The following comes from:
Walter
A. Norton, “Comparative Images: Mormonism and Contemporary Religions as Seen by
Village Newspapermen in Western New York and Northeastern Ohio, 1820-1833” (PhD
Thesis; BYU, 1991), 248-58
A careful examination of the village
newspapers and other source materials of the first two decades of the nineteenth
century make it clear that religious revivals great and small occurred
repeatedly from the eastern seaboard to the western fringes of the Burned-over
District. These “excitements,” however, though commonly known among the populace,
were only occasionally reported in the local newspapers and quite infrequently
in church records. Only as religious periodicals multiplied in number in the
late 1820s did revivals become a regular newspaper item. The key to explaining
the absence of such newspaper reports in the earlier years lies in
understanding the nature of the newspapers themselves.
It is disconcerting to scholars of
early Mormon history that newspapers in 1820 were totally devoid of any reference
to Joseph Smith’s first vision. But what they have not fully understood is that
the theophany witnessed by Joseph Smith that year was never reported within the
pages of Timothy Strong’s Palmyra newspaper because editors in that era did not
print local news. By definition, news was only that information which was not
already known in the local community. It was, in fact, something new, a report
of events which had occurred far removed from the village in a distant town,
the state, the nation, or in a foreign country. As one scholars who has
carefully examined this phenomenon has explained, the village newspaper was a
local paper only in the sense that it was printed locally. “In the intimate
little rural communities of this time, local news would be spread by word of
mouth long before a weekly newspaper could be put into print.” [64] if
everyone already had that information, it was no longer considered news. Milton
W. Hamilton confirms this point, explaining that “the editor’s definition of
his function included neither the purveying of neighborhood gossip nor the
describing of outstanding happenings in the immediate vicinity.” The editor “had
no faith in the idea that his readers would pay for information which they
could secure by word of mouth from their neighbors.” [65] Consequently,
the editor depended heavily upon the established system of newspaper exchange
both to gather and copy what he considered to be important news and to
disseminate his own paper beyond his village.
Village editors like Timothy Strong
did publish some items of local interest. These included the local
advertisements which sustained the paper, some deaths and marriages, legal
notices, town celebrations, especially for the Fourth of July or for the completion
of the Erie Canal is 1825, town meetings, and church dedications. In larger
villages unusual accidents, spectacular fires, and serious crimes were
occasionally reported. These few items, however, except for the advertisements,
were usually brief and occupied only a few lines or paragraphs in the paper.
And some may have been printed more for the benefit of readers living outside
the village or even for kinfolk receiving the paper in New England than for the
local residents. But society news town gossip, individual religious
experiences, and other villages incidents did not appear in the local paper.
If the average country newspaper
carried little local news, however, “occasionally its columns were enlivened by
spirited arguments over local issues.” [66] These issues were almost
always political-relating to local elections, dividing the county, locating the
county seat, establishing a canal route, or some other matter of controversy—or
religious—relating to specific controversies which have been outlined in a previous
chapter. But always the value of state, national, and foreign news far exceeded
that of any others news and if additional newspaper space was needed for these,
all other items were pushed aside to make room. Strong’s paper, for instance,
consisted primarily of articles in these major categories reprinted from
distant newspapers, combined with advertisements, moral essays, and editorials
on political or religious issues, with a few marriages or deaths occasionally reported.
When Pomeroy Tucker assumed control of the paper in 1823 and changed the name to
the Wayne Sentinel, he made little change in the format of the paper and
when E. B. Grandin assumed control in 1827, he continued to follow the same
policies. Other than those local itself already listed above only the annual public
Fair and Cattle Show could be considered additional local news. [67]
Another significant characteristic of
the early newspapers was their distinct partisanship. Most newspapers were established
to promote a specific political party or a particular religious society. Rare
indeed as the village editor who could maintain a paper on neutral ground and
steer clear of the political or religious wranglings so common in the period.
