The “Hole” in Cumorah
The following story titled below as “The Hole in Cumorah“, is shared as some first hand and second hand information. I am confident I have described things fairly accurate. I have however contacted my video friend who is the one who took the pictures in this article and he thinks this story as I present is accurate to his recollection.
Remember there are two different locations of importance in the Hill Cumorah. Of course there was the place of the “Stone Box” where Joseph Smith received the set of plates from Moroni. In that stone box was contained the Original Gold Plates including the sealed portion, the large breastplate and the Urim and Thummim, The Sword of Laban and Liahona were not in this “Stone Box”. (See picture below)
There was also a “Cave of Records” separate from the stone box, which many brethren including Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Wilford Woodruff, Brigham Young and others spoke of. (See two quotes below).
“Oliver Cowdery went with the Prophet Joseph when he deposited these plates. Joseph did not translate all of the plates; there was a portion of them sealed, which you can learn from the Book of Doctrine and Covenants. When Joseph got the plates, the angel instructed him to carry them back to the hill Cumorah, which he did. Oliver says that when Joseph and Oliver went there, the hill opened, and they walked into a cave, in which there was a large and spacious room. He says he did not think, at the time, whether they had the light of the sun or artificial light; but that it was just as light as day. They laid the plates on a table; it was a large table that stood in the room.
Under this table there was a pile of plates as much as two feet high, and there were altogether in this room more plates than probably many wagon loads; they were piled up in the corners and along the walls. The first time they went there the sword of Laban hung upon the wall; but when they went again it had been taken down and laid upon the table across the gold plates; it was unsheathed, and on it was written these words: “This sword will never be sheathed again until the kingdoms of this world become the kingdom of our God and his Christ.” I tell you this as coming not only from Oliver Cowdery, but others who were familiar with it, and who understood it just as well as we understand coming to this meeting. . . . [Don] Carlos Smith was a young man of as much veracity as any young man we had, and he was a witness to these things. Samuel Smith saw some things, Hyrum saw a good many things, but Joseph was the leader.” Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 17 June 1877
“The hill Cumorah, with the surrounding vicinity, is distinguished as the great battlefield on which, and near which, two powerful nations were concentrated with all their forces. Men, women and children fought till hundreds of thousands on both sides were hewn down, and left to molder upon the ground. These new plates were given to Moroni to finish the history. And all the ancient plates, Mormon deposited in Cumorah, about three hundred and eighty-four years after Christ.
When Moroni, about thirty-six years after, made the deposit of the book entrusted to him, he was, without doubt, inspired to select a department of the hill separate from the great depository of the numerous volumes hid up by his father. The particular place in the hill where Moroni secreted the book, was revealed, by the angel, to the prophet Joseph Smith, to whom the volume was delivered in September, A.D. 1827. But the grand repository of all the numerous records of the ancient nations of the western continent, was located in another department of the hill, and it’s contents under the charge of holy angels, until the day should come for them to be transferred to the sacred temple of Zion.” 1866 Orson Pratt Millennial Star (28 (27): 417)
The Hole in Cumorah
About 10 years ago a friend of mine who worked in the Church Video department was on assignment at the Hill Cumorah for a project the Church was working on.
The west side of Hill Cumorah was being prepared for setting up the stage for the Hill Cumorah Pageant. A missionary couple had some guests on a tour showing them around this west facing hill Cumorah. After a time one of the families on tour noticed one of their children was missing from the group. A search for this young man began. After searching for a time the missionary couple and their guest family heard a yell for help several times. They came upon the missing young man who had fallen through an opening in the top west side of the Hill Cumorah. [See Approximate location of that hole at the red arrow above]
The hole seemed to be 12-15 feet deep. Someone ran to their car and brought back some jumper cables as a rope, to assist in bringing the young man up out of the hole below, which is my video friends actual picture he took of the hole after the young man was pulled out.
My friend put his camera with its light down the hole and snapped a few pictures. He was very surprised to see the appearance of a cave that was about 15 feet square. The cave was empty (Explained below). On the sides of the walls were stacked stones and there were some stones attached seemingly as shelves coming out from the stacked stones, which would mean the cave would have been man made.
What most people know about the hill Cumorah is that it is classified as a drumlin. “A drumlin, from the Irish word droimnín (“littlest ridge”), first recorded in 1833, and in the classical sense is an elongated hill in the shape of an inverted spoon or half-buried egg formed by glacial ice acting on underlying unconsolidated till or ground moraine.” Source: Wikipedia.
Drumlins are created by a glacial drift with moving dirt and debris and won’t leave spaces for caves as other hills and mountains would. This is one of the reasons those of the Mesoamerican belief don’t think a cave would exist in a drumlin. But this pictures shows a possibility for a man made cave to be created in a drumlin.
After discovering this cave, the Church had a contractor notified about fixing the hole. They came out to the location and put a large thick piece of steel over the hole, (see photo above) and then covered it with dirt. I have some friends who have since been back with detectors and can easily locate the location of where the piece of steel was buried.
