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21 Did Lehi Land in Chile? An Assessment of the Frederick G. Williams Statement

By Frederick G. Williams
book cover
The Life of Dr. Frederick G. Williams: Counselor to the Prophet Joseph Smith
Page 437

From the earliest days of the Church, the site of Lehi’s landing in the New World has been a topic of discussion. Some of the debate has revolved around the origin of the following statement written by Frederick G. Williams: “The course that Lehi traveled from the city of Jerusalem to the place where he and his family took ship, they traveled nearly a south south East direction until they came to the nineteenth degree of North Lattitude, then nearly east to the Sea of Arabia then sailed in a south east direction and landed on the continent of South America in Chile thirty degrees south Lattitude.”2

Unfortunately, the origin of this statement is unclear. Some traditions have held that Joseph Smith or Frederick G. Williams received it through revelation, and on that assumption the statement has been used in the past to support a Chilean landing of Lehi’s party. Indeed, the idea of a Chilean landing was apparently an accepted part of the Book of Mormon story taught by the “Lamanite” missionaries in Ohio on their way to Missouri. An article entitled “The Golden Bible,” which was published on November 18, 1830, in the Observer and Telegraph of Hudson, Summit County, Ohio, states that Lehi’s party “landed on the coast of Chili 600 years before the coming of Christ, and from them descended all the Indians of America.”3 The Chilean landing for Lehi’s family was an accepted tradition among some early members of the Church, receiving wide circulation particularly from Orson and Parley Pratt.4 However, the relevant primary documents, particularly the page on which the original Frederick G. Williams statement is found, give no evidence of a revelatory origin. How then did the statement come to be regarded as revelation? If it is not revelation, can anything be said of its possible origins?

A Revelation to Joseph Smith?

Franklin D. Richards, it seems, was the first to publish this statement and to attribute it to Joseph Smith and to revelation.5 In 1882, Richards published a statement nearly identical to Frederick G. Williams’s handwritten copy, adding the title, “Lehi’s Travels.—Revelation to Joseph the Seer.”6 The original Williams copy, however, does not attribute the statement to Joseph Smith, and, although Richards follows closely the Williams account, he gives no source for the statement or the title. There is no known earlier historical evidence associating this specific statement with Joseph Smith.

How then did the statement come to be connected with Joseph Smith and revelation? Perhaps, because the statement was written by Frederick G. Williams, who was Joseph’s scribe and a counselor in the First Presidency for a time, and because it was written on a sheet with a known revelation (D&C 7), it was thought that Joseph must have dictated it. However, Doctrine and Covenants 7 was received before Williams joined the Church, and it was published in 1833. Also, on Williams’s sheet, Doctrine and Covenants 7 is clearly labeled, “A Revelation concerning John the beloved.” The statement about Lehi’s travels is separate from this entry and has no heading calling it a revelation (or anything else).

The fact that Williams was Joseph Smith’s scribe is not a trivial point. Williams penned portions of the history of the Church, revelations, letters, notebooks, minutes, and more. Yet, although almost everything officially connected to the Church from 1832 to 1837 was written by Williams, not everything he wrote was connected to Joseph or to the Church. He also wrote for others and almost certainly kept his own notes.7 It cannot be assumed, therefore, just because the statement is in Williams’s hand, that it was dictated by Joseph.

The assumption that the statement about Lehi’s travels came from a revelation to Joseph Smith is particularly weak when examined against other evidence. An editorial published in the Times and Seasons in 1842 gives another landing site for Lehi’s party: “Lehi went down by the Red Sea to the great Southern Ocean, and crossed over to this land, and landed a little south of the Isthmus of Darien [modern Panama].”8 A few weeks later another article was published in which the writer comes close to identifying the city of Zarahemla with a site in Central America.9 Although Joseph may not have written these articles, he was almost certainly aware of them. Just prior to their publication in fall 1842, Joseph assumed editorial responsibility for the Times and Seasons, and he was in Nauvoo when these editions were printed. If Joseph had received a revelation only a few years earlier concerning Lehi’s landing (or if he knew of anyone else having received such a revelation), it is unlikely he would have allowed a contradictory statement to be published. Given the variety and sparsity of statements about Book of Mormon geography during Joseph’s lifetime, it seems that, at least in his mind, the location of Lehi’s landing remained indefinite.

