Lost Witnesses of the Restoration: Isaac, David, and Alva Hale
Read the Introduction to the Lost Witnesses of the Restoration series here.
Isaac Hale, born in 1763, was a man of rough edges. He was a fifth generation colonist in New England, a rationalist, a capable provider, and by all accounts a caring and honest man. He watched the motley crew of colonies form a new independent republic, saw the massacres and displacement of many Native American communities, lived at the edge of the New England frontier, and watched the all-American religion of Mormonism emerge in his backyard. He witnessed the fervent Second Great Awakening, the Masonic Panic of 1826-30, the beginnings of Westward expansion, and the growing abolition movement that would eventually culminate in the Civil War which would kill at least seven of his grandsons.1 He educated his daughters but was committed to traditional forms of respect between elders and children. He would be remembered by neighbors and community as a “man of forethought and generosity.”2 He was deeply disappointed by his daughter Emma’s decision to marry the saucy young “imposter” Joseph Smith. And though he willingly hosted the newlyweds with his land, the “stiff old Methodist” was in tears when the couple arrived: “You have stolen my daughter and married her. I had much rather have followed her to the grave.”
Despite Emma’s radical departure from what Isaac viewed as proper religion, conduct, and ethics, he hosted and made space for his sixth-born, eventually selling her husband Joseph their first parcel of land.3 He seems to have hoped that this “saucy” son-in-law would reform, leave his money-digging, and poor education behind him and become respectable. Failing that, maybe he hoped that Joseph’s clear commitment to deception would dissolve Emma’s determination to throw her life away on Joseph’s revelations. We have no records of the communications between Emma and her father when Joseph left Emma behind in Pennsylvania 1829, but it is reasonable to suspect that those final weeks were a poignant ultimatum. When Emma left to follow the sensational young god-maker, her father and her family largely dropped out of contact, except to offer the affidavits below. Isaac’s final assessment of Joseph and the Book of Mormon as a work designed to cheat “those who swallowed the deception” was echoed years later on his deathbed, as he urged his family “not to follow Jo Smith.” He passed away clearly still hurting from Emma’s betrayal to the “insolent” money-digger.
Isaac
Isaac’s mother died when he was still young.4 His father, Reuben Hale, remarried, but the new home environment may not have been welcoming because Isaac relocated to live with his maternal grandfather Arah Ward. Arah fought for the British in the revolutionary war. He fought in the Battle of Wyoming (in Pennsylvania), was taken captive, and died in prison. His death lists him as a Tory in 1780.5 Maybe Isaac disagreed with his grandfather’s politics or maybe he was just more loyal to his uncle David, because at 17 years old, Isaac and his uncle joined the Revolutionary forces. Issac never saw action. He was only in service for about eight days, before being discharged.
Following the War and his grandfather’s death, Isaac inherited his grandfather’s estate to care for his grandmother, Phebe. He tended her and the property for a few years until 1784. At that time, he was 21 and seemingly ready to start his own life. So, he deeded the property to his uncle David and travelled south. Retracing his grandfather’s footsteps to Pennsylvania, he explored the “endless mountains” and ghostly Native American settlements. He traded his hunting skill for a place to board with a frontier preacher who lived among the Onondaga people.6 Issaac Hale would later bring his family to this man’s Congregationalist Church by canoe. But in the late 1780s, Isaac was concerned mostly with finding a place to live.7 After buying a cabin he trekked back to his family in Vermont for a wife.
In Vermont, he married Elizabeth Lewis. They had probably met in the years before Isaac left for Pennsylvania. Her family was poor, but she was tall, strong, practical, and educated. She was 23 years old with strikingly dark hair and eyes that she would pass on to her children. She was a direct descendent of the Mayflower pilgrims, toughened by generations of New England winters. She was the perfect partner for the life Isaac was making on the frontier. They married in the fall of 1790 when Isaac was 27. The newlywed Hales were not the only couple ready to move to Pennsylvania from Vermont, though. Elizabeth’s younger brother Nathaniel Lewis had just married too, and he and his wife were coming along. They travelled the 220 miles together with a “yoke of steers and a cart.”8 Not many years later, some of Nathaniel’s in-laws would also move to the area, turning the patch of Pennsylvania borderlands into a bustling off-shoot of their Vermont community.
Both families gardened out of necessity, but Isaac’s hunting was the primary source of sustenance for the families. He is remembered as a great hunter9 by just about everyone who knew him and stories of him killing a rare “white bear” or “black deer,” and for sharing the meats of his labor with surrounding neighbors.10 Within his family, Isaac is also remembered for once killing 3 panthers in one day, while out hunting alone.11 Thus, sustained by Isaac’s hunting, the two couples tilled farms, set up cabins, chinked their walls against the drafts of the winter, and began having children.
