book and show it to them, but they refused to see it and left the
room. 'Now,' said Joe, 'I have got the d--d fools fixed and will
carry out the fun.' Notwithstanding he told me he had no such
book and believed there never was such book, he told me he
actually went to Willard Chase, to get him to make a chest in
which he might deposit the Golden Bible. But as Chase would not
do it, he made the box himself of clapboards, and put it into a
pillow-case, and allowed people only to lift it and feel of it
through the case."**

* The most careful inquiries bring no information that any such
story was ever current in Canada.

** Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," p. 234.


In line with this statement of Joe to Ingersol is a statement
which somewhat later he made to his brother-in-law, Alva Hale,
that "this 'peeking' was all d--d nonsense; that he intended to
quit the business and labor for a livelihood."*

* Ibid., p. 268.


Joe's family were quite ready to accept his statement of his
discovery of golden plates for more reasons than one. They saw in
it, in the first place, a means of pecuniary gain. Abigail Harris
in a statement (dated "11th mo., 28th, 1833") of a talk she had
with Joe's father and mother at Martin Harris's house, said:--