Shortly after arriving in New York and beginning employment as a schoolteacher in 1828, Oliver Cowdery first learned about Joseph Smith and the gold plates through rumors and gossip. Through the sincere investigations of Oliver and his newfound friend, David Whitmer, and his time as a boarder with the Joseph Smith family in Palmyra, Oliver continued to learn about Joseph and the plates. He received a personal witness and traveled with Samuel Smith to visit Joseph in Harmony. Several events involving Martin Harris, David Whitmer, Joseph Knight Sr., and the Smith family all played a role in Oliver’s conversion, and on April 7, Joseph and Oliver began the translation of the Book of Mormon.

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Sometime in the mid-1820s, young Oliver Cowdery left his native state of Vermont and joined a constant stream of immigrants heading west to upstate New York. Lucy Cowdery Young, Oliver’s half sister, said he made the move when he was twenty years old, which would mean in 1826 or 1827, since Oliver was born October 3, 1806. Western New York seemed like the natural place to go because Oliver’s older brother Warren, as well as other brothers and sisters, had already relocated to the Empire State.1

Two contemporary records indicate that Oliver may have lived near Newark (also called Arcadia) or Lyons, about seven and thirteen miles east of Palmyra, respectively. The Lyons Advertiser newspaper offers the first-known New York record mentioning Oliver by name. “List of letters remaining in the Post Office at Newark, Oct. 1st, 1827,” the notice read, and the list of fifty-nine names that followed included both Oliver and his father, William. The list, which ran for four consecutive weekly issues, indicates that someone thought the Cowderys were in the area; still, the exact whereabouts of both Oliver and his father remain a mystery. Oliver was definitely in the vicinity by the next summer, however, because he and his brother Lyman signed a twenty-two dollar note to a Lyons grocer by the name of David Adams on August 11, 1828.

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About this same time [September 1828], the elder Joseph and Lucy met Oliver Cowdery for the first time. His brother Lyman had applied to teach school in the Manchester district and had spoken first with twenty-eight-year-old Hyrum, a trustee of the district, who called a meeting of the other trustees. They agreed to employ Lyman and settled on the terms. But, as Lucy later recalled, “the next day [Lyman] brought his brother Oliver and requested them to receive him in the place of himself.” Whether because of coincidence or providence, Lyman Cowdery was unable to fulfill his obligation; Lucy remembered that “business had arisen” that would oblige him to disappoint them. Whatever this unnamed business was, it set Oliver Cowdery’s life on a startling new course.

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A few days later, in what had turned out to be a momentous few months, the school term ended and Oliver received his pay of $65.50, possibly in a lump sum. On Tuesday, March 31, Oliver and Samuel apparently traveled to Lyons, where Oliver made a thirteen dollar payment on the debt to David Adams. The next day, April 1, Oliver and Samuel departed for Harmony.