Within five years of settling, Isaac and Elizabeth had three small boys: Jesse, David, and Alva. Meanwhile, Nathaniel and Sarah had a little girl and a baby boy. Though frontier life in Pennsylvania was rough and provisions were scarce, Isaac was generous and his hunting supported their growing family with apparent ease, since all of his children survived to maturity (a rarity in the 1800s) and were noted for their strength and vitality. While surrounding areas named their settlements Starvation and Hardscrabble in proclamation of their difficulty, Isaac’s arrival in Pennsylvania also seems to have benefitted the community around him because he was consistently noted for how he fed and fostered others.12 The area he and the Lewises settled would become known as Harmony.
As the century turned, Isaac welcomed his first two daughters, Phebe in 1798 and Elizabeth in 1800. Like his first two sons Jesse and David,13 these daughters were named after relatives, in this case his maternal grandmother and his wife. His next child he named Isaac after himself. Within Isaac’s family there was a well-worn tradition of name-sharing like this and in the generations after Isaac and on either side of him, you can see admiration knitting the families together through their names. Elizabeth (or Betsey), Jesse, David, Phebe, Isaac, and other names appear again and again. Isaac’s last two children, Tryael and Reuben were likewise named after his extended family and would see their names continued by the siblings’ children.
In 1804, however, Isaac broke this pattern. When his third daughter arrived, she was set apart from her siblings. This daughter received a name that had never been seen in the Hale or Lewis families so far. Isaac named her Emma. Nestled toward the bottom of the Hale family and in the middle of the cohort of nineteen cousins that would eventually run between the Lewises and Hales, there wasn’t much setting Emma apart except for her name and perhaps a little special treatment from her parents. She received a good foundation of education from her mother and was sent to a girls’ school by her father. She wrote and spoke better than most and she was very devout in the family’s later Methodist faith. Still, in the early years she was just one of the tough, scrappy canoeing frontier kids being raised in the Hale-Lewis family. Her father was clearly proud of her and moved by her sincerity as a child. He had no idea that this unique child would eventually make decisions that permanently altered the memory of their family on both sides.
David
Isaac’s second son David was named for Isaac’s uncle. He was ten years old when Baby Emmy (Emma’s nickname within her family) was born. His life punctuates the stories of Emma’s, but unlike his father, David succeeded in skirting the limelight incurred through Mormonism.
David joined Methodism formally at age 17. He and 7 year old Emma attended meetings together. He likely shared his father’s distaste for glass-looking and considered Mormonism “a humbug,” but he never moved to make a formal affidavit as did many of the members of his family. Instead, he saved his public statements for memorializing family and honoring the history of his parents, which he recounted in detail for Emily Blackman’s work on the History of the Susquehanna County. In the tiny blurb reserved for his branch of the Hale family in that volume of reminiscences, a whole sentence is spared to say that Daivd was a “man noted for his integrity.”14
David was a curious member of the family. He seemed to take after his father in that he was quiet and deliberate with his views and practical with his assets. He kept a store in Harmony where he carefully tracked resources, debts, and credits. He served with his brother Jesse when they were called up for the draft in the War of 1812. Though tall, strong, handsome, well-connected to the region, and an adequate provider, he waited to marry longer than his brothers. Eventually, when he was nearing 30, David married a local girl. They had six children, which by Hale standards, was a modest family.
Later in life, as taxes and property laws forced out David’s generation of settlers, he moved to the new frontier of Illinois to be with other displaced Hale-Lewis family members. For a long time he and Alva had a conjoined farm. When Emma wrote home for the first time after Isaac passed away, she addressed herself to David and he wrote to her periodically from then on. In a rare occurrence of personal writing (instead of through a scribe), Joseph added a personal invitation in 1841 to “settle” David well in Nauvoo, if he would relocate there.15 David did not accept the offer, but the letters reopened contact between Emma and some of her relatives. At least twice, Joseph and Emma went to Amboy, Illinois to visit and to preach. Apparently, relations between the siblings were still strained when it came to Mormonism though, because the Smiths did not stay or preach at Emma’s siblings’ homes and it was in the Amboy Journal that Emma’s cousins published reminders of the shady necromantic beginnings of Joseph’s prophethood.
In 1844, five months after Joseph’s murder, Emma had her ninth child. She named him David Hyrum. He was one of only four of Emma’s children that survived babyhood and one of only three that survived Emma. If the child was named after her brother, it was her first and only child to participate in the name-sharing of her extended family.16 David eventually came to see Emma at her mansion house in 1871. He was the only one of Emma’s siblings or cousins to accept the invitation.
