her of unfairly
removing the manuscript whenever the attendants had almost reached it.
After waiting a little time, she produced a portion of the roll and
declared Smith to be a fraud. The remainder of the manuscript she
retained, and finally burned it, with the remark, "If it cannot be found
there will be an end to the partnership between Joe Smith and my
husband." Joe never undertook to use his wonderful spectacles for a
second translation of the matter in the missing manuscript: he feared
that Mrs. Harris might produce a totally different Bible consisting of
his first translation.

Mrs. Squires and Mrs. McKune agree in saying that no converts were made
by Smith and Harris in the vicinity of Susquehanna. The scene of the
Mormon endeavors was suddenly moved along the beautiful valley of the
Susquehanna to a point north of the Appalachin Mountains and just within
the borders of New York. In the locality of Harpersville and Nineveh a
broad plain had been settled by a colony of emigrants called "the
Vermont Sufferers," from their having formerly occupied land which was
claimed by both Massachusetts and New York. Three miles above Nineveh
lies Afton, just on the edge of Chenango county, and a short distance
above are Sidney, in Delaware county, and Otego, in Otsego county. Smith
and his followers operated with the peek-stone in this part of the
valley, where he was a comparative stranger. George Collington, one of
the most substantial farmers in Broome county, was then a lad of
sixteen. One evening, at twilight, he discovered Smith, Joseph Knight,
William Hale (uncle of Smith's wife) and two men named Culver and
Blowers in the act of dodging through the woods with shovels and picks
upon their shoulders, their object being to discover a salt-spring by
the agency of the peek-stone. He followed them, under cover of the
brush, to a point where they stopped for consultation and finally
decided to dig the next day. Noticing that Bostwick Badger, who then
owned the farm now occupied by Collington, had felled an oak near the
place, and that he had drawn out the timber, Collington obtained
permission to cut the top for wood. Collington's axe and the prophet's
diggers began operations about the same time on the following morning.
Out from the treetop came Collington and asked what they were doing.
They told him to mind his business, which he did by thoroughly
publishing them about the neighborhood--a proceeding that brought them a