There is a fantastic story in the Joseph Smith Papers I will share with you that possibly you haven’t heard about, a pioneer named Benjamin Benson. The story of Benjamin is a powerful one as he saw the gold plates even before Joseph Smith.
Benjamin Benson
In New York in 1795 a member of the Church named Benjamin Benson saw in New York the Book of Mormon (Book of Ether) and Joseph Smith who had not been born yet. Another evidence that the Book of Mormon is a record of the People of Nephi and the Brother of Jared who lived in upstate New York. An angel (possibly Moroni) appeared to Benjamin as he rode on a horse. The Angel showed Benjamin a Book of Ether about the fore fathers of the Native American Indians of North America that helped Benjamin to see the true origin of the American Indians compared to the understanding he had with the Bible. This vision took place in New York near a city called Pompeii.
Below is another witness that the Book of Mormon is a History of the
Native Americans in North America
The Life Summary of Benjamin Benson
When Benjamin Benson was born on 3 August 1773, in Greenbush, Albany, New York Colony, British Colonial America, his father, Stutson or Stedson Benson, was 32 and his mother, Bathsheba or Bersheba Lewis, was 27. He married Keziah Messenger on 15 December 1795, in Onondaga, New York, United States. They were the parents of at least 6 sons and 7 daughters. He lived in Hancock, Illinois, United States in 1840 and Nauvoo, Hancock, Illinois, United States in 1842. He died on 8 October 1846, in Mendon, Adams, Illinois, United States, at the age of 73, and was buried in Mendon, Adams, Illinois, United States. https://ancestorsbeta.familysearch.org/en/KWVS-7V7/benjamin-benson-1773-1846
HISTORY OF BENJAMIN BENSON– From the list of passengers of the ship Confidence of London, which sailed to New England on the 11th of April 1638, we find the name of John Benson and his family. They were John and his wife, Mary and two children under four years of age and their names were John and Mary. After they arrived in America another son, Joseph and two daughters, Abigail and Martha were born. Our ancestor is the son John.
This John Benson was born in England about 1635. He lived in Hull, Massachusetts. John had a family of seven children, the youngest being William, who became our ancestor. William was born about 1680. He married Elizabeth Stetson. There is a record of one child born to them whose name is William, born April 18, 1710, at Rochester, Massachusetts. He married Elizabeth Ellis. Their first child was Ellis Benson born 31 March 1740 at Rochester, Massachusetts. The second child was Stutson Benson, who is our ancestor. Stutson was born 2 March 1741 at Rochester, Massachusetts. Stutson married Bathsheba Lewis about 1760. They had eleven children and our ancestor, Benjamin Benson was the 6th child.
Benjamin Benson married Keziah Messenger on December 15, 1795 and they are the parents of twelve children, 6 sons and 6 daughters, our ancestor Alva Benson was the 3rd child.
After the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, missionaries were sent out to seek out the honest in heart, and they entered the state of New York in 1831 or 1832. One night Polly Benson, Alva’s sister, had a dream, she dreamed that she was washing the family wash out under a big tree, when she looked up and saw two men walking through their farm with little satchels in their hands. Polly dreamed that someone said to her as she stood there washing, “whatever those men are bringing you, accept it because it is true.” As the men came up to where Polly was, for she actually was out washing in the place of her dream, they told her that they were missionaries of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. She recognized them and called them by name, and invited them into the house. She was about 15 years of age. On another occasion, Elders who had visited with them left to travel to some distant place and were to be away for some time, but a short time after they had departed, Polly came running into the house saying, “the Elders will be back tonight.” Her mother said, “Polly, what prattle is this? Those elders have no cause to return here tonight.” Just before dusk the two weary travelers were seen coming over the ridge and down the dusty road. The Elders had returned and the family was converted.
It was February of the year 1832 when this Benson family was baptized. When Benjamin joined the church his father had been dead for 10 years. The rest of his family disowned him and he isn’t mentioned in any wills or history.
On account of the persecutions in New York, they moved to Kirtland, Ohio. When the Prophet Joseph Smith received the revelation concerning the Center Stake of Zion, and the New Jerusalem, the Bensons were among the immigrants who made their way to Jackson County, Missouri, a distance of 1000 miles by ox team. It was during this journey that Joseph Bartholomew, then a lad of 12 years joined the Benson family. The opportunity to break away from his grandfather’s family was just what the boy had been waiting for. He grew up and married Benjamin’s daughter, Polly.
