Oliver H. P. CowderyPrior to the winter of 1830–31, Cowdery generally signed his name "Oliver H P Cowdery", likely representing the names Hazard and Perry. Oliver Hazard Perry was a recent war hero who decisively defeated the British on Lake Erie in the War of 1812. Criticism of his use of this "pretentious moniker" by the Palmyra Reflector (June 1, 1830) probably influenced Cowdery to abandon his temporary usage of the initials. See Ryan N. Cramer, "The Elusive Middle Names of Oliver H. P. Cowdery" John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 42, No. 1 (2022), 79-87 . (October 3, 1806 – March 3, 1850) was an American religious leader who, with Joseph Smith, was an important participant in the formative period of the Latter Day Saint movement in the 1820s and 1830s.
He was the principal scribe to the Book of Mormon, the first baptized Latter Day Saint, one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon's golden plates, one of the first Latter Day Saint apostles, a key early missionary, and a member of the First Presidency in Kirtland.
Cowdery's relationship with Joseph Smith and the church's leadership deteriorated in the mid-1830s, and in 1838 he was excommunicated with several other prominent Missouri leaders amid a leadership struggle with Smith.
After his excommunication, Cowdery moved to Wisconsin, where he practiced law and became involved in local politics. Cowdery briefly joined a Methodist church before being rebaptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) in 1848.
Early life Oliver Cowdery was born October 3, 1806, in Wells, Vermont; his father, William, moved the family to the nearby town of Poultney when Cowdery was three years old.Preston Nibley, Oliver Cowdery: His Life, Character and Testimony (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1958). His mother, Rebecca Fuller Cowdery, died on September 3, 1809.
At age 20, Cowdery left Vermont for upstate New York, where his older brothers had settled. He clerked at a store for just over two years and in 1829 became a school teacher in Manchester.Lucy Cowdery Young to Andrew Jenson, March 7, 1887, Church Archives Cowdery lodged with different families in the area, including that of Joseph Smith, Sr., who was said to have provided Cowdery with additional information about the golden plates of which Cowdery said he had heard "from all quarters."Dan Vogel, Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004), 154; Junius F. Wells, "Oliver Cowdery", Improvement Era XIV:5 (March 1911); Lucy Mack Smith, "Preliminary Manuscript," 90 in Early Mormon Documents 1: 374–75.
Role in early Latter Day Saint movement
Encounter with Smith Cowdery met Joseph Smith on April 5, 1829—a year and a day before the official founding of the Church of Christ—and heard from him how he had received golden plates containing ancient writings.Joseph Smith–History 1:66. Cowdery told Smith that he had seen the golden plates in a vision before the two had met. Before meeting Cowdery, Smith had virtually stopped translating after the first 116 pages had been lost by Martin Harris. Working with Cowdery, however, Smith completed the manuscript of what would become the Book of Mormon between April 7 and June 1829, in what Richard Bushman later called a "burst of rapid-fire translation." Cowdery also unsuccessfully attempted to translate part of the Book of Mormon by himself.History of the Church 1:36-38; D&C 8, 9.
Cowdery and Smith reported that on May 15, 1829, they received the Aaronic priesthood from the resurrected John the Baptist, after which they baptized each other in the Susquehanna River.Messenger and Advocate 1:14–16 (October 1834); Bushman, 74–75. Cowdery said that he and Smith later went into the forest and prayed "until a glorious light encircled us, and as we arose on account of the light, three persons stood before us dressed in white, their faces beaming with glory." One of the three announced that he was the Apostle Peter and said the others were the apostles James and John, who many presume then gave them the Melchizedek priesthood.Charles M. Nielsen to Heber Grant, February 10, 1898, in Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents (Salt Lake City, Utah: Signature Books, 1998), 2: 476; History of the Church 1:39–42.
Later that year, Cowdery reported sharing a vision, along with Smith and David Whitmer, in which an angel showed them the golden plates. Harris said he saw a similar vision later that day. Cowdery, Whitmer and Harris signed a statement to that effect and became known as the Three Witnesses. Their testimony has subsequently been published in nearly every edition of the Book of Mormon.
Church service and leadership When the Church of Christ was organized on April 6, 1830, Smith became "First Elder" and Cowdery "Second Elder." Although Cowdery was technically second in authority to Smith from the organization of the church through 1838, in practice Sidney Rigdon, Smith's "spokesman" and counselor in the First Presidency, began to supplant Cowdery as early as 1831. Cowdery held the position of Assistant President of the Church from 1834 until his excommunication in 1838.Bushman, p. 124 He was also a member of the first presiding high council of the church, organized in Kirtland, Ohio, in 1834.
On December 18, 1832, Cowdery married Elizabeth Ann Whitmer, the daughter of Peter Whitmer, Sr. and sister of David, John, Jacob and Peter Whitmer, Jr. They had six children, of whom only one daughter survived to maturity.Maria Louise Cowdery, born August 11, 1835.
Cowdery helped Smith publish a series of revelations first called the Book of Commandments and later, as revised and expanded, the Doctrine and Covenants. He was also the editor, or on the editorial board, of several early church publications, including the Evening and Morning Star, the Messenger and Advocate and the Northern Times.