In this regard, therefore, the partisan editor’s first choice of printable news
was that which best promoted his own cause. To the party press the best news
was the report of Congressional proceedings from Washington; the Antimasonic
editor filed his columns with denunciations of Masonry the Presbyterian editor
reported the advancement of benevolent societies. Beyond these political and
personal quarrels, other matters normally received only limited attention in
the newspapers. It never occurred to the partisan editors in this period that
they might make their newspapers more interesting by including the everyday
happenings from their own communities. [68]
Newspaper editors generally did not
begin to recognize the value of gathering local news until the earth 1830s,
although an occasional newspaper in the late 1820s did begin to announce an interest
in the local gossip and happenings in the village. [69] A Rochester
editor writing under cover as “Paul Pry” in 1828 and 1829, commented, “We
understand that persons who order our paper from a distance will be disappointed
when they find it filled it almost entirely with matter of a local nature. The
truth is our little sheet was intended only for local circulation.” [70]
This libelous little paper, however, was little more than a prying gossip
column designed to expose local citizens who were guilty of misdeeds and inappropriate
social behavior. Abner Cole’s The Reflector, began in late 1829 in Palmyra,
also was written largely for local consumption and as such had much to say
about the rise of Mormonism in the village. But according to a Palmyra
historian, other village papers gave little attention to local news until the
1850s when E. S. Averill took over the Palmyra Courier. [71]
Real progress toward gathering and publishing
local news did not begin until the advent of the “penny press.” On 3 September
1833 Benjamin F. Day initiated in New York City a daily paper called the Sun
at a price of one cent. Day also broke sharply with traditional news practices
and began to print “whatever was interesting and readable regardless of its
wide significance or recognized importance.” [72] The Sun and
other penny presses which soon appeared revolutionized American journalism and
virtually changed the idea of what news was. David J. Russo has concluded,
The so called “penny press” that
developed first in New York and then in other cities during the 1830s, 1840s,
and 1850s included local news itself on a regular basis as a means of appealing
to an urban population that undoubtedly could no longer grasp what was
happening in their community through the traditional mode of oral communication.
[73]
Even in the smaller communities of the
West, newspapers imitated their big-city counterparts and began to feature
columns of local items. [74]
In light of the journalistic practices
of the day, therefore, it is perfectly understandable that the Palmyra
Register in 1820 had little to say about religious awakenings or individual
conversions in the immediate vicinity of Palmyra. The evidence suggests,
however, that revivals were occurring throughout the region for a number of
years. [75] But if T. C. Strong did not publish any articles directly related
to Palmyra revivals in the spring of 1820, he did promote the cause of
temperance I the village and in so doing indirectly revealed significant information
about Methodist Camp Meetings held in the area. Two articles printed in June
and July 1820 were unusual for their reference to local occurrences, but Strong
wrote them as a result of his penchant for the temperance cause. In the first,
to illustrate the pernicious effects of drunkenness, Strong reported the death
of James Couser who had died in the village while in a drunken state. Strong
mentioned that the night before, Couser had returned intoxicated “from a camp-meting
which was held in this vicinity” and that it was supposed that Couser “obtained
his liquor, which was no doubt the cause of his death, at the Camp-ground.”
Strong then added that it was a “nitrous fact” that “the intemperate, the lewd
and dissolute part of the community” frequently resorted to that Camp-ground “to
gratify their base propensities.” [76]
The second article was an apology to
the Methodist Society who upon reading the first article were incensed that
Strong, a Presbyterian, would suggest that Couser had obtained his liquor from
them at the camp ground. Strong retracted his words and stated,
We did not mean to insinuate, that he
obtained it within the enclosure of their place of worship, or that he procured
it of them, but at the grog-shops that were established at, or near if you
please, their camp-ground. It was far from our intention to charge the Methodists
with retailing ardent spirits while professedly met for the worship of their
God. [77]
Joseph Smith’s account of his First
Vision states that it occurred “on the morning of a beautiful clear day early
in the spring of Eighteen hundred and twenty.” It came at a time when “there
was in the place where we lived an unusual excitement on the subject of
religion. It commenced with the Methodists, but soon became general among all
sects in that region of country.” [78] Strong’s temperance confirmed
that a Methodist camp ground existed “in this vicinity,” meaning the immediate vicinity
of Palmyra. They also verified that Methodist camp meetings had been held there
regularly for some time, for he said that the intemperate frequently went there
to buy liquor. Strong’s first article appeared only one week into the summer
season, thus the camp meetings had been proceeding regularly through the spring
of 1820. In that period camp meetings were almost the religious “excitements”
which attracted many villagers and therefore these camp meetings fit the description
given by Joseph Smith.
