Monument to Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon has stood 100 years

RICHMOND, Mo. — A granite monument in a pioneer cemetery here memorializing the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon was celebrated Saturday for its 100 years of existence. Hours later, a new monument was dedicated in Liberty, 30 miles to the west, honoring the eight additional witnesses who attested that they saw and handled the metal plates from which Joseph Smith Jr. said he translated the book of scripture "by the gift and power of God."

The testimony of the Three Witnesses and the separate testimony of the Eight Witnesses are published today as introductory content in each edition of the Book of Mormon.

Some 150 spectators assembled in Richmond to listen to Mormon scholars from BYU and officers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ discuss the emergence of the Book of Mormon in 1829 and events surrounding the placement of the monument in 1911.

Located near the grave site of Oliver Cowdery, the monument bears his name as well as those of his two fellow witnesses, David Whitmer and Martin Harris. Whitmer's grave is in a city cemetery not far from the monument location, and Harris' grave is in Clarkston, Cache County, Utah.

"You realize we are here on sacred ground," said Susan Easton Black, a Brigham Young University professor of church history and doctrine, as she sketched the history of the Three Witnesses in remarks to the audience.

She spoke of the three men being chosen through revelation to Joseph Smith to fulfill the function of three special witnesses mentioned in the Book of Mormon manuscript. She described their experience of being visited by an angel who showed them the plates.

"It is an honor this day to remember the Book of Mormon and their testimony of the sacred work," Black said. She then read their published testimony.

Richard E. Turley Jr., assistant LDS Church historian, told of the origin of the monument in Richmond and the subsequent beautification by the church of the pioneer cemetery where it is located.

In 1878, church historian Orson Pratt and fellow apostle Joseph F. Smith traveled to Richmond and interviewed David Whitmer, Turley said. "They had a very pleasant visit with him in which he recounted the sacred events to which he was witness and confirmed that his fellow Book of Mormon witness (and brother-in-law) Oliver Cowdery had died here in Richmond at the home of Peter and Mary Musselman Whitmer, David's parents."

Many years passed, and during that time, whatever monument might have marked Cowdery's grave disappeared.