It is also important to note that after the publication of the “Lehi’s Travels” statement in 1882, George Q. Cannon, First Counselor in the First Presidency, issued a lengthy statement in 1890 urging caution in the identification of Book of Mormon geography: “The Book of Mormon is not a geographical primer. . . . The word of the Lord or the translation of other ancient records is required to clear up many points. . . . Of course, there can be no harm result from the study of the geography of this continent at the time it was settled by the Nephites, drawing all the information possible from the record which has been translated for our benefit. But beyond this we do not think it necessary, at the present time, to go.”10 Joseph F. Smith echoed these sentiments.11 If we had revealed knowledge of Book of Mormon geography, including Lehi’s landing site, there would be neither speculation nor the need for such a caution. As it is, there is both.

A Revelation to Frederick G. Williams?

Another theory about the origin of the “Lehi’s Travels” statement is that it is a revelation given to Frederick G. Williams. Nancy C. Williams, wife of the grandson of Frederick G. Williams, wrote that President Williams received it from an angel during the Kirtland Temple dedication in 1836:

After the dedicatory prayer, singing and the administration of the Lord’s Supper, Don Carlos Smith and President Cowdery arose and bore their testimonies. President Williams then arose and testified that while President Rigdon was making his first prayer an angel entered the window and took his seat between Father Smith and himself and remained there during the prayer.

Heber C. Kimball related it thus: “During the ceremonies of the dedication an angel appeared and sat near Joseph Smith Sen., and Frederick G. Williams, so that they had a fair view of his person. . . . He was sent as a messenger to accept of the dedication.

“Frederick had in his pocket a piece of paper which he carried to take notes on. On this he wrote in pencil: ‘John the Beloved’—then a space followed and a few lines written in another language. A large space followed and then at the bottom of the page he wrote the following revelation: ‘The course that Lehi traveled from the city of Jerusalem to the place where he and his family took ship: They traveled nearly south, southeast direction until they came to the nineteenth degree of north latitude. Then nearly east to the Sea of Arabia; then sailed in a southeast direction and landed on the continent of South America in Chili, thirty degrees south latitude.’”

Returning home he transcribed the revelation in ink on another sheet of paper. Rebecca kept these papers with his other notes until her death. Their son, Ezra, loaned them to the Church Historian’s Office in Salt Lake City in the 1860s.12

Nancy Williams gives no source for the idea that the statement was received at the Kirtland Temple dedication. Moreover, Nancy Williams claimed to have seen the pencil copy in 1934. However, when she returned to the Church Historical Department in 1949 to obtain a copy of it for her book, she was shown a film only of the ink copy. Assistant Church Historian A. William Lund, in writing to Joseph Fielding Smith after her 1949 visit, said that he had never seen a pencil copy and that the only copy is in ink. He also said that he had tried to dissuade her from believing the statement was a revelation because the text does not identify it as such.13 It should also be noted that pencil documents of the period such as the one Nancy Williams described are very rare. Perhaps the original copy is the one in ink, and someone who was interested in the Lehi statement copied the paper in pencil, using the headings described by Williams from the other sections of the document to give context to the full statement but copying only the statement itself in full.

The Frederick G. Williams Document

The primary source of information about the origin of the “Lehi’s Travels” statement is the Frederick G. Williams document (see page 442). The statement is the fourth and last item on the front side of the sheet. The three items above it are separated by lines drawn across the page. These items give context to the “Lehi’s Travels” statement and must be considered when hypothesizing about its origin.

