I want to discuss this idea of Joseph Smith having been persecuted for his first vision.

In Volume 1 of the History of the Church, Joseph himself says that, “I soon found, however, that my telling the story had excited a great deal of prejudice against me among professors of religion, and was the cause of great persecution, which continued to increase; and though I was an obscure boy… yet men of high standing would take notice sufficient to excite the public mind against me, and create a bitter persecution; and this was coming among all the sects -all united to persecute me” [p. 7].

Reverend Wesley Walters later discovered journals of these professors of religion and none of them even mention Joseph’s name, let alone his heavenly vision (although they do report that no revivals happened in 1820).

Joseph goes on to say that he suffered “the most bitter persecution” [p. 7] and that “while they were persecuting me, reviling me, and speaking all manner of evil against me falsely, for so saying, I was lead to say in my heart, Why persecute me for telling the truth?” [p. 8]

“I continued to pursue my common vocation in life (he conveniently leaves off that this vocation was, in fact, treasure digging with his rock in a hat) until the 21st of Sept, 1823,” and then he asserts that he was “all the time suffering severe persecution at the hands of all classes of men, both religious and irreligious, because I continued to affirm that I had seen a vision” [p. 9].

He even goes on to dramatically say that he was “persecuted by those who ought to have been my friends” [p. 9].

Joseph transitions to say that “While I was yet employed in the service of Mr. Stoal (he leaves off treasure digging again) owing to my continuing to assert that I had seen a vision, persecution still followed me..” [p. 9] and having nothing at all to do with the fact that he’d gone to trial during his employment in May of 1826 for “glass looking,” conning individuals, and then being deemed guilty.

On the following page he says that he was again persecuted, but this time it was because of his reportedly finding buried treasure in the form of gold plates. But this, of course, had stemmed from his reporting to have seen God, not at all on the fact that he had been -all these many years -digging for buried treasure.

I have specifically been combing through the historical records to see if such persecution existed. Such existing evidence, of course, can only be in the form of the written and printed word.

In all of the newspapers and anti-Mormon literature published in the 1800s, very few even mention the first vision, and fewer still actually persecuted him for it. In fact, the EARLIEST reference to his first vision that I could find by those that would persecute him doesn’t appear until 1851 by Reverend Ashley, who seems far from persecuting him for said vision. The next of my findings appears in 1857 in the newspaper edited by John Brindley. Again, I can’t read the persecution in his article. The last of my findings comes from Pomeroy Tucker in 1867, who merely says that Joseph was visited by “an angel of the Lord” who told him all denominations were incorrect. While Tucker had often been seen as anti and unreliable, historians today are giving him more and more credit as his accusations are proving more and more true (namely Joseph Smith’s higher education).

Whether or not he had the vision at all, to me it seems very evident, from the newspapers, the many printed exposés on the young prophet, and from the journals of the religious leaders of his day, that Joseph Smith received no persecution from his first vision at all. Period.