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Joseph's Experience in Hiram Ohio:
a Time of Contrasts
Susan Easton Black
Contrast between divine light and satanic darkness is evident in the history of Hiram, Ohio. This contrasting theme began with the conception of Hiram and continued until Joseph fled from there in 1832. Light revealed from God to Joseph was not dulled by the murderous plotting and revelry of Hiram's residents. For Joseph beheld "the glory of the Son, on the right hand of the Father and received of his fulness" and would not deny these truths when he faced eminent danger from mobs in Hiram ( D&C 76:20 ).
This chapter reviews these contrasts, which are first observed when comparing the original proprietors and the initial settlers of Hiram, but which became more vivid in the truths revealed to the Prophet of God and the murmurings of Satan's pawns to destroy him. As Joseph continued to learn the plain and precious truths lost from biblical texts, the blackened faces of mobocracy arose. While Joseph sought to regulate affairs in the Lord's fledgling Church, the plot of brutality thickened. When revelations were received which led Joseph and the early Saints nearer to God, a community of avowed Christians enacted "appropriate mob rule." Mobocracy, in its darkest expression, brought brutal violence to the Lord's chosen servant.
Early Beginnings in Hiram
An original proprietor of land in the Western Reserve was Colonel Daniel Tilden, of Connecticut. In 1799 he and fellow proprietors met at their Masonic lodge to name their land holdings. Colonel Tilden proposed the acreage be known as Hiram, in commemoration of the ancient King of Tyre, a benevolent friend of King David and King Solomon ( 2 Sam. 5:11 ; 1 Kgs. 5:10 ). The name was unanimously accepted by the Masonic proprietors.
However, attempts to settle Hiram in 1803 were marred by tragedy when two of the proprietors, Joseph Metcalf and Levi Case, in separate incidents, died on their way there. Case was found frozen to death while standing against a tree in New York. Quickened by fear, at this ominous turn of events the remaining proprietors sold their land to poor, law-abiding citizens from Pennsylvania who, unaware of the tragic circumstances, were attracted to the financially appealing advertisements of seventy-two cents to three dollars an acre for rich, fertile soil. Thus, in 1804, Hiram began as a rural township in Portage County with a handful of would-be farmers.
Hiram in the 1830s
By 1831, only twenty-seven years after the first settlers struck a hoe to the soil, Hiram was known for its stable, New England and Pennsylvania families, who had helped the township progress from a primitive, frontier wilderness to a community with newspapers, schools, and churches.