The first item on the sheet, known today as Doctrine and Covenants 7, is a transcript of the revelation given in 1829 to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery regarding John the Beloved. The revelation, which is a translation of the record made on parchment by John, was published in 1833 in the Book of Commandments. The second item is titled, “Questions in English, Answers in Hebrew.” This section contains statements taken word for word from the end of Jacob 5:13 (“For it grieveth me that I should lose this tree and the fruit thereof”) and Jacob 7:27 (“Brethren I bid you adieu”). Below each statement are a couple of lines labeled “An[swer]” in rough Hebrew. The third item is titled “Characters on the Book of Mormon.” Two phrases follow: “The Book of Mormon” on the left and “The Interpretation of Languages” on the right. Under each phrase are two characters. The “Lehi’s Travels” statement then is the fourth item, appearing at the bottom of the sheet.

On the back of the paper there are some ninety characters arranged in twelve lines and a statement written by Ezra G. Williams, Frederick’s son, in 1864 (see page 443). It reads: “G. S. L. City, April 11, 1864. This paper is in the hand writing of my father, Fred G. Williams. The characters thereon I believe to be a representation of those shown to him at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple.”14 This statement discloses several important facts: (1) While Ezra knows that the page is in his father’s handwriting, (2) he only believes the characters had something to do with the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, and (3) nothing ties Ezra’s statement on the back to any of the four items on the front (indeed, it makes no sense to link Doctrine and Covenants 7 or the two translation items to the dedication of the Kirtland Temple); and Ezra does not attribute the statement about Lehi’s travels (4) to Joseph, or (5) to revelation. It is easy to understand, however, how Ezra Williams’s statement could have been misunderstood, with the “Lehi’s Travels” statement becoming associated with the dedication of the Kirtland Temple.

The front side of Frederick G. Williams’s handwritten document containing the “Lehi’s Travels” statement. Courtesy Church History Library.

The back side of Frederick G. Williams’s handwritten document containing twelve rows of unidentified characters. Courtesy Church History Library.

Oliver Cowdery’s Note

In addition to the Frederick G. Williams document, one other small paper is relevant to the question of where and why the Williams document was written. Two of the items on the front of the Frederick G. Williams sheet appear on another early document, written in what clearly appears to be the handwriting of Oliver Cowdery. Oliver’s paper contains the four Book of Mormon characters and the “Questions in English—Answers in Hebrew.” These items appear exactly as in the Williams copy, except that the above two items are not separated from each other by a line and the characters have no heading labeling them as Book of Mormon characters. Oliver’s page contains an additional statement that reads, “Written & Kept for profit & learning By Oliver.”15

Notes from the School of the Prophets?

What can we learn from the collection of items on Williams’s sheet? Why would Frederick G. Williams copy a revelation that had already been published twice (D&C 7), the “Questions and Answers,” and the Book of Mormon characters? Why did Oliver Cowdery also have a copy of the most enigmatic items? What do these items have in common? All of them have something to do with translation. Doctrine and Covenants 7 is a translation of a revelation of John. The “Question and Answer” section includes passages from Jacob, one of which quotes the prophet Zenos. The answers are given in Hebrew.

It may be that on this sheet Frederick G. Williams brought together several items that were being discussed in the School of the Prophets, which was held at times in the Kirtland Temple in 1836—the same time as the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. They may have been part of the Hebrew lessons given from January to March 1836, or of a challenge to translate ancient languages by the power of God, if possible, or by hard work. Oliver Cowdery, Warren Parrish, and W. W. Phelps, joined later by Willard Richards, were also involved in trying to translate ancient languages.16 The fact that both Williams and Oliver Cowdery participated in these lessons may explain why both had a copy of the “Questions and Answers” section and the Book of Mormon characters. This was also the period of the translation of the book of Abraham, which heightened interest in ancient languages and translations. Having already received the translation of the book of Abraham, Joseph and others made an exercise of taking the Egyptian characters and trying to match them up to the text.17 Williams’s sheet appears to be tied somehow to this type of activity and interest.

