” letter, “discovered” by Hofmann and sold or donated to the church and other collectors were forged, according to court affidavits.

In the Thursday announcement, Richard E. Turley Jr., assistant managing director of the church’s historical department, said the church does have a “little-known draft of Joseph Smith’s published history” that covers the early period of the church’s formation. But Turley said the draft makes no reference to salamanders and does not attribute a greater role in history to Alvin Smith.

When the reports of the Cowdery history surfaced last year, Mormon church communications official Jerry Cahill acknowledged, that the late Joseph Fielding Smith, church president from 1970 to 1972, had written early in this century that the church had on file the records written in the handwriting of Oliver Cowdery.

Thursday’s church announcement said Joseph Fielding Smith’s statements probably “refer to records that are already well known to scholars” and contain minutes of early church conferences.