Samuel Tyler Lawrence, son of Sylvanus Lawrence and Jemima Dickerson, was born on November 21, 1786 in Morris County, New Jersey. (Samuel was nineteen years older than Joseph Smith and nearly the same age as Martin Harris.) Samuel was the last of five children born to the Sylvanus Lawrence family, only two surviving beyond 1814—Samuel and his brother Daniel. Sylvanus and Jemima Lawrence adopted Francis “Fanny” Wickham Darling who married Abner Cole. The three “siblings” remained close all their lives.
Samuel’s father ran a tavern in Morris County and was a freeholder, meaning an elected county official. He was also a trustee of the local Methodist Sunday School, holding Methodist meetings in his home.[1]
Personal information about Samuel Lawrence until 1810 is unknown. In 1810 at age twenty-four, Samuel was working at an iron mine in Randolph, Morris County, New Jersey. Samuel was married to Rachel Bryant on August 24, 1811 in Morris County by Samuel Fordham, a “minister of the gospel.”[2] Rachel was seven years his junior, being born on September 1, 1793. The marriage of Samuel Lawrence and Rachel Bryant occurred ten months after the marriage of Fanny Lawrence to Abner Cole.
At age twenty-five, Samuel purchased property from Archibald Oles in Randolph on September 14, 1811.[3] Four months later in December 1811, he would have defaulted on his mortgage payment to Oles if his brother Daniel Lawrence had not stepped in to help. Samuel’s name appears on a tax list in New Jersey in 1809 and 1811 to 1818.[4] By January 1815, Samuel had sold his property and netted $2,069.81 in cash.[5] The money was not invested in land in New Jersey.
Samuel Lawrence moved to Palmyra
Abner Cole was awarded a $10,000 loan from the state of New York to set up and operate an iron forge to create the Irondequoit Embankment on the Erie Canal.[6] News of Cole’s iron works brought Samuel Lawrenceand his brother Daniel Lawrence to Palmyra. Samuel and his wife Rachel and their four-year-old daughter Frances Maria Lawrence moved in with the Abner Cole family and in so doing became neighbors to John Hurlbut, George and Nathaniel Beckwith, Alexander McIntyre, Zachariah Blackman, and Gain Robinson.
The first public notice that Samuel Lawrence had arrived in Palmyra was when his name was printed in a “List of Letters” in the Western Farmer [Palmyra] July 4, 1821.
Samuel Lawrence and his family did not remain long in the household of Abner Cole. Within a year, Samuel had purchased property in the Joseph Smith Sr. neighborhood with monies he had saved from the sale of land in New Jersey. By becoming a neighbor to the Smiths, Samuel was also a neighbor to Willard Chase and Lorenzo Saunders. Since Samuel was raised a Methodist, it is assumed he became more than a neighbor to Willard Chase, a Methodist class leader in Palmyra.
Samuel Lawrence—Sheriff in Palmyra
In 1822, Abner Cole’s iron works failed. In 1823, he defaulted on his $10,000 loan to the state of New York. This was followed by the seizure and auction of most of his properties. The name of the sheriff who seized the Cole property was Samuel Lawrence. How did this happen? In 1818, Abner Cole was appointed the sheriff in Palmyra. When Samuel arrived in town to help with the iron works, Abner was too busy with his various enterprises to carry out his duties as sheriff and suggested that his brother-in-law Samuel Lawrence take his place. Samuel accepted the position.
Here is where it gets confusing! During the election year of 1822, there was a Samuel Lawrence (not our suspect) nominated for county sheriff on October 9, 1822 by a caucus assembled at Canandaigua, New York.[7] On November 20, 1822, this Samuel Lawrence ran against Phineas P. Bates for county sheriff. Bates received 2,669 votes and Samuel Lawrence, 2,188 votes.[8] A week later on November 27, 1822, this Samuel Lawrence was elected to represent the county in the 18th Congress of the State of New York.[9] Our suspect was never the sheriff of Ontario County or a representative in the New York legislature.
However, our suspect was a sheriff in Palmyra. Sheriff Samuel Lawrence, the brother-in-law of Abner Cole, announced that Abner had defaulted on his mortgage in the Palmyra Herald on July 24, 1822 and September 5, 1822, and later in the Western Farmer, also published in Palmyra. Our suspect auctioned off Abner’s property.
Treasure Hunting
Although folk magic is foreign to our way of thinking with its spells, guardians, enchantments, slippery treasure, and recitations of charms, in the Joseph Smith Sr. neighborhood folk magic was heralded as truth by a small group of men. These men were called “money diggers” and speculated that the drumlins in Palmyra—the elongated mounds of glacial debris—had interior chambers that contained treasure guarded by spirits dressed in ancient apparel. They also contended that the drumlins with interior chambers had stumps of trees as wide as six feet that had grown atop the drumlins and that an ancient people had buried their valuables in the drumlins.
