Orson Saunders, son of Orlando and Belinda Saunders, was born in 1837. He never married. He worked his father’s farm. In 1860, Orson was listed in the US Federal Census as being a resident of Palmyra.
In 1893, Orson was interviewed by a correspondent of the New York Herald. He claimed to hear his uncle Benjamin in 1891 say things about Joseph Smith obtaining the gold plates. Orson was a near neighbor of the Smiths on Stafford Road in Palmyra, living within a half a mile of the Smith frame house. Orson was a nephew of Lorenzo Saunders. In 1893, a reporter from the New York Herald went with Orson and John H. Gilbert to the Miner’s Cave. He reported, “[The door jambs leading into the cave are still sound and partly visible, but the earth has been washed down by storms and the opening to the cave nearly filled, so that it cannot be entered at present. . . . The door jamb is heavy plank of beech or maple, and the inscriptions, which had evidently been cut deeply by a sharp knife, were partially worn away.”[1] Orson often spoke of Cave Hill, a prominence about two-thirds as large as Mormon Hill. Orson claimed this was where the gold plates were translated. He said the cave had a large chamber of many feet. The passageway within the chamber was eight feet wide and seven feet high. There were inscriptions in the cave. The cave was sometimes called Miner Cave.[2]
Orson died on December 12, 1893 in Palmyra at age fifty-six.
[1] New York Herald, June 25, 1893.
[2] Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 2:156; 3:200–201; “Mormon Leaders at Their Mecca. . . . Joe Smith’s Life at Palmyra,” New York Herald, June 25, 1893.