WILLIAM COWDRY

came from Connecticut in 1787 and lived here 12 years and then removed to Middletown. His family consisted of 6 sons and 2 daughters. There is nothing of their history worth recording except the part taken by

OLIVER COWDRY

the sixth and youngest son, in giving to the world the famous revelations of Joe Smith, the founder of Mormonism. Smith being too illiterate to write himself, employed this Oliver Cowdry, it appears, as a scribe (see the same in Middle town, this vol., Ed.) and he it was who in company with two others, David "Whitmore and Martin Harris, gave to the world 588 pages of the most wretched hum bug that ever disgraced a nation. We would like to pelt those detestable Mormons for ever having dared to originate on our pure Green Mountain soil; but the multitude seeking out so many strange paths, all diverging so widely from the old path, arrests our hand.