Alva
Isaac’s third son Alva may have been a first-time name for the family as well, since he has no older relatives on record with whom he shares a name. Alva was nine years old when his sister Emma was born. He had two hardy brothers, a cousin as good as a brother (Levi Lewis), two younger sisters, and a baby brother already. There aren’t any records of how young Alva felt about this new addition to the family, but from later occurrences, he may have had a soft spot for Emma. He was the only family member who helped her and Joseph move into their Harmony residence. Like Emma’s younger brother Reuben, he may have scribed for a small portion of the Book of Mormon. Alva also seems to have been the most hurt by her departure.
Alva’s religious convictions were almost certainly shaped by his coming of age in the Susquehenna Valley. During his younger years, he and his parents attended a Congregationalist Church several miles away, but by the time Emma arrived, things were in flux. Alva likely witnessed his parents weighing their options after their father’s old hunting friend and their Congregationalist preacher, was accused of preaching “immoral doctrine.”17 Isaac and Elizabeth still allowed this minister to baptize young Isaac and baby Emma, but they were probably already disconnecting from the group. The previous century’s theology from Jonathan Edwards’ was also still very resonant in the area. Most people believed that all natural occurrences and bodily event (births, deaths, sicknesses, natural phenomena etc) were evidence of God’s will and that the way to salvation was fully humbling the self to God. This philosophy was probably especially present for Alva’s growing up because Edwards’ grandson was the new American Republic’s Vice President.18 Despite the religiosity of the hunter-farmers of Pennsylvania, though, there were few actual preachers to choose from. So, leaving the Congregationalists downstream meant that the Hales had to find another solution. Some nearby families had begun gathering on Sunday to read The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, instead of the Bible.19 The Hales may have been among that number. Alva’s uncle Nathaniel stepped up to ordination as a Methodist deacon and preacher at this time as well. Later Alva’s parents would join the Methodists too and host prayer meetings and Church socials at their home. But as Alva passed from childhood to manhood from 1804-1810, the religious beliefs of his family were more grounded in the age of enlightenment than religious mysticism and this pragmatic sense of the spiritual would stay with Alva throughout his life.
When Alva was twenty, his older brother David and his seven-year old sister Emma both began attending Methodist classes regularly. Emma was noted for her devotion. She was described as often “having the power” by their neighbor W.R. Hines.20 Methodism prized sincere expression through prayer, especially prayer in the woods as a means of communicating with God. According to a Pennsylvania contemporary, Emma took this to heart. While Alva, her father, and her ordained uncle broke the Sabbath by hunting, she went to the woods in quest of spiritual communion. As a child, her father overheard her there one day “praying that her father might return to the orthodox Christianity she understood.”21 Her forest petitions to God were instrumental in converting her father to Methodism.22 By 1815, the Hale and Lewis families were all committed Christians identifying as Methodists.
The Hale children grew up, got married and began hunting and farming from their own cabins. The tax and property lines changed as the area developed and Isaac came to own a large plot of land that he divided for the use of his adult children and upon which he built a large, well-outfitted home. When Joseph’s mother Lucy Mack later visited this home in 1828, she oozed approval at the Hale “Mansion” that included “<every> convenient appendage necessary” and was “pleasantly situated on…an extensive, well-cultivated farm.”23 With a large home, it became possible to rent out rooms and offer gathering spaces for socials and other parties. Thus, in 1824-26, there are records of money-diggers staying on the premises, at least two of which included the imaginative New Yorker named Joseph Smith Jr.24
Runaway Bride
When Joseph Smith arrived at the Hale home, Emma was about 20 years old, Joseph was 19. He seems to have been smitten with her immediately and began “paying addresses to her.”25 Isaac did not approve of money-diggers, nor did he like “strangers.” Joseph pressed harder, asking for Emma in marriage at least twice with the hopes of being married in her big family parlor. Isaac adamantly refused. He was not impressed with Joseph’s stone “peeping,” his education, or his upbringing, and he was disgusted with Joseph’s manners. Though Isaac and his sons may have allowed or possibly walked along to observe the money-diggers in their early expedition for Spanish silver, they quickly grew distasteful of these rude and mystical visitors. Emma, however, was enchanted. Her dating pool in Pennsylvania was probably more like a goldfish bowl, so the cocky blue-eyed “stranger” held far more appeal for her than for her parents. And, like many suppressed teenagers, she may have been thrilled by the spice of rebellion that came from flirting with Joseph. She probably saw herself as being fully equal to Joseph, as the older, wealthier, and more educated person, thus she was likely less guarded towards her seduction than she might have been.