Cynthia Vail & Alva BensonThey traveled the 1000 miles through Indiana, Illinois, and on to the western borders of Missouri. They were among the first settlers in this area. Since the Bensons were Mill-wrights building flour mills and farming, they selected a homestead on the Big Blue, about 5 miles from Kansas City, and about 5 miles from Independence, in Jackson County, Missouri. The Big Blue was a stream that would furnish power for the mills. The soil was also very fertile for farming. The Bensons were a large family with a number of grown young men, so they set to work building houses, stables, sheds and pens. They cleared considerable land of trees and brush and were well on their way to establishing themselves in a home which they hoped would be permanent. The Bensons accumulated very rapidly and were becoming independent but this home was not to be for long. The harvesting was over. They had accumulated several cows, hogs, and other animals, when on the evening of October 31, 1833, having been in Missouri but a little over a year, a friendly neighbor came rushing in and called, “Run for your lives. The mob is coming to kill you.” Their meal was cooking on the fire, oxen and cows were in the stable, hogs in the pen, chickens in the coop. Butter and milk were in the nearby spring to be kept cool. Snatching a rug or quilt, they ran into the woods and hid in the thickets on the Big Blue. From here they watched the destruction by the mob as they pilfered, destroyed and burned their home and property. The next day they were ushered out of Jackson County, across the Missouri river with just what they had with them. They never went back to their homes. They were simply lost to them.
By the first of November it was very cold, they found themselves in a strange wilderness with nothing but thanksgiving in their hearts that their lives had been spared. The Bensons were ambitious. They did not stay here long but went North into another county and settled at Far West, Missouri, and obtained some jobs preparatory to building more mills. While here Benjamin was on the Far West High Council. They worked for a man who employed them until the Saints were exterminated from Missouri. The family next prepared to migrate to Illinois. This they did, settling about six miles South of Nauvoo at Warsaw. Again they cleared land and began to build homes.
When the Saints were forced to leave Nauvoo, the Benjamin Benson family left and went as far as Omaha, Nebraska, or what we call Winter Quarters. Here Benjamin died 7 Oct. 1846, he was 73 years old. His family went on to the Rocky Mountains and his wife Keziah, settled in Springville, Utah. She died on the 10th of March 1857 at the age of 79 years. She is buried in the Springville, Utah Cemetery.
Information came from Benson Family Records, compiled by Fred H. Benson of Syracuse, New York. And from the History of Joseph Bartholomew and His Ancestors on the ABC Family Foundation Website. And some information from WikiTree. https://beta.familysearch.org/tree/person/memories/KWVS-7V7
Benjamin Benson’s Vision shared with Joseph
Historical Introduction During his fall 1837 visit to Far West, Missouri, JS spoke with Missouri church member Benjamin Benson on the evening of 11 November.1 
At JS’s request, Benson wrote a letter the next day recounting a “dream or vision” he had shared with JS the previous night. The original letter is not extant, but James Mulholland copied Benson’s letter into JS’s second letterbook in 1839.The account of his dream reveals that, like many of his era, Benson was concerned about the origins of American Indians and the validity of the Bible’s account of human origins. 2 Benson had prayed to learn whether Indians had been placed on the American continent at the creation of the world or had descended from Adam, as he understood the Bible taught. The dream he related to JS occurred forty-two years earlier, in 1795, when he was twenty-two years old.
In Benson’s account of the dream, an angel took him to a specific place where a record was deposited. There the angel showed him a book, which was to come forth at a later time, that contained a record of a people from Jerusalem, who were the forefathers of the American Indians. Benson also saw in his dream a man who would bring forth that book. In the letter, Benson mentions the “Book [of] Ether” from the Book of Mormon, which along with other details indicates he likely felt that the book in the dream was the Book of Mormon and that the man bringing forth the book in his vision was JS.
Document Transcript
Dear Brother in the Lord, Having reflected on the short interview we had last evening respecting the dream (or vision as you may think proper to term it) and as you stated several times that you should like to have it wrote so that you could take it home with you to Kirtland, I therefore consent to give a statement in as short <a> manner as I can, without going into every minute circumstance.