Samuel Lawrence was one of the neighborhood money-diggers. Also named as a money digger in the neighborhood was Joseph Smith Sr., Joseph Smith Jr., Hyrum Smith, George Proper, Josiah Stowell, and Alva Beaman.[10] (Stowell and Beaman were the only men of means on the list).
Martin Harris was aware “there was a company there in that neighborhood, who were digging for money supposed to have been hidden by the ancients.” Martin claimed that Samuel Lawrence told him the following tale: “While they were digging, a large man who appeared to be eight or nine feet high, came and sat on the ridge of the barn, and motioned to them that they must leave. They motioned back that they would not; but that they afterwards became frightened and did leave.”[11] Another Palmyra neighbor, Joseph Capron, also was aware of the money diggers in the neighborhood. He recalled that they “discovered” a chest of gold watches that was “in the possession of the evil spirit.” He said that Samuel Lawrence “with a drawn sword in his hand, marched around to guard any assault which his satanic majesty might be disposed to make.”[12]
The Willard Chase recollections of Samuel Lawrence with Joseph Smith
In his affidavit printed in Mormonism Unvailed, Willard Chase tells of Samuel Lawrence going with Joseph Smith to a hill in Palmyra and being shown “where the treasure was”:
Joseph believed that one Samuel T. Lawrence was the man alluded to by the spirit, and went with him to a singular looking hill, in Manchester, and shewed him where the treasure was. Lawrence asked him if he had ever discovered anything with the plates of gold; he said no: he then asked him to look in his stone, to see if there was anything with them. He looked, and said there was nothing; he told him to look again, and see if there was not a large pair of specks with the plates; he looked and soon saw a pair of spectacles, the same with which Joseph says he translated the Book of Mormon. Lawrence told him it would not be prudent to let these plates be seen for about two years, as it would make a great disturbance in the neighborhood. Not long after this, Joseph altered his mind, and said L. [Lawrence] was not the right man, nor had he told him the right place.[13]
In his affidavit Willard Chase also told of Joseph Smith going to Harmony, Pennsylvania, and making the acquaintance of Emma Hale. According to Willard, in 1826 Joseph wanted to marry Emma but was “destitute of means” to travel again to Pennsylvania. Hoping to “raise money,” he told Samuel Lawrence that “on the bank of the Susquehanna River, [there was] a very rich mine of silver, and if he would go there with him, he might have a share in the profits; that it was near high water mark and that they could load it into boats and take it down the river to Philadelphia, to market.” Samuel questioned Joseph about trying to deceive him. Joseph assured him that his words were true, for he had “seen it with my own eyes.” Joseph promised that if Samuel did “not find it so when we got there, I will bind myself to be your servant for three years. By these grave and fair promises,” Samuel was induced to believe something in it, and agreed to go with him.[14]
When Joseph Smith and Samuel Lawrence arrived in Pennsylvania, Joseph wanted Samuel “to recommend him to Miss [Emma] H[ale], which he did.” As the story unfolds Samuel “wished to see the silver mine, and he and Joseph went to the river, and made search, but found nothing.”[15]
September 1827
Joseph Knight Sr. wrote that in September 1827, Joseph Smith was afraid of Samuel Lawrence and feared that he would try to interfere with his receiving the plates. Joseph Knight also wrote, “[Samuel Lawrence] was a Seear [which suggests that he had a stone] and he had Bin to the hill and knew about the things in the hill and he was trying to obtain them.”[16] Joseph Smith Sr. went to Samuel Lawrence’s house on September 21, 1827 to stop Samuel from going to the hill and ambushing his son, Joseph. Samuel never left his house that night.
Conjuror Luman Walters
When Joseph Smith had the gold plates in his possession, Samuel Lawrence and Willard Chase sent for Luman Walters—a conjurer, magician, and a fortune teller—living in Sodus, New York, about sixty miles from Palmyra. Walters was paid three dollars a day by Willard and Samuel to find the Gold Bible. Walters showed them a Latin copy of Cicero’s Orations and claimed it was a record of the former inhabitants of America and told where ancient treasures were located.