By the end of 1826, Joseph had been courting Emma for a couple years and had resolved to marry her. With the help of his money-digging investor, Josiah Stowell, Joseph drove to Harmony and picked Emma up on Sunday while Isaac was at church.26 Emma left with “no intention of marrying”27 which shows her as unprepared for the high-pressure sales of young Joseph. As soon as Joseph had her isolated, he and Josiah Stowell cornered her with arguments about the marriage. Considering the time period, this probably included arguments about how her reputation and standing in the community would be ruined if she returned unmarried after running off with a man. Considering Joseph’s pattern of treasure-digging, the claim that “Jo told Emma he had a revelation about the plates, but that he could not obtain them until he had married her,”28 is also quite believable. The moment they had obtained her “consent” (if it can be called that), the two men whisked her off for a quick and private ceremony. Emma knew the marriage would be abhorrent to her father. She probably felt it keenly in the first weeks of living with the Smiths. According to a Palmyra neighbor Lorenzo Saunders, Emma “was disappointed” when the reality of her elopement landed. Saunders said she “used to come to our house, sit down and cry, sa[ying] she was deceived and got into a hard place.”29 But, she was also proud and independent like her father and was perhaps embarrassed to admit the gravity of her regret to her family. Whatever her reasons, she did not go home. She only wrote a small letter inquiring after her dowry.
Alva was 31 at the time of Emma’s marriage. He was married too and already had one little girl with another baby on the way. Their older siblings were married already and well into beginning their own families. Their younger sister Tryael married soon after Emma in 1827. Alva never recorded his opinion about Emma’s marriage from this time, but maybe he pitied his sister for the falling out because after the commitment was made and after Isaac’s first storm of rage had passed, after Emma’s secret tears were cried, after she wrote to secure her dowry, and after Joseph decided to leave New York before his treasure-digging friends resorted to violence for the “golden plates,” it would be Alva who came to drive Emma and her new husband home.
Before Joseph could go, though, he had to pay debts. Emma was already pregnant and the weather was turning colder, so Alva followed Joseph around town, offering to co-sign on the debts if they could be delayed. Alva was a stranger though and Joseph’s credit was so poor that he was refused again and again. Their options had just run out when Martin Harris came to rescue Joseph with a gift of $50 that covered all of Joseph’s debts and the journey to Pennsylvania.30 The time in New York had softened Alva toward Joseph. On the slow, cold journey back to Susquehanna, he even went so far as to sleep in the wagon, in order to guard the barrel of beans, in which Joseph had said he was hiding the plates. Compared to later converts, this was not a huge investment of faith, but it was enough that the Lewis cousins remembered the couple’s return as being a time when the Hales were “kept in awe for a time,” though that awe soon faded with the continued failure of Joseph to keep a consistent story.
Translation
In the subsequent months and years that followed, the couple would live in or near the Hale home, immersed in the endless mountains, methodism, and robust family culture that had forged the Hales and Lewises. There, Joseph would update his resume from money-digger to author and would translate his stories of Indians, pirates, ghosts, and gold into stories about protestant mound builders, lost Israelites, angels, and treasure in heaven. He astutely began absorbing and using the language of the devout Hales, hoping to sidle into his in-laws’ good graces. In this period, Alva had ample opportunity to observe and assess the character of his young brother-in-law, as would his father, his uncle Nathaniel, and his cousins Levi and Hiel. They attempted to dissuade Joseph from heresy, to urge him towards honesty, and to hold him accountable for his broken promises. None of it seems to have had effect, though Joseph’s later verbiage and wording of a “First Vision” suggests that he still hoped to impress his Methodist grove-praying in-laws.
In any case, after several years of tolerating Joseph’s claims, urging him to come clean about his venture, witnessing one of Joseph’s early seductions of a teenager,31 his failed promises to show the plates, and the awful omen of Joseph’s short-lived first child,32 the Hale and Lewis families, as well as the surrounding neighbors in Pennsylvania grew less tolerant.
In the summer of 1829, the weather and the neighbors were growing heated. So, Joseph and his new scribe Oliver Cowdery left the state. Emma was pregnant at the time. It may have been that with Joseph’s departure, the Hale family hoped that Emma would come to her senses and move on from Joseph’s “delusion,” but if so, their hopes were soon dashed. A wagon came to collect Emma. She locked the door, leaving their furniture, the grave of her first son, her large extended family, the Methodism of her youth, and the emerald forests of Pennsylvania behind her to follow Joseph back to New York. It was a separation that would last most of the family’s life. Only at Isaac Hale’s passing in 1839, would some correspondence reemerge. It is notable that in this family of concentrated name-sharing, where the names Jesse, Isaac, David, Phebe, and Elizabeth proliferate, none of Emma’s older siblings ever named any of their children Emma.33 It is likely that their heartbreak over her imprudent marriage ran parallel to their father’s.
