Utah Historical Quarterly
The editor provides valuable historical and biographical information in his footnotes. His introduction details the provenance of the manuscript (this is its fourth time in print) and of the life and the role of John Whitmer in the early Mormon movement. One of eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon, a charter member of the new church, he was called by "revelation" (1831) to keep a history of "The Church of Christ," an assignment he took very seriously. His early writings reflect a true believer's intimate perspective of the movement, including events in New York prior to the move to Ohio, and the text of several of Joseph Smith's revelations. Especially useful are his accounts of the Missouri troubles with copies of correspondence and petitions between Mormon leaders and state and federal officials.
Whitmer became disillusioned with Smith and was excommunicated in March 1838. Thereafter, he wrote briefly from hearsay and secondhand sources of the rise and fall of Nauvoo and the deaths of Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Whitmer blamed the church's problems on polygamy, the "Danite" band, Joseph's "lust," and the "vile behavior" of Saints toward non-Mormons. He died in 1878, faithful to his Book of Mormon witness but unaffiliated with the "Restoration Movement."
Western Historical Quarterly
Published in its entirety from the original manuscript, this work lends insight into the life and beliefs of this early Mormon who witnessed Joseph Smith's gold plates, served as a Book of Mormon scribe, as editor of the Messenger and Advocate, and as president of the Missouri stake. A man of paradox, John Whitmer believed that the millennium overshadowed inconsistencies in ecclesiastical development. He lost faith in the church leadership and was excommunicated, but never lost his commitment to the church itself.
Church History, Susan Curtis
In From Historian to Dissident, Bruce Westergren presents the first modern edition of The Book of John Whitmer, which provides a "usable history" for succeeding generations of Mormons, lest they forget the church's miraculous beginnings, endurance of persecution, and susceptibility to the dangers of a fallen prophet. As an eyewitness to and participant in the events he recorded, Whitmer revealed almost as much about himself as he did the early Mormon Church.
The Book of John Whitmer was begun when its author was a faithful follower of Joseph Smith, and it was completed after he had begun to doubt the Mormon prophet and some of the practices he instituted. Though in places stiffly written, the book nevertheless is filled with drama and is marked by the urgency of recording for posterity the momentous gathering of God's chosen people, the pain of persecution, and, eventually, the determination of an embittered Whitmer to show how Smith had fallen from the original purposes of the divinely inspired Church of Jesus Christ.
In the beginning Whitmer dutifully recorded the activities of the church—meetings, appointments, revelations received, and moves from one part of the Midwest to another. In the process, Whitmer told a story about the early Latter-day Saints Church that is filled with the millenarian expectation and commitment to the building of a community of believers. One learns from Whitmer's history something of the origins of the structure of church leadership, the names of men on whose faith the movement was built, and the centrality of revelation to the early church.
The last three chapters, written after Whitmer's excommunication, reflect the author's continued devotion to the principles of the church as well as his conviction that Joseph Smith no longer upheld those principles, promoting instead plural marriage, secret protective societies, and the pursuit of mammon. No longer having access to the meetings and official documents of the church, Whitmer based these latter chapters, by his own account, on "the best information" (p. 191) he could get, undoubtedly some combination of rumor, imagination, firsthand stories from insiders, and his own experience. What these chapters lose in verifiability, they make up for with Whitmer's passion to record a version of events that might, in the author's mind, keep true believers from suffering at the hand of a fallen prophet.
Anyone familiar with Mormon history knows of Whitmer's history—either in its original manuscript form or in one of four editions that have appeared in print in the past century. The earliest published version was based on a transcription made and edited by Andrew Jensen in 1893. Before Westergren's edition, the most recent version appeared in 1980, edited by F. Mark McKiernan and Roger D. Launius as An Early Latter Day Saint History: The Book of John Whitmer (Herald Publishing House), and was based on the Jensen transcription rather than the original. Thus, Westergren's edition is a welcome publication that makes available a close copy of Whitmer's text. Like McKiernan and Launius, Westergren provides biographical data on individuals mentioned in the text, explanatory notes, and supplementary bibliographic material. Unlike them, Westergren does not include any version of revelations mentioned, but not transcribed, by Whitmer, an unfortunate omission for all but specialists in Mormon history. He also did not update their excellent bibliographic essay.
Still, Westergren should be congratulated for presenting a well-documented edition of The Book of John Whitmer. At last, the voice of this important historian—believer and dissenter—can speak to a new generation of church members and scholars interested in this indigenous American religion about the early history of the Mormon Church and his own experience in it.
Bookwatch (Petaluma, California)
Skillfully edited by freelance research historian Bruce Westergren, From Hisotiran to Dissident: The Book of John Whitmer presents the earliest commisioned history of Mormonism, spanning the years 1831 to 1844 and penned by John Whitmer, a man who placed his faith in the fledgling Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints yet came to distrust its leadership and was excommunicated in 1838. His record of the church itself, and the people who practiced and spread the faith, is quite highly detailed; at some points the language and wording of 150 years past becomes difficult to follow, and for this, an adept editing and sidenotes by Westergren are of great aid for contemporary readers. This firsthand perspective is very highly recommended for anyone with a keen interest in the early history of the Mormon church.
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