Of Walters coming to Palmyra at the behest of Willard Chase and Samuel Lawrence, Lucy Mack Smith wrote,
My husband soon learned that ten or twelve men were clubbed together, with one Willard Chase, a Methodist class leader, at their head. And what was still more ridiculous, they had sent sixty or seventy miles for a certain conjurer to come and divine the place where the plates were secreted. The next morning my husband concluded to go among the neighbors to see what he could learn with regard to their plans. The first house he came to he found the conjuror and Willard Chase, together with the rest of the clan. Making an errand, he sat down near the door with the guise of reading a newspaper, leaving it a little ajar. They stood in the yard near the door and were devising plans to find “Joe Smith’s gold Bible.” Samuel’s wife Rachel Lawrence stepped into the yard and called to her husband, “‘Sam, Sam,’ said she. ‘You are cutting your own throat.’ The conjuror was much animated, though he had traveled sixty miles the previous day and night.[17]
Samuel Lawrence and Alvah Beeman
Joseph Knight wrote of Samuel Lawrence and Alvah Beeman a “grate rodsman” going to the Joseph Smith Sr. frame house to persuade young Joseph to give Samuel a share of the plates. By use of a divining rod, Beeman discovered that the plates were under the hearth in the Smith home.
Samuel Lawrence from 1830 to 1834
Samuel was listed in the 1830 US Federal Census as having a household consisting of one male age 40-50, one female age 15-20, and one female age 30-40. The census supports the fact that Samuel and Rachel had only one daughter.
Bathing House. In May 1830, one month after the Church was organized, Samuel began operating a “Bathing House” on the same property as his home. Abner Cole’s Reflector printed from May 1, 1830 through September 4, 1830, the following advertisement: “The Palmyra Bathing-House is now in operation, for showering, warm and cold baths provided on short notice.”[18] When an unknown person damaged the bathing house, Abner Cole printed in the Reflector a threat: “The person who lately behaved so un-genteel at the Palmyra Bathing house . . . is informed that if he calls and makes immediate reparation his name will be withheld from the public.” Damage to the bathing house was minor, for Samuel Lawrence’s advertisements continued uninterrupted.
Within a year, the Bathing House had been remodeled or as the Wayne Sentinel reported on June 10, 1831, “S. T. Lawrence, having refitted and put in operation his bathing establishment, will be ready at all hours to accommodate such as may wish to minister to their health or comfort in that way, with Warm or Cold Baths, of pure spring or mineral water—And also showering.”[19]
Sidney Rigdon. Lorenzo Saunders reported that Samuel Lawrence and Sidney Rigdon met in 1830. None of the biographies on Sidney Rigdon mention an interaction between him and Samuel Lawrence. Lorenzo Saunders also claimed that Samuel Lawrence attended, “Sidney Rigdon’s badly received pro-Mormon sermon at the Palmyra Young Men’s Association.”[20]
Liberal Advocate Agent. On November 17, 1832, Samuel Lawrence and M. W. Wilcox, the postmaster in Palmyra, became agents or subscription collectors for the Liberal Advocate, a weekly newspaper published by Abner Cole in Rochester.Cole relied on agents to collect subscriber fees from residents who received his newspaper. Agents were given a commission for sales.[21] From November 17, 1832 through May 5, 1833, Samuel Lawrence was listed in “Agents for the Advocate List” in the Liberal Advocate.
Indicted. One month before his name was taken off the “Agents for the Advocate List,” Samuel Lawrence was indicted for “fraudulently secreting property.” It was “ordered that this indictment be sent to the next term of this court for trial. The defendant, Samuel T. Lawrence, as principal and Abraham Fisk as surety recognized in the sum of $1,000 each, conditioned that the said defendant be and appear at the next term of this court to be held in this county to answer to said Indictment, and not depart the county without leave.” Did “fraudulently secreting property” have anything to do with Samuel embezzling subscription money owed Abner Cole? Since William Hyde brought the charge against Samuel, it cannot be assumed that Samuel was withholding monies from Abner Cole.[22]Also, since no trial with the name of Samuel Lawrence appeared on the court docket, charges may have been dropped or settled out of court.
Samuel Lawrence moves to Oswego, New York
Samuel and his brother Daniel moved to Oswego, New York in the fall of 1833. (Oswego is on the southeast corner of Lake Ontario, forty miles east of Palmyra.) On November 1, 1833, Samuel signed a 999-year lease with Alvin Bronson, president of the Oswego Canal Company.[23] The lease enabled the Lawrence brothers to operate a cedar sawmill on the Oswego River. The brothers planned to make railroad ties from Canadian timber and raft the ties down the Hudson River. The railroad ties were used to construct a railroad between Jersey City and Newark.[24] The plan worked well until October 5, 1835 when the Lawrence sawmill burned to the ground. Samuel lost 150 cords of red cedar and his brother Daniel posted an uninsured loss of $5,000. Daniel quit the sawmill business. Samuel stayed in the business and brought in his son-in-law, Joseph P. Whitney, as a partner in the Lawrence & Whitney Sawmill. The New Jersey Railroad & Transportation Company bought “Cedar Ties on acc’t” for $5,000 on November 30, 1836 from “Lawrence & Whitney.”[25]
As to the family life of Samuel Lawrence, his brother-in-law Abner Cole died on July 13, 1835 in Rochester. The next day, July 14, 1835, Samuel and his wife Rachel signed a seven-year mortgage for land and a home in Oswego. In August 1835, the widow of Abner Cole, Fanny Lawrence Cole, moved from Rochester to Oswego to be near her brothers Samuel and Daniel Lawrence. When Daniel died on June 26, 1837 at age sixty-four, Fanny moved to Port Ontario to be near her son L. W. Cole.[26] By 1838, Samuel and Rachel Lawrence defaulted on their mortgage payment. Their land and home in Oswego was sold at an auction.
