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had related to me the previous night, and commanded mo to go to my father, and tell him of the vision and commandments which I had received.
I obeyed I retured back to my father in the field and rehearsed the whole matter to him. He replied to me that it was of God, and to go and do as commanded by the messenger. I left the field and went to the place where the messenger had told me the plates were deposited, and owing to the distinctness of the vision which I had had concerning it, I knew the place the instant that I arrived there. Convenient to the village of Manchester, Ontario county, New York, stands a hill of considerable size, and the most elevated of any in the neighbourhood. On the west side of this hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, lay the plates deposited in a stone box; this stone was thick and rounding in the middle on the upper side and thinner towards the edges, so that the middle part of it was visible above the ground, but the edge all round was covered with earth. Having removed the earth and obtained a lever which I got fixed under the edge of the stone, and with a little exertion raised it up; I looked in and there indeed did I behold the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the breast-plate as stated by the messenger. The box in which they lay was formed by laying stones together in some kind of cement. In the bottom of the box were laid two stones crossways of the box, and on these stones lay the plates and the other things with them. I made an attempt to take them out, but was forbidden by the messenger, and was again informed that the time for bringing them forth had not yet arrived, neither would until four years from that time; but he told me that I should come to that place precisely in one year from that time, and that he would there meet with me, and that I should continue to do so until the time should come for obtaining the plates.
Accordingly as I had been commanded, I went at the end of each year, and at each time I found the same messenger there, and received instruction and intelligence from him at each of our interviews, respecting what the Lord was going to do, and bow and in what manner his kingdom was to be conducted in the last days.
As my father's worldly circumstances were very limited, we were under the necessity of labouring with our hands, hiring by day's work and otherwise as we could get opportunity; sometimes we were at home and sometimes abroad, and by continued labour were enabled to get a comfortable maintenance.
In the year 1824, my father's family met with a great affliction, by the death of my eldest brother Alvin. In the month October, 1825, 1 hired with an old gentleman, by the name of Josiah Steal, who lived m Chenango county, state of New York. He had heard something of a silver mine having been opened by the Spaniards, in Harmony, Susquehannah county, state of Pennsylvania and had, previous to my hiring with him, been digging in order, if possible, to discover the mine. After I went to live with him he took me among the rest of his hands to dig for the silver mine, at which I continued to work for nearly a month without success in our undertaking, and finally
