Oliver Cowdery

Principal scribe of the Book of Mormon, one of the Three Witnesses and the church’s Second Elder, and later its printer, editor and a member of its firms and first high council.

Oliver Cowdery (1806–1850) was teaching school at Manchester, New York, when he met Joseph Smith in 1829. Over the next five years he was scribe, witness, Second Elder, missionary, printer and editor, and he was present at nearly every founding moment this site records.

Background

Born 3 October 1806 at Wells, Rutland County, Vermont. Clerked at a store in western New York from about 1825, then taught a term as schoolmaster at Manchester in 1828–1829.

1829

Served as principal scribe for the translation of the Book of Mormon, and was baptized with Joseph Smith. One of the Three Witnesses in June, and named with David Whitmer in the June 1829 revelation directing them to search out the Twelve. Prepared most of the printer’s manuscript and helped oversee E. B. Grandin’s printing of the book.

1830

One of the six original members at the organization on 6 April, and Second Elder; also church recorder. In the autumn he led missionaries west through Ohio, where Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams joined the church, and on to the Missouri frontier.

1831

Ordained a high priest by Sidney Rigdon on 28 August. In November he left Ohio with John Whitmer, carrying the revelations to Missouri for publication.

1832–1833

Assisted W. W. Phelps with the church’s press in Jackson County, Missouri. Married Elizabeth Ann Whitmer on 18 December 1832, and edited The Evening and the Morning Star in 1833. Had moved to Kirtland by September 1833.

1833–1834

Edited the Kirtland continuation of the Star. A member of the United Firm and the Literary Firm, and named to the Kirtland high council when it was organized in February 1834.

Reading the record

Cowdery is the only person besides Joseph Smith who held a defined place in the church at every stage this site covers: as a witness in 1829, as an elder in 1830, as a carrier and printer of the revelations from 1831, and as a member of the firm and the council by 1834. Following his path is one of the clearest ways to follow the church’s growth from a household in Fayette into an institution with offices, presses and councils.

After 1834

His appointment as assistant president in December 1834, his separation from the church in 1838 and his return in 1848 lie beyond this site’s period. He died at Richmond, Missouri, in 1850. The Joseph Smith Papers biography covers the rest of his life.

Biographical details follow the biographical entry for Oliver Cowdery in the Joseph Smith Papers, checked against the dated documents cited on this site’s chronology pages. This page links out to primary sources rather than reproducing them at length.