Martha C.
Cox, recollecting the words of a non-Mormon neighbour of the Smith family,
wrote:
Mrs. Palmer was a Presbyterian. Her father
owned a farm near the Smiths in the Palmyra-Manchester area when she was young.
Her parents were friends with the Smith family. She "remembered the
excitement stirred up among the people over the boy's first vision . . . She stated
that one of their church leaders came to her father to demonstrate against
allowing such close friendship between his family and the 'Smith boy,' as he
called him . . . She remembered the churchman saying in a very solemn and
impressive tone that the very influence the boy carried was the danger they
feared for the coming generation, that not only the young man, but all who came
in contact with him would follow him, and he must be put down" (Martha C.
Cox, Autobiography, LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City, Utah as cited by
Matthew B. Brown, Historical
or Hysterical: Anti-Mormons and Documentary Sources)
This is
important as it is a report of the words of a non-Mormon neighbour of the Smith
family who witnessed the reaction of one of the persecutors of the young
prophet after his First Vision, showing that Joseph Smith was indeed the recipient
of some form of persecutions as a result of his claims of heavenly visions.