Read more about the Lewis Family Witnesses or the Harris Family Witnesses for more context.
The Mouth of Two Witnesses
Alva, for his part, seems to have taken Emma’s betrayal more personally. He continued to live with his parents and care for them through their final years. In 1834, he was the only full sibling to offer a public statement on his perspective of Joseph as an “imposter.” His testimony was positioned alongside his father’s, showing the same opinion from “the mouth of two witnesses,” a principle Mormons were using to justify their own missionary work. Alva was also, no doubt, one of the family members present for Isaac’s final words: “You must not believe in Jo Smith or any false doctrines, but believe in the Holy Bible. In it you will find the words of eternal life.”
After the death of his parents, Alva was tasked with distributing inheritance to the Hale children. He did so faithfully as he moved to Amboy, Illinois to live near his siblings and cousins again. He delivered the $25 of inheritance to his brothers and living sisters in Amboy, but there is no indication he ever went to Nauvoo to offer the undetermined sum of “what is proper” to Emma. Indeed, the only sibling he seemed to retain no contact with was Emma. Even Emma’s invitation to be hosted at her “mansion house” with his beloved brother David was not enough to entice him to visit. In 1871, the “genial” and “remarkabl[y] energ[etic]” Alva travelled from Illinois to Missouri with David, where they visited their brother Jesse. But when “David proceeded to Nauvoo to visit their sister Emma,” Alva declined, and “came directly home.”34
The Hale men were a reserved group. They did not dazzle audiences like Joseph, nor did they seek to impress their spirituality on others. They did not seek power through position, nor did they relish the limelight. They garnered respect because of who they were, not the titles they wielded. They were anchors of generosity, community, conscience, and justice, as evidenced by how frequently their neighbors and family gathered around them and called for their opinion in judicial matters. Despite all this, Isaac would ultimately be most remembered as “the father of the girl the notorious Joe Smith stole and made a wife of,”35 while the rest of the family would be dismissed by Joseph’s believers as “Anti-Mormons.” The following affidavits from these men should be taken seriously. They were not prone to publishing their opinions on a whim. In fact, these may be the only statements they ever published.
The statements Isaac and Alva Hale gave to Eber Howe, may have been solicited but they were not flippant. These men had years of practice in thinking for themselves. They were not about to be influenced by bias from a stranger like Howe. Their views are their own. And this makes their assessment of Joseph Smith’s character from the 1820s invaluable. For those interested in the truth about Joseph Smith, Mormonism, and the power that is still wielded by leaders of the organizations that Joseph spawned, the testimonies of the Hales are essential strokes in the portrait of “the Restoration.”
Notes
- David Lewis had 3 sons killed in the Civil War, as did Joseph E. Lewis. 1 of Levi’s sons died in the Confederate prison at Andersenville. ↩︎
- Emily C. Blackman, History of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, 1877), 102, https://archive.org/details/historyofsusqueh00blac/page/102/mode/2up. ↩︎
- The land was from Isaac and Joseph was the name inscribed, however it was Oliver Cowdery’s money that completed the sale. ↩︎
- Diantha Ward Hale was born August 9 1741, but her death date is uncertain. Some sources say it was before 1774, others say it was nearer to 1780. ↩︎
- Arah Ward profile, Geni, accessed December 30, 2025, https://www.geni.com/people/Arah-Ward/6000000003178121654. ↩︎
- The frontier preacher with whom Isaac stayed was Daniel Buck.
Blackman, “History of Susquehanna.” ↩︎ - Isaac’s son David recalled that his father arrived in the Susquehenna Valley around 1787 and then bought a cabin or “improvement” built by Jonathan Bennett in 1788.
Blackman, “History of Susquehanna.” ↩︎ - Blackman, “History of Susquehanna.” ↩︎
- Emily C. Blackman, History of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen & Haffelfinger, 1877), 102, https://archive.org/details/historyofsusqueh00blac/page/102/mode/2up. ↩︎
- W. R. Hines, statement, in Arthur B. Deming, Naked Truths About Mormonism (Oakland, CA: Deming & Co., 1888), “‘Mormon’ Materials in the California State Library,” accessed December 31, 2025, http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/CA/natruths.htm#010088-2e3. ↩︎
- “[Isaac] was hunting deer and when near this place saw a young Panther about half grown standing on a fallen tree. Raising his rifle he fired, when the creature spring from the tree with a scream and fell dead. Stepping behind a tree, he loaded his gun as quick as he could, and had just got it loaded when another Panther about the size of the former jumped upon the tree but a few feet from where the other stood, when he shot, this he shot, but not with so deadly a name as the first, for it, though mortally wounded, sprang from the tree at the crack of his gun, uttering the most terrific screams which it kept up for some time. Stepping again behind the tree, he loaded as fast as he could but before he got the ball down, he could hear another animal coming towards him, making terrible sounds, and he had just got his gun loaded when one of the largest size Panthers came up to the body of the first of which he shot and stopped. She put her nose down to the dead carcass and when she raised her head up Hale fired and shot her through the head, killing her instantly; this was the mother of the other two.”