The Lehi statement, then, may have been an idea discussed or presented by Joseph Smith or another speaker at the School of the Prophets—an idea that Frederick G. Williams found interesting enough to jot down on the paper he had with him as he took notes in that setting.

Bernhisel’s Copy of the “Lehi’s Travels” Statement

Another early version of the “Lehi’s Travels” statement, written in the handwriting of Dr. John M. Bernhisel, must also be considered. In spring 1845, Dr. Bernhisel made a partial copy of Joseph Smith’s Inspired Translation of the Bible. The Lehi statement is found on the last sheet of the copy and is preceded by several blank pages.18 The statement that follows is the only item on the page: “The course that Lehi travelled from the city of Jerusalem to the place where he and his family took ship. They travelled nearly a south south East direction until they came to the nineteenth degree of North Lattitude then nearly East to the sea of Arabia then sailed in a south east direction and landed on the continent of South America in Chile thirty degrees south lattitude.” The statement has no heading or comment, and it is not attributed to Joseph Smith or to anyone else.

Although we do not know how Dr. Bernhisel obtained the previous information,19 it has the same wording and nearly the same spelling, capitalization, and punctuation as the Williams copy, with both men misspelling the word latitude as lattitude.20 This correlation suggests that Bernhisel copied the Frederick G. Williams document or that the two had an unknown third common source.21 As with Williams’s copy, Bernhisel’s gives no source, attribution, or comment for the statement.

Conclusion

The source of the statement about Lehi’s travels, therefore, remains uncertain. Although none of the original documents give any evidence that the statement is anything more than an interesting attempt to plot out Lehi’s journey, the tradition of a revelatory origin was widely accepted in the middle and late nineteenth century.22 However, as early as 1909, B. H. Roberts cast doubt on the reliability of theories attributing the statement to Joseph Smith.23 Much has been written since that time both upholding and challenging the origin of the statement as a revelation to Joseph Smith.24 These secondary sources are of little use in unraveling the mystery of the statement’s origin. Perhaps we will never know the full history of the statement, but whatever we surmise, it must be based on the primary documents. As has been shown, no primary source contains sufficient evidence to attribute the statement to Joseph Smith (or to anyone else) or to revelation. Without such evidence, it is erroneous to view the idea that Lehi landed in Chile as settled.

Frederick G. Williams’s paper is an early statement of one of the many theories put forth over the years about Book of Mormon geography. For the present, it should not be given any more authority than any other theory and must receive its test of validity, not by what others say about it, but by how it compares with information given in the Book of Mormon itself.

The Characters on the Reverse Side

On the reverse side of the sheet are seven horizontal lines that divide the sheet into eight sections. The first seven sections contain twelve rows of characters: two rows in the first; three rows in the second; two rows in the third; one row each in the fourth, fifth, and sixth sections; and two rows in the seventh. The eighth section contains two brief paragraphs written in English, one of which has been crossed out, while the second is facing the opposite direction so that one must turn the page around to read it.25 On the right side of the sheet, written horizontally in relation to the characters (so that one must turn the page sideways to read it), Frederick’s son, Ezra G. Williams, wrote the following.

G. S. L. City, April 11, 1864. This paper is in the hand writing of my father, Fred G Williams. The characters thereon, I believe to be a representation of those shown to him at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple.

(signed) Ezra G Williams

If Ezra is correct and these are representations (undoubtedly drawn later) of the characters that were shown President Williams at the dedication of the Kirtland Temple,26 we are left with a most intriguing situation, one which begs many questions, among them, How were the characters shown to him? Was it by means of a Urim and Thummim or a seer stone? What was the purpose of this revealed knowledge? Was it to facilitate the translation of an ancient text? If so which? What language do the characters represent? Is it reformed Egyptian, the language of the gold plates of the Book of Mormon, or some other language? Did this experience coincide with the appearance of the heavenly messenger who sat down beside him during the opening prayer? Were others at the dedication allowed to witness this sacred exchange of intelligence? Did President Williams ever say or do anything about the information? Unfortunately, we have no answers to these questions. We also do not know if these characters represent an alphabet of some kind, or if they are arranged into a written script to convey a message. If it is the latter, what is the message they contain? At present we are unable to say.

