Abel Durfee Chase, son of Clark Chase and Phebe Mason, was born on January 19, 1814 in Palmyra. He was a younger brother of Willard Chase. Durfee became a carpenter and a farmer. He lived on Canandaigua Road in Palmyra.
In 1828, Abel claimed to possess a seer-stone that he picked-up out of the same well that Joseph Smith found his stone.[1] In 1830, Lorenzo Saunders said, “Abel Chase testified that he thought he saw Rigdon before that time [1830], but was not certain.”[2] Abel signed the “Testimony of Eleven Neighbors” on November 3, 1833, later printed in Mormonism Unvailed.[3]
On May 2, 1879, Abel Chase was interviewed by James Cobb, a writer for Salt Lake Tribune—
Mr. [Lorenzo] Saunders giving us the directions to the house of Abel Chase, we next called upon him and ascertained the following:
[A:] Mr. [Abel] Chase. I am sixty-seven years old. Knew the Smiths; the old man was a cooper. I was young and don’t remember only general character. They were poorly educated, ignorant and superstitious; were kind of shiftless, but would do a good day’s work. They used to call Joe, ‘Lobby Joe.’ He got a singular-looking stone, which was dug up out of my father’s well; it belonged to my brother Willard, and he could never get it. His mother, old Mrs. Smith, got the stone from mother.
[Q:] How do you know Joe ever had it?
[A:] Oh, I don’t know that; but my brother could never get it back.
[Q:] Your sister had a stone she could look through and see things, so they have told us; did you ever see that, Mr. [Abel] Chase?
[A:] Yes, I have seen it; but that was not the one that old Mrs. Smith got.
[Q:] Well; could you see things through that?
[A:] I could not; it was a dark-looking stone; it was a peculiar stone.
[Q:] Do you really think your sister could see things by looking through that stone, Mr. Chase?
[A:] Well, she claimed to; and I must say there was something strange about it.
[Q:] Where is your sister now?
[A:] She is not living now: my brother Willard is dead, also. He would know more than I do about those things.
[Q:] How did the stone look, you say Mrs. Smith got?
[A:] I don’t know; I never saw that.
[Q:] How do you know she got it?
[A:] They said she did; I was young, and don’t remember myself.
[Q:] Did you ever see the Smiths dig for money; or did you ever see the cave where they say they met at?
[A:] No. I never saw them dig, myself; I never saw the cave.
[Q:] Well; you were a young man then, how did it come you lived so near, and never saw them do these things?
[A:] I was young, and never went where they were. Don’t know anything about it but what I have heard. If you will see Mr. Guilbert [John H. Gilbert] at Palmyra, he can tell you more about it than any person else; he knows it all, and has been getting everything he could for years to publish against them; he was in with [Pomeroy] Tucker in getting out Tucker’s work.
[Q:] All right, Mr. [Abel] Chase, we will see him this evening if possible. Good day, sir. Much obliged for the trouble.
[A:] Oh! it is no trouble; I only wish I could tell you more.[4]
Abel was interviewed by William and Edmund Kelley in 1881. In Wilhelm Ritter Von Wymetal’s Joseph Smith, the Prophet, His Family and His Friends, Abel Chase said the affidavit of his brother, Willard Chase, in Mormonism Unvailed was “genuine.” He further stated that the affidavit sworn to by Peter Ingersoll was true. He stated that Ingersoll “had the reputation of being a man of his word, and I have no doubt his sworn statement regarding the Smiths and the Mormon Bible is genuine.” He signed his affidavit in the presence of Pliny Sexton and J. H. Gilbert. The statement reads—
PALMYRA, Wayne Co., N.Y. May 2, 1879 I, Abel D. Chase, now living in Palmyra, Wayne Co., N. Y., make the following statement regarding my early acquaintance with Joseph Smith and the incidents about the production of the so-called Mormon bible. I was well acquainted with the Smith family, frequently visiting the Smith boys and they me. I was a youth at the time from twelve to thirteen years old, having been born Jan. 19, 1814, at Palmyra, N. Y. During some of my visits at the Smiths, I saw a STRANGER there WHO THEY SAID WAS MR. RIGDON. He was at the Smith’s several times, and it was in the year of 1827 when I first saw him there, as near as I can recollect. Sometime after that[,] tales were circulating that young Joe had found or dug from the earth a BOOK OF PLATES which the Smiths called the GOLDEN BIBLE. I don’t think Smith had any such plates. He was mysterious in his actions. The PEEPSTONE, in which he was accustomed to look, he got of my elder brother Willard while at work for us digging a well. It was a singular looking stone and young Joe pretended he could discover hidden things in it. My brother Willard Chase died at Palmyra, N. Y., March 10, 1871. His affidavit, published in Howe’s “History of Mormonism,” is genuine. Peter Ingersoll, whose affidavit was published in the same book, is also dead. He moved West years ago and died about two years ago. Ingersoll had the reputation of being a man of his word, and I have no doubt his sworn statement regarding the Smiths and the Mormon Bible is genuine. I was also well acquainted with Thomas P. Baldwin, a lawyer and notary public, and Frederick Smith, a lawyer and magistrate, before whom Chase’s and Ingersoll’s depositions were made, and who were residents of this village at the time and for several years after. ABEL D. CHASE Abel D. Chase signed the above statement in our presence, and he is known to us and the entire community here as a man whose word is always the exact truth and above any possible suspicion. PLINY T. SEXTON J. H. GILBERT[5]
Abel Chase died on February 28, 1900 in Geneva, New York. In his Last Will and Testament, he left his estate and all his belongings to Frank A. Chase.[6] The following notes were recorded regarding Abel’s death: “The remains of Abel Chase, who died at Geneva Wednesday, were taken to Palmyra for burial yesterday afternoon. Deceased was 86 years of age and was for many years one of Palmyra’s leading citizens”[7] and “News was received in Palmyra yesterday afternoon of the death in Geneva of Abel D. Chase, a former prominent resident and business man of Palmyra, which occurred yesterday morning. Deceased was well known in Palmyra, where he had resided nearly all of his life. He had been spending the past two years with his daughter, Mrs. P. L. Barnum in Geneva. Deceased was 86 years of age and is survived by his daughter.”[8]
[1] Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview, p. 44.
[2] Lorenzo Saunders Interview with James Cobb of Salt Lake City, September 17, 1884.
[3] Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, p. 368.
[4] “William H. Kelley, “The Hill Cumorah and the Book of Mormon,” Saints’ Herald 28 (June 1, 1881), p. 165.
[5] Wilhelm Ritter Von Wymetal, Mormon Portraits (Salt Lake City: Tribune Printing and Publishing, 1886), pp. 230–231.
[6] New York Wills and Probate Records, 1659–1999.
[7] Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY), March 3, 1900.
[8] Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, NY), March 1, 1900.