The cave was empty (Explained Here)
Mormon 1:3 “Therefore, when ye are about twenty and four years old I would that ye should remember the things that ye have observed concerning this people; and when ye are of that age go to the , unto a hill which shall be called ; and there have I deposited unto the Lord all the sacred engravings concerning this people.
4 And behold, ye shall take the unto yourself, and the remainder shall ye leave in the place where they are; and ye shall engrave on the plates of Nephi all the things that ye have observed concerning this people.”
Mormon would return to the hill Shim in about 375 AD. So, all the records of the Nephites were in hill Shim at that time.
As you read in Mormon 4:23, “And now I, Mormon, seeing that the Lamanites were about to overthrow the land, therefore I did go to the hill Shim, and did take up all the records which Ammaron had hid up unto the Lord.” This would mean the plates from Shim were hid up in a place probably close to Hill Cumorah.
In one of Jonathan Neville’s blogs Here he speaks about how the Cave of all the Plates including the Sword of Laban and Liahona were taken from the Cave at Cumorah and probably taken back to the Hill Shim to hide them from people today. David Whitmer also explains that possibility below.
Wagonloads of plates in Cumorah’s cave?
The following was originally printed in the March-April 2010 edition of Mormonism Researched.
“David Whitmer’s testimony is a rare exception because he was one of the men who is said to have actually entered such a cave. His testimony slightly conflicts with Young’s for he stated in an 1878 interview printed in the Deseret Evening News, that Smith’s gold plates were indeed hidden, but not in a cave in the Hill Cumorah. Instead, he said they were hidden, “not far away from that place.”
8. Edward Stevenson, Reminiscences of Joseph, the Prophet, 1877
In his book Reminiscences of Joseph, the Prophet, and the Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon, Edward Stevenson relates an interview with David Whitmer in 1877:
It was likewise stated to me by David Whitmer in the year 1877 that Oliver Cowdery told him that the Prophet Joseph and himself had seen this room and that it was filled with treasure, and on a table therein were the breastplate and the sword of Laban, as well as the portion of gold plates not yet translated, and that these plates were bound by three small gold rings, and would also be translated, as was the first portion in the days of Joseph. When they are translated much useful information will be brought to light. But till that day arrives, no Rochester adventurers shall ever see them or the treasures,
although science.”
9. David Whitmer, Deseret Evening News, 16 August 1878
In an interview with P. Wilhelm Poulson, David Whitmer gave another account of the cave:
[Poulson]: Where are the plates now?
[Whitmer]: In a cave, where the angel has hidden them up till the time arrives when the plates, which are sealed, shall be translated. God will yet raise up a mighty one, who shall do his work till it is finished and Jesus comes again.
[Poulson]: Where is that cave?
[Whitmer]: In the State of New York.
[Poulson]: In the Hill of Comorah?
[Whitmer]: No, but not far away from that place.
8 and 9 above from JOURNAL OF BOOK OF MORMON STUDIES 7-31-2004 Cumorah’s Cave by Cameron J. Packer Volume 13 Number 1 Article 6 Page 55
Hill Cumorah and Hill Shim
In these two quotes, I feel it very likely the hill Shim was very close to the Hill Cumorah as that would make it feasible to move the plates from one location to the other. Below is my proposed location for hill Shim.
This area locating Shim is speculation, based on a few personal friends that have discovered some interesting artifacts in that location in the past few years. A very large and flat topped rock in that area, that seems to be a possible location of a grave or an entrance. It is on private land as my friends couldn’t get much access. Again I speculate but is seems like a possibility according to the location and how Oliver described the 1-mile valley below:
“At about one mile west rises another ridge of less height, running parallel with the former, leaving a beautiful vale between. The soil is of the first quality for the country, and under a state of cultivation, which gives a prospect at once imposing, when one reflects on the fact, that here, between these hills, the entire power and national strength of both the Jaredites and Nephites were destroyed. By turning to the 529th and 530th pages of the Book of Mormon, you will read Mormon’s account of the last great struggle of his people, as they were encamped round this hill Cumorah. In this valley fell the remaining strength and pride of a once powerful people, the Nephites—once so highly favored of the Lord, but at that time in darkness, doomed to suffer extermination by the hand of their barbarous and uncivilized brethren. From the top of this hill, Mormon, with a few others, after the battle, gazed with horror upon the mangled remains of those who, the day before, were filled with anxiety, hope, or doubt.” Oliver Cowdery’s Letter VII Joseph Smith Papers “Letter VII,” LDS Messenger and Advocate, July 1835, 1:155–159 .
In the DVD titled “Hill Cumorah: Verifications and Realistic Archaeological Expectation” (Order at the link), Rod Meldrum shares this story about the “Hole” in Cumorah similar to how I have described it.
In the DVD, you will also have the following questions answered.
Where is the Hill Cumorah of the Book of Mormon?
Is there more than one Hill Cumorah?
What have prophets and apostles proclaimed?
What archaeological evidence should we expect?
Has any archaeological evidence been found?
