Melonakos, “Secret Combinations: Evidence of Early Mormon Counterfeiting 1800-1847” (reviewed by Cheryl L. Bruno)

Review
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Title: Secret Combinations: Evidence of Early Mormon Counterfeiting 1800-1847
Author: Kathleen Kimball Melonakos
Publisher: Lyrical Productions
Genre: Mormon History
Year Published: 2016
Number of Pages: 478
Binding: Paperback
ISBN13: 9781944141097
Price: $19.95

Reviewed by Cheryl L. Bruno for the Association for Mormon Letters

Kathleen Kimball Melonakos, descendant of Mormon leader Heber C. Kimball, has addressed one of the most fascinating subjects in nineteenth-century U.S. history: counterfeiting, or the making of “bogus.” In one of her introductory chapters, she focuses on the counterfeiting culture of the times, and offers reasons why counterfeiting was such a problem in the states in the early 1800s. Throughout the book, Melonakos also provides captivating glimpses of the religious con men and charlatans who were involved in bogus-making during the times and in the places where the early Mormons lived.
 
Many modern Latter-day Saints are not aware that Mormon Nauvoo was the source of large amounts of bogus, or that after the death of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, several Mormon leaders were indicted for counterfeiting. These included Brigham Young and four of the other Mormon Apostles, namely Willard Richards, John Taylor, Parley P. Pratt and Orson Hyde. Others named in the indictment of December 17, 1845 were Theodore Turley, Peter Haws, Joseph H. Jackson, and non-Mormons Augustus Barton, [Marinus] Gilbert Eaton, Carlos Gove, and Edward Bonney. These last four named, though never members of the LDS Church, were closely associated with the Mormons in Nauvoo. Bonney and Eaton were members of the original Council of Fifty.
 
In her final two chapters, fourteen and fifteen, Melonakos presents allegations she has discovered of counterfeiting activities of these men. The most detailed exposé was disaffected Mormon Joseph H. Jackson’s thirty-six page *A Narrative of the Adventures and Experience of Joseph H. Jackson in Nauvoo, Disclosing the Depths of Mormon Villainy.* This pamphlet described Jackson’s infiltration into the inner circles of Mormonism in Nauvoo. He wrote that in October of 1843, Barton and Eaton arrived in Nauvoo with a “splendid press, and all the necessary tools and materials for operation.” It was set up in “the house formerly occupied by Joe,” Jackson said, in “the same room where the Holy Order had previously met” (377). Jackson claimed that Joseph Smith and “all the twelve apostles except Orson Pratt, and Eber C. Kimball, were engaged in this business.” The press made “an excellent specimen of base coin,” and “continued to run until they had manufactured about $350,000” (378).

The accusations made in Jackson’s pamphlet were reported in several newspaper accounts of the day, with the editor of the Warsaw Signal noting that Jackson’s testimony could be “substantiated by the testimony of all the seceders, and by many persons not of the church who lived at the time in Nauvoo (405). The New York Weekly Tribune claimed that “Mormon leaders had worked out a complicated method of buying land with the spurious money, and among themselves called their bogus press ‘The Land Office Press’” (419). This was substantiated by Mary Ettie Coray Smith, who stated that church officials were “selling bogus money, and buying various kinds of property needed by the church, and forwarding it to Council Bluffs” (419).

Readers will find these concluding chapters fascinating, as Mormons, ex-Mormons and non-Mormons turn on each other in accusation. Federal agents unsuccessfully struggle to bring protected leaders to trial. Journalists attempt to learn whether the “bogus-making” can be tied back to Joseph Smith.

Unfortunately, the title of Melonakos’ book: *Evidence of Early Mormon Counterfeiting,* promises much more than it can ultimately deliver. Chapters two through thirteen—a full two hundred and eighty-six pages—contain few references to what I can consider “early Mormon counterfeiting.” [1] Three of these deal with Joseph Smith’s father. An anonymous letter quoted Judge Daniel Woodward as saying “Joseph Smith Sr…became implicated with one, Jack Downing, in counterfeiting money, but turned state’s evidence and escaped the penalty.” Melonakos does not accompany this anonymous quote with any corroborating verification. It would strengthen her case were she able to mention when and where this state’s evidence was located.