Death of Samuel Lawrence
On December 18, 1847, Samuel Lawrence died of chronic bronchitis after a yearlong struggle at age sixty-one. The probate date of his Last Will and Testament was August 1, 1848. In the official document, the last known residence of Samuel was Westchester, New York. When he moved from Oswego to Westchester is unknown but presumed to be in 1838 when his property was auctioned.
In his Last Will and Testament, Samuel bequeathed all of his possessions to George W. Lawrence.[27] This is curious for his widow, Rachel Lawrence, was still alive.[28] Then, there was the issue of the only known child of Samuel and Rachel Lawrence. Their daughter, Frances Maria Lawrence married Joseph P. Whitney, a partner with Samuel Lawrence in the cedar mill. Who is George W. Lawrence?
Samuel Lawrence was buried in the Fifth Ward Cemetery in Oswego. His grave was later moved to plot 30-R10-CP in the Riverside Cemetery.
Child of Samuel and Rachel Lawrence:
1. Frances Maria Lawrence (February 16, 1816–September 3, 1906). She was married to Joseph P. Whitney (1806–1880) on July 11, 1835 in Oswego, New York by Methodist Reverend Mr. Salsbury. Notice of her marriage appeared in the Oswego Palladium on July 15, 1835.
[1] Rich Troll, “Samuel Tyler Lawrence: A Significant Figure in Joseph Smith’s Palmyra Past,” Journal of Mormon History 32, no. 2 (Summer 2006), pp. 38–86.
[2] New Jersey Marriage Records, 1670–1965.
[3] Liber G, p. 422 and Liber. V., pp. 346–347, Morris County Clerk’s Office, Morristown, NJ, as cited in Troll “Samuel Tyler Lawrence.”
[4] July Tax List, Census and census substitutes indexed 1643–1890; See Ronald Vern Jackson, ed., New Jersey Tax Lists 1722–1822 (Salt Lake City: Accelerated Indexing Systems, 1981), 4:1985–1988, 1990).
[5] Troll, “Samuel Tyler Lawrence.”
[6] “Titles of Acts,” Geneva Gazette [Geneva, NY], May 10, 1820.
[7] “County Nominations,” Geneva Gazette, October 9, 1822; “Republican Nomination,” The Geneva Palladium, October 9, 1822.
[8] “The Election,” The Geneva Gazette, November 20, 1822.
[9] “Representatives,” The Geneva Palladium, November 27, 1822.
[10] Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview, pp. 39, 41, 162.
[11] Martin Harris, “Martin Harris Interview with Joel Tiffany, 1859,” in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 2:305.
[12] For more on magic in Palmyra, see Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview, pp. 39, 41, 162; Smith, History of Joseph Smith by his Mother, p. 102; Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism, pp. 81– 82; Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, pp. 340–342; Porter, “A Study of the Origins of the LDS Church in New York and Pennsylvania,” p. 97; Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism, p. 24; Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 2:153.
[13] Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, pp. 340–342.
[14] Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, pp. 340–342.
[15] Howe, Mormonism Unvailed, pp. 340–342.
[16] “Joseph Knight, Sr., Reminiscence, Circa 1835–1847,” in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 4:14.
[17] Smith, History of Joseph Smith by his Mother, p. 102.
[18] The same advertisement also appeared in the Wayne Sentinel. “Bathing House,” Wayne Sentinel, July 23, 1830 through November 12, 1830.
[19] “Bathing,” Wayne Sentinel, June 10, 1831 through October 4, 1831.
[20] Lorenzo Saunders to Thomas Gregg, January 28, 1885, in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 3:177.
[21] Troll, “Samuel Tyler Lawrence.”
[22] Troll, “Samuel Tyler Lawrence”; Oyer and Terminer Minutes, 1824–1825, p. 92, Wayne County Courthouse, Lyons, NY.
[23]Deed between the Oswego Canal Company and Samuel T. Lawrence, November 1, 1833, Liber 56, 75–76, Oswego County Clerk’s Office; Troll, “Samuel Tyler Lawrence.”
[24] Troll, “Samuel Tyler Lawrence.”
[25] Troll, “Samuel Tyler Lawrence.”
[26] Troll, “Samuel Tyler Lawrence.”
[27] New York Will and Probate Records 1659–1999.
[28] Durfee Scrapbook No. 3, 1876–1883.