Pvt Isaac Ward Hale memorial, Find a Grave, memorial no. 6562331, accessed December 30, 2025, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6562331/isaac_ward-hale. ↩︎ - “Isaac was also a man of forethought and generosity. He would hunt elk along the Starrucca Creek in the fall; make troughs from birch or maple to hold their meat when cut up; carry salt on his back, salt the meat, cover it with bark held down with heavy stones, and then leave it until the snow came, when he could easily bring it down. The fruit of his labor was sometimes exchanged for assistance on his farm, but often found its way unheralded to the tables of others.”
Pvt Isaac Ward Hale memorial, Find a Grave. ↩︎ - Jesse and David were the names of Isaac’s uncles. ↩︎
- Lee County Columbian Club, Recollections of the Pioneers of Lee County Illinois (Dixon, IL: Inez A. Kennedy, 1893). ↩︎
- JSP: “Letter to David Hale, 12–19 February 1841.” ↩︎
- Emma also had a son named Alexander Hale Smith, but including a mother’s maiden name as a middle name was common practice for many families. The intensive name-sharing common within the Hale & Lewis families was done through first-names. ↩︎
- In this case “immoral doctrine” meant that he favored preaching from the Old Testament and that he taught that conscience was a product of education.
Staker, “Isaac and Elizabeth Hale.” ↩︎ - Aaron Burr, grandson of Jonathan Edwards, was the 3rd vice president of the United States. ↩︎
- Staker, “Isaac and Elizabeth Hale.” ↩︎
- Full quote: “Emma was fine looking, smart, a good singer, and she often got the power.”
W. R. Hines, statement. ↩︎ - Linda King Newell and Valeen Tippetts Avery, Mormon Enigma: Emma Hale Smith, Prophet’s Wife, “Elect Lady,” Polygamy’s Foe (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1994). ↩︎
- “Mr. Hale always claimed that he was converted from deism to faith in Christ as the Savior, by a secret prayer of Emma’s, when she was but seven or eight years old, which he accidentally overheard when just entering into the woods to hunt. In the course of her prayer she besought the Lord in behalf of her father, and the force and efficacy of that prayer entered into his heart with such power as to lead him to faith in Christ the Lord.”
Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents, vol. 4 (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 343–44. ↩︎ - Lucy Mack, quoted by Staker, “Isaac and Elizabeth Hale.” ↩︎
- At least two of these expeditions were led by Joseph and it is possible that all of them included him. It is possible that Joseph continued planting ideas about treasure digs in this area in order to visit Emma more often.
Staker, “Isaac and Elizabeth Hale.” ↩︎ - Ibid. ↩︎
- The Hales’ neighbor W. R. Hines reported that “Jo stole his wife, Sunday, while [Isaac] Hale was at church. My wife and I saw him on an old horse with Emma on behind as they passed our house on their way to Bainbridge, N.Y., where they were married.” ↩︎
- “Last Testimony of Sister Emma,” The Saints’ Herald 26, no. 19 (October 1, 1879): 289–90, interview by Joseph Smith III. ↩︎
- W.R. Hines statement. ↩︎
- Lorenzo Saunders affidavit, September 20, 1884, quoted by Fawn Brodie in No Man Knows My History, p. 42. ↩︎
- Joseph owed about $28, which would be $907, if adjusted for inflation in 2026. The $50 gift in 1827 would equate to about $1620 today. ↩︎
- 16-year old, Eliza Winters.
Grant H. Palmer, “Sexual Allegations against Joseph Smith, 1826–1835,” unpublished paper, n.d., accessed December 30, 2025, https://mormonpolygamydocuments.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/JS0657.doc. ↩︎ - Joseph and Emma’s first son, his deformity, and Emma’s sickness afterward were all seen as signs of divine disfavor at the time. These afflictions were probably especially notable to the Hale and Lewis families who had experienced such phenomenal good health for all their children. ↩︎
- Emma’s younger sister Tryael was the only family member to honor Emma by naming her daughter so. However, Tryael never followed Emma in belief in Joseph. Like Emma’s other siblings and cousins, she went west to Amboy Illinois and lived in close proximity with extended family. ↩︎
- Full quote: “[Alva Hale] was a genial man and never sick until the sickness preceding his death. He possessed remarkable energy in his old age. Sept. 30th, 1871, he with his brother David, started for Missouri to visit a brother. On returning, David proceeded to Nauvoo to visit his sister Emma, while Alva came directly home. Arriving…he started home with satchel and gun, walking all the distance without apparent fatigue.”
