Sioux City Academy of Science and Letters. 85 
MONONA COUNTY, IOWA, MORMONS. 
BY C. R. MARKS. 
The origin and development of the Mormons as a 
religious body, and a social and civil organization, during 
this century is part of the history of the United States; 
and the rise and fall of the colony at Preparation, Mono- 
na County, Iowa, should have its record added to the 
others. This colony was founded by Charles Blancher 
Thompson, and something of his former career and his 
previous connection with the general body of Mormons, 
throws much light on the actual origin of this settlement 
at Preparation. i 
The Mormon church, or as the Mormons themselves 
styled it, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day 
Saints,” as a religious sect was founded at Manchester, 
New York, in 1830, by Joseph Smith, a poor, uneducated 
young man then about 25 years old, born in Vermont, 
who several years previously claimed to have had re- 
vealed to him the place where the engraved plates of the 
Book of Mormon, a supplement to the New Testament, 
were buried. These, it was claimed, were found, trans- 
lated, and Smith under them declared God’s Prophet. 
Smith, in his youth, is reported to have been an 
overgrown, lazy, good-for-nothing story-telling creature. 
He claimed to see visions, and to be able to locate hidden 
treasures by a witch hazel rod. 
We avail ourselves of this opportunity to add to the 
recorded history of his early career, a few items which 
we understand are not given in any published account 
of his life, or of Mormonism. The fact that he lived in 
Pennsylvania for a time has never been so mentioned. 
The following matters were furnished me by Mr. E. W. 
Skinner, of Sioux City, Iowa, who acquired them from 
his parents and grand-parents, as having occurred in the 
place of Mr. Skinner’s birth: 
