LDS Freedom Forum

I was just wondering if there was ever an effort to find the box that the plates were kept in at the hill Cumorah? It seems that it wouldn't be too hard with a limited geographical area. I can however understand several reasons to not look for it.

I've wondered about that and I visited the hill last year, but didn't have the chance to go exploring. It's a good size hill, but I don't think it would take too long to narrow it down--perhaps a few days or so. I'd love to see it just to inspect the type of cement used and the shape of the rocks used to form the box. Great question.

"On the west side of this hill, not far from the top, under a stone of considerable size, lay the plates, deposited in a stone box,"--Joseph Smith

Now that I think about it, when I visited the hill, the monument is built right about where Joseph describes the box could be.

Thanks, I wonder if it has been discovered but just kept quiet.

I heard that the whole hill has been radar/sonar scanned, and hill gone over carefully in attempt to prove or disprove story. Nothing found, but if Moroni could take back the plates, God could hide the box & cave.

Yes, I believe if God want's something kept from the world He can and will. Thanks for the info.

That little hill in upstate New York which was called Hill of Cumorah after the real hill (known by many names), which once had a stone box and lid, and contained the records given to JS. But with the passage of time, looters from the 18th century erased any signs that were left, braking and removing stones that might lend verification to his account.

The plates were returned to the burial record depository of the ancient peoples (who were then living by the hill in Ramah). It was where the Nephites lost their power. JS told Mosiah Hancock about where this took place and where the hill is. When you find this massive hill (mountain) you will not want to go there at night, as a skin walker frequents this place to try to chase spiritually awake beings from that place. Equal opposition in all things, as there is a guardian of the records there also, he is a bone (scroll) keeper.

Kingdom of ZION wrote: When you find this massive hill (mountain) you will not want to go there at night, as a skin walker frequents this place to try to chase spiritually awake beings from that place. Equal opposition in all things, as there is a guardian of the records there also, he is a bone (scroll) keeper.

I dont take you as one to deal in tricks and folly, so I wont attribute your post to April's Fools. That said, where did you read about this? Specifcially the parts about the 'skin walker' and the 'bone keeper'

David Whitmer supposedly said "three times has he [Whitmer] been at the hill Cumorah and seen the casket that contained the tablets and the seer-stone. Eventually the casket had been washed down to the foot of the hill, but it was to be seen when he las visited the historic place." David Whitmer Interviews p. 7

Other accounts say the stone box sunk into the ground when they tried to dig it up, but are less reliable than this one.

Now I was not thinking about April Fools Day, but this tale would have been a classic if not for having lived it.

This is a long story and I do not wish to publish the whole story publicly, but suffice it to say, it first started back in 2008 when I first saw a shadow in the form of a man while driving late one night, on a mountain road. It stood in the roadway as I crested a hill, it turned away from me and move quicker than anythings I had ever seen before move. It moved to the limits of my head lights, stopping by a tree by the side of the road and turned back and looked at me again. At this time I diffidently knew that it was evil, that it saw me, and that it knew that I had seen it. It then vanished into the trees. From then on any time I traveled this roadway mostly at night, I began seeing animals that acted or moved in one way or another not quite natural. Three times I have swerved to miss things that have startled me by running out at the last moment in front of my truck or what would certainly be into the side of my SUV. At the time I was usually hauling a heavy loaded trailer, so I attribute this to why I had not rolled the vehicle over, however the roll-over alarm sounded each time. It has not always been just me who has seen these unnatural animals or creatures. More than half the time those who have been so unfortunate to be with me, have also seen what I have seen. To date I have seen six animals, one twice. My wife Susan has seen two of them, and a guy who use to work for me has seen two.

It was only by the do diligence of Susan, that I know anything about what it might have been. Her research first into local reported sightings and possible explanations about what we and I had seen in that region, which eventually pointed her to Native American legends. I knew nothing of Skin Walkers when I first started seeing such things. I have through prayer received much more concern these event, and why this evil being is there.

As for the Bone Keeper, that was a vision I had a few years earlier, around 2004. We had went to visit the Hopi I know on third Mesa, as I had some questions about the Five (sacred) Mountains. While travelling home, I was praying and was shown things related to my quest. I saw what I come to know was Lake Powell. It was a straight line with fingers squiggling up to the north. I knew it was water, and these were rivers. The Mountain I sought was between two of the fingers. I was then shown a man covered with bones from head to foot, they were tied at one end of each tube (as these bone were all straight a pipes and hollow) with twine. The bones rocked back and forth from side to side as he danced. I was given to understand the he was the keeper of the records.

As for the stones used to keep the records safe in New York, that is what I have received about that hill and what is left there.

Shalom

I had an experience with the stone box on the back side of the Hill Cumorah. I was a missionary in the Curmorah Mission now called the New York Rochester mission. Back in 1969 the missionaries in the Cumorah Mission were privileged to participate as characters in the Hill Cumorah Pageant (a practice no longer applied, now only members in that mission are allowed to participate as I understand it.) Anyway back in ol 1969 I with three other elders were walking down the back side of the Hill Cumorah one afternoon between rehearsals and low and behold we came upon the whitened stone box. We marveled at it and one of the elders said that one of us should alert everyone on the hill what we had discovered. I piped up and said that it was obviously a recreation to give anyone who came upon the object an idea of what it must have looked like and that it had to be replica built by the church. There was consensus on that notion and we all just continued going about our business. But later that day I was in the visitors center in front of the hill and so I asked an elderly gentlemen in charge about when they built the stone box replica containing the golden plates. He responded that there was no stone box replica placed there by the church. I was baffled so I went back to the place where I thought it was. I could not find it. I think I was in the right place, I could be wrong, but it was not visible to me.
When I get on the other side I’m going to ask what the purpose of that experience was along with some other anomalies I’ve had in life that are enigmatic.

Yes Geek, there are things in this world, seen and unseen that defy what we think as real or normal. And they are either good or evil, there is no gender neutral or lukewarm beings. Objects have no consciousness, it was a unseen being that revealed is manifestation to you. Where for good or evil, only usually those present can say, but I am of the opinion it was for your good or blessing.

The oral tradition while I was serving in the NYRM was that the hill was actually bare of trees when the Bean's arrived in the early 1900s. It had been plowed and planted and plowed and planted.



After the Church purchased the Hill Cumorah, Willard Bean planted trees on the north end to have it more closely represent the condition it was in when Joseph Smith received the plates. I would be surprised if the box still existed after the aforementioned looters and agriculture worked the hill over.

On a unrelated note:
While on my mission in 2002, there was just west of the parking lot (down hill) in some thick undergrowth, there was what we told greenies "ancient Nephite ruins", which was actually a discarded granite block which had the appearance of being a failed attempt at the footstone of the Moroni monument.



Somehow it got tossed down the hill only to have been over grown. I have a picture of me standing on it, maybe I'll upload it if there's interest.