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Letters of Charles Anthon

The first of these letters describing Martin Harris' conversation with Charles Anthon was published in E. D. Howe's Mormonism Unvailed (1834), pp. 270-72 and the second in John A. Clark's Gleanings by the Way (1842), pp. 233, 237-38. These letters are reproduced in this appendix in parallel columns to aid the reader in identifying their similarities and differences. Contradictory statements have been placed in italics.

Anthon's Letter to E. D. Howe Anthon's Letter to Rev. T. W. Coit
February 17, 1834 April 3, 1841

Dear Sir: Rev. and Dear Sir:

I receive this morning your favor I have often heard that the
of the 9th instant, and lose no time Mormons claimed me for an
in making a reply. The whole story auxiliary, but as no one, until the
about my having pronounced the present time has ever requested
Mormonite inscription to be from me a statement in writing, I
"reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics" hve not deemed it worthwhile to
is perfectly false. say anything publicly on the
subject. What I do know of the
sect relates to some of the early
movements; and as the facts may
amuse you, while they will furnish
a satisfactory answer to the charge
of my being a Mormon proselyte, I
proceed to lay them before you in
detail.

Some years ago, a plain, and Many years ago, the precise date I
apparently simple-hearted farmer, do not now recollect, a plain
called upon me with a note from looking countryman called upon
Dr. Mitchell of our city, now me with a letter from Dr. Samuel
deceased, requesting me to L. Mitchell requesting me to
decypher, if possible, a paper, examine, and give my opinion
which the farmer would hand me, upon, a certain paper, marked with
and which Dr. M. confessed he had various characters which the
been unable to understand. Upon Doctor confessed he could not
examining the paper in question, I decypher, and which the bearer of
soon came to the conclusion that it the note was very anxious to have
was all a trick, perhaps a hoax. explained. A very brief examination
of the paper convinced me that it
was a mere hoax, and a very
clumsy one, too. The characters
were arranged in colunmns, like
the Chinese mode of writing, and
presented the most singular medley
that I ever beheld. Greek, Hebrew,
and all sorts of letters, more or less
distorted, either through
unskillfullness or from actual
design, were intermingled with
sundry delineations of half moons,
stars, and other natural objects,
and the whole ended in a rude
representation of the Mexican
zodiac. The conclusion was
irresistible, that some cunning
fellow had prepared the paper in
question, for the purpose of
imposing upon he who brought it,
When I asked the person, who and I told the man so without any
brought it, how he obtained the hesitation. He then proceeded to
writing, he gave me, as far as I can give me a history of the whole
now recollect, the following affair, which convinced me that he
account: had fallen into the hands of some
sharper, while it left me in great
astonishment at his own simplicity.