When the church created a bank known as the Kirtland Safety Society (KSS) in 1837, Cowdery obtained the money-printing plates. Sent by Smith to Monroe, Michigan, he became president of the Bank of Monroe, in which the church had a controlling interest.See Mark L. Staker, "Raising Money in Righteousness: Oliver Cowdery as Banker," in Days Never to Be Forgotten: Oliver Cowdery, ed. Alexander L. Baugh (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009), 143–254. Both banks failed that same year. Cowdery moved to the newly founded Latter Day Saint settlement in Far West, Missouri, and suffered ill health through the winter of 1837–38.
1838 split with Smith By early 1838, the relationship between Smith and Cowdery had deteriorated significantly. Cowdery felt that Smith's integration of economic and political plans into his theology and ecclesiastical structure was encroaching on the separation of church and state. Cowdery also expressed his concerns of Smith's relationship with Fanny Alger, a teenage maid living with the Smiths in Kirtland. In a January 1838 letter to his brother Warren: "[We] had some conversation in which in every instance I did not fail to affirm that which I had said was strictly true. A dirty, nasty, filthy affair of his and Fanny Alger's was talked over in which I strictly declared that I had never deserted from the truth in the matter, and as I supposed was admitted by himself."In January 1838, Smith and Rigdon left Kirtland and took over the Far West, Missouri church in March 1838, which had previously been under the presidency of W. W. Phelps, John Whitmer, and David Whitmer—a close friend and brother-in-law to Cowdery. Thomas B. Marsh, David W. Patten, and Brigham Young, were ordained as the new stake presidency in Missouri.
The new presidency requested John Whitmer, who had been the Church historian and recorder, and a member of the stake presidency in Missouri, to turn in his historical notes and writings. When he failed to comply, Whitmer was removed from his position, and an investigation into the financial handlings of the Missouri leadership commenced.
Nine excommunication charges were presented against Cowdery, which included selling lands in Jackson County without authorization, trying to destroy the character of Joseph Smith, and disregarding his ecclesiastical duties for the practice of law. On April 12, 1838, a church court excommunicated Cowdery.Bushman, 347–48. Among other things, Cowdery was accused of "virtually denying the faith by declaring that he would not be governed by any ecclesiastical authority nor Revelations whatever in his temporal affairs." David Whitmer was also excommunicated at the same time, and apostle Lyman E. Johnson was disfellowshipped;History of the Church 3:16–20. John Whitmer and Phelps had been excommunicated a month earlier.History of the Church 3:7. Cowdery refused to appear before the council, but sent a letter of resignation, reiterating his desire to live his religious beliefs independent from his economic and political decisions.
These men became collectively known as "dissenters", but continued to live in and around Far West, where they owned a great deal of property, much of which was purchased when they were acting as agents for the church. Possession became unclear and the dissenters threatened the church with lawsuits. After Rigdon delivered a sermon that implied dissenters had no place in the Latter Day Saint community, a vigilante group called the Danites forcibly expelled them from the county. The Danite Manifesto, a letter addressed to Cowdery and the other dissenters, was signed by some eighty-four Latter-Day Saints (but not Smith or Rigdon). It warned:
you shall have three days after you receive this communication to you, including twenty-four hours in each day, for you to depart with your families peaceably; which you may do undisturbed by any person; but in that time, if you do not depart, we will use the means in our power to cause you to depart.
Cowdery and the dissenters fled the county. Reports about their treatment circulated in nearby non-Mormon communities and increased the tension that led to the 1838 Mormon War, which ultimately resulted in the Latter-Day Saints' expulsion from Missouri.
Post-excommunication period (1838–48) Between 1838 and 1848, Cowdery studied and practiced law in Tiffin, Ohio, where he became a civic and political leader. He joined the local Methodist church and served as secretary in 1844.Vogel, ed. EMD, 2: 504. Gabriel J. Keen, a leading member of the Tiffin Methodist Church, swore in 1885 that Cowdery had publicly renounced Mormonism before being admitted as a member, but there is no corroborative evidence for Keen's claim. The document is at 2: 504-07. He also edited the local Democratic newspaper until it was learned that he was one of the Three Witnesses, at which time he was reassigned as assistant editor. He was nominated as his district's Democratic Party candidate for the Ohio State Senate in 1846, but was defeated when his Mormon background was discovered.Stanley R. Gunn, Oliver Cowdery, Second Elder and Scribe (Salt Lake City, 1962)
After the Smiths’ death on June 27, 1844, a succession crisis split the Latter Day Saint movement. Cowdery's father and brother were followers of James J. Strang, who pressed his claim as the movement's successor by claiming that he had found and translated ancient records engraved upon metal plates, similar to the golden plates Smith had translated in the 1820s.Grant Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 208–13. In 1847, Cowdery and his brother moved to Elkhorn, Wisconsin, about twelve miles away from Strang's headquarters in Voree. In Elkhorn he entered law practice with his brother and became co-editor of the Walworth County Democrat. In 1848 he ran for state assemblyman but was again defeated when his Mormon ties were disclosed.
LDS Church rebaptism