To my untrained eye, some of the characters drawn by President Williams resemble ancient Semitic alphabetic letters, such as those found in early Canaanite texts from the Sinai c. 1500 BC. Scholars theorize that all known writing systems derive from a common source, a proto-Semitic language which they then divide into North Semitic languages and South Semitic languages, some of whose writing systems used cuneiform and others an alphabet.

The North Semitic and South Semitic scripts are thought by some scholars to go back to a common source, a hypothetical proto-Semitic writing system. Others dispute this and regard the origin of the South Semitic alphabet as a still unsolved problem. The source of the proto-Semitic alphabetic script has been variously conjectured to be Egyptian hieroglyphics, Babylonian cuneiform, or other writing systems.27

The North Semitic writing is alphabetic in that each sign or symbol represents a consonantal sound of the language. Vowels for some time were omitted. Symbols of various kinds to indicate the vowels for Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac probably date from the eighth century A.D. The North Semitic script consists of a Canaanite branch and an Aramaic branch. The Canaanite branch gave rise to Early Hebrew writing and Phoenician writing. Some living Semitic languages include Arabic (spoken throughout the Middle East), Amharic (the official language of Ethiopia), Tigrinya (the language of Ethiopian Christians), Tigre (the language of Ethiopian Muslims), Hebrew (the official language of Israel), West Aramaic (the language of Christians in villages north of Damascus, and Syria), and East Aramaic or Assyrian (the language spoken by Christians and Jews in Iraq and Iran).

Perhaps one day we shall be able to identify President Williams’s written characters and determine whether they convey a message. Until then, they remain an enigma.

Notes

1. A version of this chapter was first published in 1988 with the same title by the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), today part of Brigham Young University’s Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship.

2. Frederick G. Williams file, Church History Library, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, reprinted by permission. Using the orthography commonly used in that day, Chile is spelled with a final i in the original.

It should be noted that the Book of Mormon itself gives the initial course settings described in the Lehi travel statement; see 1 Nephi 16:13, 17:1, 5–6. It may be that 1 Nephi 18:24 is a key in establishing the landing site as being in Chile thirty degrees south latitude, for in that verse we learn that the seeds brought from Jerusalem “did grow exceedingly.” Jerusalem is at approximately thirty degrees north latitude, a comparable climate, which is important for the growth of the seeds.

3. Online transcript at Uncle Dale’s Readings in Early Mormon History, “Misc. Ohio Newspapers, 1829–1831 Articles,” http://sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/OH/miscohio.htm#111830.

4. The Chile site appears to be essentially a Pratt tradition in its evolution until 1880. As early as 1840, Orson Pratt spoke of “the western coast of South America” as the site for Lehi’s landing. O. Pratt, An Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions, and of the Late Discovery of Ancient American Records, 3d American ed. (New York: Joseph W. Harrison, 1842), 18, located at the Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif. Pratt even noted in the 1879 edition and subsequent editions of the Book of Mormon that Lehi’s arrival in the promised land was “believed to be on the coast of Chili, So. America” (1 Ne. 18:23, note 8). However, his views on Book of Mormon geography were not rigid. In 1848, he claimed the Nephites “inhabited the cities of Yucatan” (Mexico). Editorial, Millennial Star 10 (November 15, 1848): 347. But in another essay, he identified the land Bountiful as being in “north-western South America,” not far south of “the Isthmus of Darien,” i.e., in Colombia today. “Divinity of the Book of Mormon,” Millennial Star 24 (June 16, 1866): 370. In Orson Pratt’s Works on the Doctrines of the Gospel (Liverpool, England, 1848–51; reprint, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1945), 32, he places Book of Mormon geography not only in the northern portion of South America, but in Central America, “in the interior wilds of Central America, in the very region where the ancient cities described in the Book of Mormon were said to exist.”