Orasmus Turner, a newspaper apprentice
in Palmyra who claimed that he knew the Smith family, recalled that Joseph
taught “a spark of Methodism in the camp meeting” somewhere along “the Vienna road.”
[79] Another Palmyra newspaperman, however, stated that for a time the
Methodists “preached in a grove on Vienna Street [in Palmyra] during the summer
and in a log school-house on Durfee Street during the winter.” He added that the
revival of 1820 in Palmyra began “the latter part of April, before the rural
people could get onto their land to begin spring plowing, which gave the farmers
a chance to attend the meetings.” [80] One critic, however, questions the
dates attributed to these events, while readily accepting the fact that the
religious press reported revivals in the Palmyra area both before and after
1820. [81] He therefore concludes that the “only reasonable explanation for
this massive silence is that no revival occurred in the Palmyra area in 1820.” [82]
This conclusion, however, ignores the real possibility that many revivals and
camp meetings went unreported in both church records and newspapers.
Furthermore, no report of a Palmyra revival would have appeared in the Palmyra
newspaper because such local matters just were not published.
The customary proscriptions against
printing local news also prevented the Palmyra Register from publishing
any account of the village rumors and the attending persecution, according to
Smith, continued until 21 September 1823 “at the hand of all classes of men,
both religious and irreligious because [he ] had seen a vision.” [83]
And when Smith experienced additional encounters with an angelic visitor on
that date and through the night into the next day, and was shown the place in a
nearby hillside where a set of ancient records had been preserved for him to
translate at the appropriate time, [84] the Wayne Sentinel, begun
just one week later on 1 October 1823 by Pomeroy Tucker, for the same reason
said nothing. But Tucker did publish a vision of Christ reported by Asa Wild in
Amsterdam, New York, because this story was news from a distant location not
already known by everyone in the village. [85] It is conceivable that
Tucker chose to reprint this account because of the rumors will afloat in Palmyra
concerning Joseph Smith’s vision. [86]
Notes
for the Above:
[64] David J. Russo, “The Origins of Local News in
the U. S. Country Press, 1840s-1870s,” Journalism Monographs, No. 65,
ed. Bruce H. Westley (Lexington, Kentucky: Association for Education in Journalism,
February 1980), p. 2
[65] Milton W. Hamilton, The Country Printer,
New York State, 1785-1830, 2nd ed. (Port Washington, Long Island, N. Y.:
Ira J. Friedman, Inc., 1964), p. 139.
[66] Ibid., p. 109.
[67] Martin Harris, a respected wealthy farmer in
Palmyra who later raised the money needed to publish the Book of Mormon, who
listed as Town Manager from Palmyra for the Ontario County Agricultural Society
and as winner of several premiums for homemade linens, flannel, blankets, bed ticks,
and coverlets. “Officers,” Wayne Sentinel, 19 November 1823; “Ontario Agricultural
Fair and Cattle Show,” Ibid., 17 November 1824.
[68] James Melvin Lee, History of American Journalism
(New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1923), p. 145.
[69] Hamilton calls the Cayuga Patriot “exceptionally
progressive” for announcing in 1827 that it would begin to include more local
matters. Hamilton, p. 143.
[70] Paul Pry, 17 July 1828.
[71] Cook, p. 307.
[72] Frank Luther Mott, American Journalism: A
History, 1690-1960, 3rd ed. (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1962), pp.
221-24.
[73] Russo, pp. 4-5.
[74] Ibid., p. 6.
[75] See discussion of revivals in Chapter Three.
[76] “Effects of Drunkenness,” Palmyra Register,
28 June 1820.
[77] Ibid., 5 July 1820.
[78] “History, p. 1839,” pp. 269-70, 272.
[79] O. Turner, History of the Pioneer Settlement
of Phelps and Gorham’s Purchase, and Morris’ Reserve (Rochester, 1852).
[80] Bean, p. 22.
[81] Walters, p. 67.
[82] Ibid.
[83] “History, 1839,” p. 275.
[84] Ibid., pp. 276-81.
[85] Wayne Sentinel, 22 October 1823.
[86] Abner Cole years later did print that in 1830
Mormon missionaries, including Oliver Cowdery, in Ohio were testifying that
Joseph Smith “had seen God frequently and personally” and that “Cowdery and his
friends had frequent interviews with angels.” “Book of Mormon,” The Reflector,
14 February 1831.