To wit.—In the year 1795, I then being in the Town of Pompey, County of Onondagua and State of New York; I then being 22 years old; seeing and viewing the ancient Indian Forts1 and trates thereof through that part of the Country; my mind was anxiously led to contemplate and reflect on where these those Indians came from, or from what race of People they sprang from, and oftentimes heard it stated that these Indians were natives of this Continent, and that they were created and placed here at the creation of the world.2 Then said I the Bible cannot be true, part of for it (The Bible) says that all the human family sprang from Adam &c, and that all at the time of the flood, the whole earth was covered with water, and that all flesh died, except what were in the ark with Noah, then with things taking place, and I firmly believing that the Bible was true, my heart’s desire was to God in solemn prayer to know where and what race of people these Indians sprang from, It was made known (whether by dream or vision I will leave that for you, to judge)
An angel as I thought came to me and said, Come along with me and I was immediately on a beast like a horse, and the angel at my left hand with his feet about the same height that my feet were as I sat on the horse, and in this position was conveyed to near the place where the record was deposited and he said stop here, and the angel went about 4 or 5 Rods and took in his hand a book, and on his return to where I stood, as I thought there were many stood with me; One said, what book is that? and the answer was, it is a bible a bible, the word of God, a record of a people that came from Jerusalem, the fore fathers of these Indians, [“these Indians” refer to those who live in the New York area] And it also contains a record of a people that came from the Tower of Babel at the time the Lord confounded the language and scattered the people into all the world, and it the Book Ether;3 and then with great anxiety of heart I asked if I might have the book, and answer was that it was not the Lords time then, but it should come, “and you shall see it,” and then said look, and as I looked, I beheld a man standing as I thought at a distance of two hundred yards, and the angel said “there is the Man that the Lord hath appointed &c, and he is not yet born.[”] I have related it in short, as I have not time now to give a full detail of all that I had a view of.
Yours with respect.
Benjamin Benson November 12th 1837 Joseph Smith Jr Far West. N. B At some further time if the Lord will I will be more full if you should wish it. I shall direct this to you as a letter and you cannot act your Judgement in either keeping it to yourself or publishing it by making use of my name.4 [p. 51]
Footnotes
- 1 Benson may have been referring to the fortified villages or traditional longhouses built by the Oneida and Onondaga tribes of the Iroquois Six Nations in central New York. He also may have seen forts built during the French and Indian War, some of which were constructed on the ruins of American Indian villages. The forts described by Benson also may have had connections to other indigenous people. Contemporary accounts identified several mounds in western New York and associated these mounds and their fortifications with an ancient mound building people. (Hauptman, Conspiracy of Interests, 27–33, 78, 107; Hamilton, French and Indian Wars, 161–184, 239–249; Vogel, Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon, 24–30.) Comprehensive Works Cited Hauptman, Laurence M. Conspiracy of Interests: Iroquois Dispossession and the Rise of New York State. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1999. Hamilton, Edward Pierce. The French and Indian Wars: The Story of Battles and Forts in the Wilderness. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962.Vogel, Dan. Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon: Religious Solutions from Columbus to Joseph Smith. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1986.
- 2 The theory of polygenism, or different origins for different races, emerged in European scholarly thought in the sixteenth century. As Europeans encountered new cultures and races, polygenism attempted to explain their origins. Discussions of this theory were particularly widespread in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as Enlightenment thought led to the development of racial science and the categorization and ranking of different races. Some scholars tried to make the Bible compatible with polygenism, creating theories of multiple or simultaneous creations besides the creation of Adam. Polygenism and its underlying racial concerns are found throughout nineteenth-century popular and religious literature. For many nineteenth-century Christians, the theory was a direct challenge to Christianity’s single biblical creation and the religious requirement of redemption after the fall of Adam and Eve. JS, like other Christians of his day, emphasized the single creation found in the Bible and humanity’s common descent from Adam and Eve. (Kidd, Forging of Races, 121–167; Livingstone, Adam’s Ancestors, 169–201; Reeve, Religion of a Different Color, 131.) Comprehensive Works Cited Kidd, Colin. The Forging of Races: Race and Scripture in the Protestant Atlantic World, 1600–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006.Livingstone, David N. Adam’s Ancestors: Race, Religion, and the Politics of Human Origins. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.Reeve, W. Paul. Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
- 3 See Book of Mormon, 1830 ed., 539 [Ether 1:33–35]; and Title Page of the Book of Mormon, ca. Early June 1829.
- 4 The letter was not published in either the Elders’ Journal or the church’s later publication, Times and Seasons.
Actual Letter from Benjamin Benson, 12 November 1837
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letter-from-benjamin-benson-12-november-1837/1#full-transcript https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letter-from-benjamin-benson-12-november-1837/1
