In my review of Royal Skousen's Part Seven, I noted that Skousen spent several pages to promote the narrative that it was Moroni who showed the plates to Mary Whitmer (pages 43-47).
Near the conclusion of that discussion, Skousen wrote this:
We
should also add here the earliest record of the angel appearing to Mary
Whitmer. This is found in Edward Stevenson’s interview of David Whitmer on
22-23 December 1877 and is recorded as follows in Stevenson’s diary [Cook 13,
Vogel 5:31]:
&
the next Morning Davids Mother Saw the Person at the Shed and he took the
Plates from A Box & Showed them to her She Said that they were fastened
with Rings thus: D he turned the leaves over this was a Sattisfaction to her.
Skousen quotes both Cook's David Whitmer Interviews and Vogel's Early Mormon Documents. Both of those references are out of print and difficult to find (although I have both of them).
I previously commented on how Skousen selectively quoted from these two sources to omit what David said about the messenger (the Person at the Shed) being "one of the Nephites."
https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/2024/12/creating-narrative-with-selective.html
(click to enlarge)
In that post, I included an image from Vogel's book to show how Skousen omitted David's statement that Joseph identified the man as one of the Nephites.
The part circled here in orange is Skousen's quotation. The top part circled in red is a continuation from the previous page, where David reported that Joseph "said it was one of the Nephites & that he had the Plates."
We can speculate why Skousen omitted that part of Stevenson's journal. Maybe he omitted it because it contradicted his personal belief that it was Moroni who showed the plates to Mary Whitmer, or because he didn't actually read the original and simply copied and pasted someone else's excerpt, or because he decided that Moroni was "one of the Nephites" anyway.
But it doesn't matter because regardless of the reason, omitting a relevant part of an original document to promote one's personal views is inexcusable.
Note: Vogel's footnote refers to one of several other versions of the interview that Stevenson produced. Stevenson also reported in another account that Joseph told David "their visitor was one of the three Nephites to whom the Savior gave the promise of life on earth until He should come in power" and that this was the Nephite whom mother Whitmer saw.
All these references are available here:
https://www.mobom.org/trip-to-fayette-references
_____
To verify the Cook and Vogel references, we can read directly from Stevenson's journal.
https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/82199881-7613-43e6-a79e-b72609d95b23/0/22?lang=eng
page 17
click to enlarge
Again, we can see how Skousen omitted the part of the journal that contradicts his Moroni theory.
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| Page 18, annotated Click to enlarge |
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