In another letter, Joel King wrote that

…Joe Smith Sr. lived in Vermont connected with a bunch of counterfeiters—ran—came to Mohawk River—eloped (seduced a married woman) to Canada [then] came to Pennsylvania State. (61)

Since no one has placed Father Smith in Canada, or as having eloped with a married woman, one must wonder if this is even the same Joseph Smith, Sr. who was father of the Mormon prophet.

Thirdly, Melonakos quotes “counterfeiting expert” Kenneth Scott’s claim that “Abner Hays ‘had passed counterfeits to Joseph Smith of Bethel, perhaps the father of the Mormon leader’” (78). The author claims that because Smith was listed as being from Bethel does not disqualify him from being the Mormon prophet’s father, since “it could have been one of the many places he stayed transiently in his peddling travels.”

On several occasions in her book, the author uses journalist James Gordon Bennett’s report that Joseph Smith, Sr. “had been a peddler in Vermont” (73) to place him in various locations around the state. Since there is no forthcoming evidence that Smith visited any of these places, it is just as likely that his “peddling” was of the sort that it took in New York, where the family sold oilcloths, ale, and small items in town and at local festivals.

In another allegation regarding the Smith family, neighbor C.M. Stafford said that he “had been in the forty to fifty-foot cave that Smith Jr. ordered his men to dig, that many ‘surmised was intended for counterfeiting’” (188, 239). Sheriff McKune was said to have “strongly suspected that Smith and his gang were counterfeiters” (188, 145).

A newspaper in Danville, Vermont named one John Johnson as being convicted for the third time for forging and counterfeiting banks bills of Massachusetts and Maine. (264). Melonakos attempts to connect this Johnson with an early Mormon leader, notwithstanding that the Mormon Johnson was not yet a member of the Church, and lived eighty miles north of where the newspaper was published.

These references seem to be the only solid “evidence” that Melonakos can provide regarding Mormon counterfeiting before the Kirtland period. None of these quotations pass muster as proof of early Mormon counterfeiting. They represent her uncritical use of the sources, with no attempt to weigh the credibility of the assertions.

The author fills the bulk of her pages with forced genealogical connections and smear tactics. A few examples of her work will illustrate.

· “Both of Joseph and Hyrum Smith’s grandfathers had ties to Captain Robert Rogers who was a partner to top-gun counterfeiter Owen Sullivan.” The grandfathers also lived in towns “on the edge of the frontier” where “they would have had numerous opportunities to become involved in counterfeiting” (80).

· A religious group located in Vermont under the direction of Nathaniel Wood was “almost certainly” a front for a counterfeiting scheme, “which meant that they would have been oath-bound to each other in secrecy.” Joseph Smith, Sr. “likely knew” some of the members of the group. One of the influential members of the group, Justus Winchell, could have been the same “Paine Wingate” who was tried for counterfeiting in 1799 in Bradford, Vermont. Winchell had been a guest at the home of William Cowdery, father of Oliver Cowdery (69-76).[2]

· The death of Alvin Smith occurred under suspicious circumstances. Lucy Smith “misremembered numerous times that Alvin’s death was in 1824,” the same year as the murder of Oliver Harper by suspected counterfeiter Jason Treadwell. This latter death took place in the region where the Smiths conducted treasure-seeking activities. “Could these two deaths have been connected? Could this have been the result of retaliation in the shadowy underworld of money-digging or counterfeiting or both?” (122-168).

· “Who knows where the Smiths ever received the hundreds of dollars it cost to build their frame house in 1823 or 1824, since the Stoddards sued them for non-payment of labor and materials, and they never did pay for their land?” (190).

· The Smith family “acted in ways that counterfeiters acted—locating on borderlands, using counterfeiting jargon,[3] swearing to secrecy oaths, hiding plates under the hearth, hiding out in caves, buying lampblack” (190).

Melonakos makes these types of connections so frequently that the book begins to take on the fantastical air of a “Forrest Gump” adventure.

The author expounds upon four types of activities that she finds questionable to demonstrate that Joseph Smith and other early Mormons were “con-artists,” and therefore must have also participated in counterfeiting. One of these was polygamy. In the author’s view, this marital arrangement was frequently seen among counterfeiters, who used it to cement ties among families who were involved in bogus-making.

Another activity frowned upon by Melonakos was the Smiths’ participation in seeking for buried treasure. Without substantiation of any vows or pledges having been taken, she calls the Smiths and their associates “Joseph Smith’s oath-bound money-digging group” (122, 150). Contrary to the research of Mormon historian D. Michael Quinn, she characterizes this pursuit as “unsavory” (150) and “illegal” (121).[4] In two chapters devoted to treasure-seeing, the author presents several cases of people who searched for treasure and were also counterfeiters. She uses false analogy to suggest that since Joseph Smith and his family were involved in treasure-seeking, they were counterfeiters as well (117-121, 151).