Orson’s brother Parley Pratt likewise speaks of a South American landing site in Proclamation! To the People of the Coasts and Islands of the Pacific (pamphlet, 1851), 8, copy in the Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.: “Arriving at the sea coast they built a ship, put on board the necessary provisions and the seeds brought with them from Jerusalem; and setting sail they crossed the great ocean, and landed on the western coast of America, within the bounds of what is now called ‘Chili.’” Four years later Parley expressed the same thought in his Key to the Science of Theology (Liverpool: F. D. Richards, 1855), 22–23: “By this science the Prophets Lehi and Nephi came out with a colony from Jerusalem, in the days of Jeremiah the Prophet, and after wandering for eight years in the wilderness of Arabia, came to the sea coast, built a vessel, obtained from the Lord a compass to guide them on the way, and finally landed in safety on the coast of what is now called Chile, in South America.”

5. Two years earlier, the idea of a Chilean landing of Lehi’s group, in general, was connected in the literature to Joseph Smith, when George Reynolds wrote an article in which he said Lehi’s party had landed in Chile and added that the information was widely believed to have been received by Joseph in a vision. George Reynolds, “Land of the Nephites,” Juvenile Instructor 15 (December 1, 1880): 274. Reynolds does not mention the “Lehi’s Travels” statement as such. See also A. H. Cannon, Questions and Answers on the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Juvenile Instructor Office, 1886), 24.

6. James A. Little and Franklin D. Richards, A Compendium of the Doctrines of the Gospel (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1882), 289. The full statement reads as follows: “Lehi’s Travels.—Revelation to Joseph the Seer. The course that Lehi and his company traveled from Jerusalem to the place of their destination; They traveled nearly a south, southeast direction until they came to the nineteenth degree of north latitude; then, nearly east to the Sea of Arabia, then sailed in a southeast direction, and landed on the continent of South America, in Chili, thirty degrees south latitude.” The 1857 edition of the Compendium did not include this statement.

7. In 1837, upon the failure of the Kirtland Safety Society, Williams had charges of misconduct leveled against him by the Kirtland Stake High Council and he had a brief falling out with the Prophet. During this time, Williams became the scribe for others. See Frederick G. Williams, “Frederick Granger Williams of the First Presidency of the Church,” BYU Studies 12, no. 3 (1972): 252–54.

8. “Facts Are Stubborn Things,” Times and Seasons 3 (September 15, 1842): 922.

9. “Zarahemla,” Times and Seasons 3 (October 1, 1842): 927, reads:

“Since our ‘Extract’ was published from Fr. Stephens’ ‘Incidents of Travel,’ &c., we have found another important fact relating to the truth of the Book of Mormon. ‘Central America, or Guatemala, is situated north of the Isthmus of Darien and once embraced several hundred miles of territory from north to south—The city of Zarahemla, burnt at the crucifixion of the Savior, and rebuilt afterwards, stood upon this land. . . .’

“It is certainly a good thing for the excellency and veracity of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon, that the ruins of Zarahemla have been found where the Nephites left them: and that a large stone with engravings upon it, as Mosiah said: and a ‘large round stone, with the sides sculptured in hieroglyphics,’ as Mr. Stephens has published, is also among the left remembrances of the, (to him,) lost and unknown. We are not going to declare positively that the ruins of Quirigua are those of Zarahemla, but when the land and the stones and the books tell the story so plain, we are of the opinion, that it would require more proof than the Jews could bring, to prove the disciples stole the body of Jesus from the tomb, to prove that the ruins of the city in question, are not one of those referred to in the Book of Mormon.”