Pvt Isaac Ward Hale memorial, Find a Grave, memorial no. 6562331, accessed December 30, 2025, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6562331/isaac_ward-hale. ↩︎ - George Peck, Early Methodism within the Bounds of the Old Genesee Conference from 1788 to 1828; or, The First Forty Years of Wesleyan Evangelism in Northern Pennsylvania, Central and Western New York, and Canada (New York: Carlton & Porter, 1860), page 331-332, Google Books, https://books.google.com/books?id=OzxeWPEizTwC&printsec=frontcover. ↩︎
Affidavit of Isaac Hale
Originally published in Mormonism Unvailed by Eber Howe, 1834.
I first became acquainted with JOSEPH SMITH, Jr.1 in November, 1825.2 He was at that time in the employ of a set of men who were called “money-diggers;” and his occupation was that of seeing, or pretending to see by means of a stone placed in his hat, and his hat closed over his face. In this way he pretended to discover minerals and hidden treasure. His appearance at this time, was that of a careless young man–not very well educated, and very saucy and insolent to his father.3 Smith, and his father, with several other money-diggers’ boarded at my house while they were employed in digging for a mine that they supposed had been opened and worked by the Spaniards, many years since. Young Smith gave the money-diggers’ great encouragement, at first, but when they had arrived in digging, to near the place where he had stated an immense treasure would be found–he said the enchantment was so powerful that he could not see. They then became discouraged, and soon after dispersed. This took place about the 17th of November, 1825; and one of the company gave me his note for $12[.]68 for his board, which is still unpaid. After these occurrences, young Smith made several visits at my house, and at length asked my consent to his marrying my daughter Emma.4 This I refused, and gave him my reasons for so doing; some of which were, that he was a stranger, and followed a business that I could not approve; he then left the place. Not long after this, he returned, and while I was absent from home, carried off my daughter, into the state of New York, where they were married without my approbation or consent. After they had arrived at Palmyra N.Y.,5 Emma wrote to me inquiring whether she could have her property, consisting of clothing, furniture, cows, &c. I replied that her property was safe, and at her disposal. In a short time they returned, bringing with them a Peter Ingersol,6 and subsequently came to the conclusion that they would move out, and reside upon a place near my residence.
Smith stated to me, that he had given up what he called “glass-looking,” and that he expected to work hard for a living, and was willing to do so. He also made arrangements with my son Alva Hale, to go to Palmyra, and move his (Smith’s) furniture &c. to this place. He then returned to Palmyra, and soon after, Alva, agreeable to the arrangement, went up and returned with Smith and his family. Soon after this, I was informed they had brought a wonderful book of Plates down with them. I was shown a box in which it is said they were contained, which had, to all appearances, been used as a glass box of the common sized window-glass. I was allowed to feel the weight of the box, and they gave me to understand, that the book of plates was then in the box–into which, however, Iwas not allowed to look. I inquired of Joseph Smith Jr., who was to be the first who would be allowed to see the Book of Plates? He said it was a young child. After this, I became dissatisfied, and informed him that if there was any thing in my house of that description, which I could not be allowed to see, he must take it away; if he did not, I was determined to see it. After that, the Plates were said to be hid in the woods.
About this time, Martin Harris made his appearance upon the stage; and Smith began to interpret the characters or hieroglyphics which he said were engraven upon the plates, while Harris wrote down the interpretation. It was said, that Harris wrote down one hundred and sixteen pages, and lost them.
Soon after this happened, Martin Harris informed me that he must have a greater witness, and said that he had talked with Joseph about it–Joseph informed him that he could not, or durst not show him the plates, but that he (Joseph) would go into the woods where the Book of Plates was, and that after he came back, Harris should follow his track in the snow, and find the Book, and examine it for himself. Harris informed me afterwards, that he followed Smith’s directions, and could not find the Plates, and was still dissatisfied.