Throughout these chapters, and without evidentiary support, she semantically links treasure-seeing and counterfeiting, as in the following sentence: “Smith Sr. was more interested in money-digging and passing counterfeits than buckling down to farming or a trade” (100).

Melonakos spends considerable time writing about the history of Freemasonry in early America, including the William Morgan affair and the anti-Masonic movement. She links several early Mormons to Masonry. Apparently, she is bothered by the resemblance between the “oath-bound” Masons and similar activities among Mormons, from Danites to the Nauvoo police. However, she fails to demonstrate a relevance between counterfeiting and Freemasonry. She insinuates that oath-bound organizations might have the opportunity to engage in questionable behaviors.

A final activity which Melonakos seems to have elevated to the level of counterfeiting is the questionable banking practice which Joseph Smith engaged in at Kirtland. Although she admits that these practices could not technically be considered counterfeiting, she is unable to resist the temptation to pull them together. “Mormon leaders did not imitate the genuine dollars of the United States, or even the genuine bills of another authorized, legal bank in producing the Kirkland bank notes,” she concedes. But banks “can be used as a means by which one group defrauds another” (283).

Her chapter titled “The Kirtland Caper,” though slanted, contains interesting information if one can get past the speculative attempt to connect bank fraud with counterfeiting: (“Were the Mormon leaders in league with the Brown brothers?”) (291).

In the final analysis, this book is not a completely historical treatment of the subject of early Mormon counterfeiting. The book may not receive widespread respect from serious students because of the question-begging and over-enthusiastic conjectures that are included. Historians may grow weary of the author’s unfounded allegations of counterfeiting activities, though she does provide the seeds for further research in several areas.

Rather, the work is a popular, imaginative treatment of what the author sees as a “counterfeit Joseph,” a deliberate con-artist who lived a double life. It is a glimpse into a Book of Mormon as the “most successful attempt ever made to counterfeit the Scriptures.” (16).[5] It is the first book-length exploration of counterfeiting in Mormonism. If readers adjust their expectations, it can be a rollicking ride into the early Mormon world of forgery, fallacy, and fancy.

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[1] Melonakos quotes author Lynn Glaser for her definition of counterfeiting: “a general term for all illegal money, referring specifically to engraved imitations of genuine bills.”

[2] Concerning involvement of Mormons with the Wood group, Richard L. Anderson has observed, “An 1828 newspaper history of the Wood episode refers to neither the mysterious counterfeiter nor Cowdery. The main group of Middletown survivors of the 1800 period–’more than thirty men and women’–were interviewed up to 1860, and they said nothing of a counterfeiter or of Cowdery. The 1867 recollections of a minister who visited the group in the final weeks of their movement include mention of the counterfeiter but not Cowdery–when a disciple was asked where the criminal stayed, he answered: ‘He keeps himself secreted in the woods.’ Frisbie’s own claims about the Cowdery connection to the Wood group are both unclear and unsupported. This is the patchwork of folklore, not tightly woven history.” Richard L. Anderson, “The Mature Joseph Smith and Treasure Searching,” Brigham Young University Studies 24 no. 4 (1984).

[3] For example, Lucy Smith used the term “leg bail” in her autobiography, “a slang term that means that the prisoner escaped and ran away” (184). Additionally, Melonakos notes that “the word ‘horse’ was jargon for counterfeit money.” In a letter written to Oliver Cowdery in 1829, Joseph Smith wrote that he had bought a horse from Mr. Stowell and wanted someone to come and pick it up. The author speculates: “Why did he want someone to come from Manchester to get this horse when he was in Pennsylvania? Why wouldn’t he keep it and ride it back to Manchester? Did he ever really buy a horse? Or was it counterfeit money?” (185)

[4] See D. Michael Quinn, *Early Mormonism and the Magic World View* (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1987). In this highly regarded work, Quinn presents treasure seeking as a common endeavor and one of many accepted folk-beliefs in early America.

[5] Quotation by Daniel Kidder, *Mormonism and the Mormons: A Historical View of the Rise and Progress of the Sect Self-Styled Latter Day Saints* (New York: Carlton and Porter, 1842), 311.