10. George Q. Cannon, “Editorial Thoughts: The Book of Mormon Geography,” Juvenile Instructor 25 (January 1, 1890): 18–19. Similar statements have been made by Joseph F. Smith, Anthony W. Ivins, John A. Widstoe, and BYU President Franklin D. Harris. See John A. Widtsoe, “Evidences and Reconciliations: Is Book of Mormon Geography Known?” Improvement Era 53 (July 1950): 547. For all these men and for the many who study Book of Mormon geography today, the case was not closed, nor did the “Lehi’s Travels” statement bind them to a certain line of reasoning. As John Sorenson has noted, the only valid source known today on Book of Mormon geography is the Book of Mormon itself. See his An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1985), 5.

11. George D. Pyper, Statement of Book of Mormon Geography, appended to Frederick J. Pack, “Route Traveled by Lehi and His Company,” Juvenile Instructor 73 (April 1938): 160: “Note: The present associate editor [George D. Pyper] of the Instructor was one day in the office of the late President Joseph F. Smith when some brethren were asking him to approve a map showing the exact landing place of Lehi and his company. President Smith declined to officially approve of the map, saying that the Lord had not yet revealed it, and that if it were officially approved and afterwards found to be in error, it would affect the faith of the people. —Asst. Editor.”

12. Nancy Clement Williams, After 100 Years (Independence, Mo.: Zion’s Printing and Publishing, 1951), 101–2. In a footnote to this experience, Nancy C. Williams said that when she was shown a microfilm of Frederick G. Williams’s copy of the statement, she “received with others a wonderful manifestation that it was indeed a revelation given to Frederick G. Williams for him and his family.” In an interview by Merlin J. Stone with Henrietta E. Williams, wife of Ezra G. Williams, son of Frederick G. Williams, on January 24, 1913, she claimed her father-in-law received the revelation at the Kirtland Temple dedication and that it was wrongly attributed to Joseph Smith in the Compendium. Frederick G. Williams, Medical ledger, 321, Church History Library. This book was originally Dr. Williams’s medical ledger from 1837 to 1839; and on the first 130 pages appear the names of his patients, the medications, and the bills. After page 130, the pages continue to be the accounts of his patients for a time, but the second Williams generation used the blank portion of the page to record things of historical interest to the family.

13. W. Lund to Joseph Fielding Smith, Frederick G. Williams file, Church History Library.

14. This statement most certainly refers only to the characters on the back side of the sheet. It cannot be as easily associated with all the writings on the front, since two of them were published before the Kirtland Temple dedication. Nancy Williams apparently never saw Ezra’s 1864 statement, since she does not mention it in her book. However, she may have heard that the sheet had been connected in some way with the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, and somehow what was written generally on the back became associated specifically with the “Lehi’s Travels” statement on the front.

Ezra was only thirteen years old when the Kirtland Temple was dedicated and nineteen when his father died. His statement, written some twenty-eight years after the dedication, is tentative at best and should be used with caution when conjecturing about any of the items on the sheet.

15. Oliver Cowdery, Statement, n.d., Church History Library.

16. Hugh Nibley, “The Meaning of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers,” BYU Studies 11, no. 4 (1971): 354–55.

17. Nibley, “Meaning of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers,” 350.

18. The manuscript pages are unnumbered after page 21, but were they numbered, the Lehi statement would be on page 135.

19. For possible explanations, see Robert J. Matthews, “Notes on ‘Lehi’s Travels,’” BYU Studies 12, no. 3 (1972): 312, and Paul R. Cheesman, The World of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1978), 65. The Williams and Bernhisel copies predate the Richards Compendium by nearly forty years, and while the two handwritten copies have identical wording, the Compendium’s introductory sentence is slightly different.

20. Matthews, “Notes on ‘Lehi’s Travels,’” 313.

21. The “Lehi’s Travels” statement is not found among the pages of the Joseph Smith Translation held in the Community of Christ Library-Archives. See also Matthews, “Notes on ‘Lehi’s Travels,’” 314.