The next day after this happened, I went to the house where Joseph Smith Jr., lived, and where he and Harris were engaged in their translation of the Book. Each of them had a written piece of paper which they were comparing, and some of the words were “my servant seeketh a greater witness, but no greater witness can be given him.” There was also something said about “three that were to see the thing”–meaning I supposed, the Book of Plates, and that “if the three did not go exactly according to orders, the thing would be taken from them.” I enquired whose words they were, and was informed by Joseph or Emma, (I rather think it was the former) that they were the words of Jesus Christ. I told them then, that I considered the whole of it a delusion, and advised them to abandon it. The manner in which he pretended to read and interpret, was the same as when he looked for the money-diggers, with the stone in his hat, and his hat over his face, while the Book of Plates were at the same time hid in the woods!
After this, Martin Harris went away, and Oliver Cowd[e]ry came and wrote for Smith, while he interpreted as above described. This is the same Oliver Cowdry, whose name may be found in the Book of Mormon. Cowdry continued a scribe for Smith until the Book of Mormon was completed as I supposed, and understood. Joseph Smith Jr. resided near me for some time after this, and I had a good opportunity of becoming acquainted with him, and somewhat acquainted with his associates, and I conscientiously believe from the facts I have detailed, and from many other circumstances, which I do not deem it necessary to relate, that the whole “Book of Mormon” (so called) is a silly fabrication of falsehood and wickedness, got up for speculation, and with a design to dupe the credulous and unwary–and in order that its fabricators might live upon the spoils of those who swallowed the deception.
ISAAC HALE.
Affirmed to and subscribed before me, March 20th, 1834.
CHARLES DIMON, J[ustice]. [of the] Peace.
David Hale
Originally published in the History of Susquehanna County by Emily Blackman.
“[Isaac Hale’s] sons were : Jesse, David, Alvah, Isaac Ward, and Reuben. The last named “assisted Joe Smith to fix up some characters such as Smith pretended were engraven on his book of plates.” To David Hale, however, “it always appeared like humbug.””
Affidavit of Alva Hale
Originally published in Mormonism Unvailed by Eber Howe, 1834.
Alva Hale, son of Isaac Hale, states, that Joseph Smith Jr. told him that his (Smith’s) gift in seeing with a stone and hat, was a gift from God,” but also states “that Smith told him at another time that this “peeping” was all damned nonsense. He (Smith) was deceived himself but did not intend to deceive others;—that he intended to quit the business, (of peeping) and labor for his livelihood.” That afterwards, Smith told him, he should; see the Plates from which he translated the book of Mormon,” and accordingly at the time specified by Smith, he (Hale) “called to see the plates, but Smith did not show them, but appeared angry.”
He further states, that he knows Joseph Smith Jr. to be an “impostor, and a liar, and knows Martin Harris to be a liar-likewise.
Statement of Peter Ingersoll, 1834
Editorial Note: Peter Ingersoll was a Palmyra area neighbor. His recollection is included here because it recalls the first encounter between Isaac Hale and Joseph Smith and is a rare glimpse into how the Hales attempted to repair with Joseph.
Originally published in Mormonism Unvailed by Eber Howe, 1834.
In the month of August 1827, I was hired by Joseph Smith, Junior to go to Pennsylvania to move his wife’s household furniture up to Manchester, where his wife then was. When we arrived in Harmony, Pa., his father-in-law, Mr. Isaac Hale, addressed Joseph in a flood of tears: “You have stolen my daughter and married her. I had much rather followed her to the grave. You spend your time in digging for money, pretend to see in a stone and deceive the people.”
Joseph wept and acknowledged he could not see in a stone and never could, and that his former pretensions in that respect were all false. He then promised to give up his old habits of digging for money and looking into stones. Mr. Hale told Joseph if he would move to Pennsylvania and work for a living, he would assist him in getting into business. Joseph acceded to this proposition.
Joseph told me, on his return, that he intended to keep the promise which he had made to his father-in-law, “but,” said he, “it will be hard for me, for they will all oppose, as they want me to look in the stone for them to dig money,” and in fact, it was as he predicted. They urged him, day after day, to resume his old practice of looking in the stone. One day. He came and greeted me with a joyful countenance and said: “As I was passing yesterday, across the woods, I found in a hollow some beautiful white sand. I took off my frock, and tied up several quarts of it and then went home. On my entering the house I found the family at the table, eating dinner. They were all anxious to know the contents of my frock. At that moment I happened to think of what I had heard of a history found in Canada, called the Golden Bible, so I very gravely told them it was the Golden Bible. To my surprise they were credulous enough to believe what I said. Accordingly I told them that I had received a commandment to let no one see it, for, says I, no man can see it with the naked eye and live. Now, said Joe, I have got the damned fools fixed and will carry out the fun.”
Available for Download: Isaac, David, and Alva Hale Witnesses & Peter Ingersoll Statement
Discover more from Laura Randle
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
4 Comments