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Show CHAPTER 4 C(5he Tanners Emhrace Mormonism Since the last eighteen years of the life of John Tanner are so much a part of the Church of the Latter-day Saints, it seems ap propriate to narrate the events connected with his joining. Palmyra, New York, the home town of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormon ism, was about two hundred miles west of Bolton. It would have been extraordinary if the Tanners had not heard of the rise of this to them. The Prophet Joseph, as he was called born in 1805 and was about the age of John's by older children. As a young man he claimed to have been visited by heavenly mess angers who informed him of golden plates hidden in a nearby hill which contained the history of the American Indians as well as the fullness of the gospel. The prophet claimed to have gained possession of the plates and made a translation which he published as the Book of Mormon. strange religion his were so near followers, was A year after the church was organized in 1830, the headquarters moved to Kirtland, Ohio, a small town on Lake Erie, a few miles from Cleveland. This more than doubled the distance to Bolton, but the Mormon missionaries would somehow find their way to the Tanner home, as they would to other places still more distant. John Tanner was a member of a Baptist sect, and seems to have official connection. He may have been what was known as a farmer-preacher, which was an unsalaried position and required neither licensing nor ordination. He probably held occasional meetings with the Baptist brethren of the area, some of which would have been held in his own ample home. As the name implies, Baptists placed great emphasis on baptism by immersion which would give the Tanners and the new church something in common. But there were many had some |