22. See note 2 in this chapter.

23. B. H. Roberts, New Witnesses for God, 3 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1911), 3:501–2: “The only reason so far discovered for regarding [the ‘Lehi’s Travels’ statement] as a revelation is that it is found written on a loose sheet of paper in the hand writing of Frederick G. Williams, for some years second Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church in the Kirtland period of its history; and follows the body of the revelation contained in Doctrine and Covenants, Section vii., relating to John the beloved disciple, remaining on earth, until the glorious coming of Jesus to reign with his Saints. The hand-writing is certified to be that of Frederick G. Williams, by his son, Ezra G. Williams, of Ogden; and endorsed on the back of the sheet of paper containing the . . . passage and the revelation pertaining to John. . . . But there is no heading to the passage relating to the passage about Lehi’s travels. The words ‘Lehi’s Travels;’ and the words ‘Revelation to Joseph the Seer,’ are added by the publishers, justified as they supposed, doubtless, by the fact that the paragraph is in the hand writing of Frederick G. Williams, Counselor to the Prophet, and on the same page with the body of an undoubted revelation, which was published repeatedly as such in the life time of the Prophet, first in 1833, at Independence, Missouri, in the ‘Book of Commandments,’ and subsequently in every edition of the Doctrine and Covenants until now. But the one relating to Lehi’s travels was never published in the life-time of the Prophet, and was published no where else until published in the Richards-Little’s Compendium as noted above. Now, if no more evidence can be found to establish this passage in Richards and Little’s Compendium as a ‘revelation to Joseph the Seer,’ than the fact that it is found in the hand writing of Frederick G. Williams, and on the same sheet of paper with the body of the revelation about John, the beloved disciple, the evidence of its being a ‘revelation to Joseph, the Seer,’ rests on a very unsatisfactory basis.” Roberts had earlier accepted the Chilean landing; see Roberts, New Witnesses for God, 2:349.

24. See, for example, Willard Bean and E. Cecil McGavin, Book of Mormon Geography (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1948); J. M. Sjodahl, An Introduction to the Study of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1927), 92–95; J. N. Washburn, An Approach to the Study of Book of Mormon Geography (Provo, Utah: New Era Publishing, 1939), 90–91; J. N. Washburn, From Babel to Cumorah (Provo, Utah: New Era Publishing, 1937), 75–76; Eldin Ricks, Book of Mormon Commentary (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1951), 1:303–6; Cheesman, World of the Book of Mormon, 22–24; Matthews, “Notes on ‘Lehi’s Travels,’” 312–14. These sources include writers who doubt the authenticity of the statement and argue for a limited Book of Mormon geography, those who follow the Chilean landing tradition but have Lehi’s party moving northward after his landing, those who accept the tradition of a Chilean landing and argue for an expanded Book of Mormon setting, and those who comment on what is known of the origin of the “Lehi’s Travels” statement.

25. It is very difficult to read, but the first word of the first line could be Enoch. The second line could read is it his will [ ] as it is with me. The fourth line could read ’twas our will [ ] as it is with you.

26. Another possibility to consider is that there was a second dedicatory session held on Thursday, March 31, 1836. It is possible that heavenly messengers may have visited Frederick G. Williams during the second dedication as well. Joseph Smith, however, does not record any details of the second dedication, only that it was held “for the benefit of those who could not get into the house on the preceding Sabbath . . . [and that] the services of the day were commenced, prosecuted and terminated in the same manner as at the former dedication, and the Spirit of God rested upon the congregation, and great solemnity prevailed.” Joseph Smith Jr., History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, ed. B. H. Roberts, 2d ed., rev., 7 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1971), 2:433.

27. “The Role of Semitic Languages in the Development of Writing Systems,” from the article “Afroasiatic Languages,” in The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. (Columbia University Press, 2007), found online at http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/society/A0920677.html.