The first miracle in the history of the Church

Last updated on: June 10, 2026 at 8:29 pm by Dan Peterson

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The first miracle in the history of the Church 2026-06-10T20:29:51-06:00 Dan Peterson

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An 1870s cartoon by Thomas Nast says “Religious liberty is guaranteed but can we allow foreign reptiles to crawl all over US?” The alligator on the left is labeled “Roman Church,” while the snapping turtle on the right bears the title “Mormon Church.” (Wikimedia Commons public domain image). It’s fairly subtle, but I think that most will catch the general drift.

As he regularly does, C. D. Cunningham has published an article that is well worth reading: “LEGO, YouTube, and the Latter-day Saint Mafia.” It appears in Meridian Magazine, where articles are often worth reading.

City Hall in the tiny and sparsely-populated rural hamlet of Fairview, Texas, which is evidently made up entirely of scattered single-story cottages interspersed among large tracts of undeveloped meadows. Here’s a suggestion: Prolonged fierce opposition to a proposed Latter-day Saint temple in Fairview (denounced by its opponents as too large and too obtrusive) might subside at least a little bit if leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would just agree to construct the temple within the confines of a 26K-gallon gas-station fuel tank to be buried beneath a landfill several blocks from City Hall.

I’m excited to share the latest tidings from the friendly and hospitable town of Fairview, Texas, in connection with the Latter-day Saint temple that is now under construction there: “Fairview to launch pressure campaign against LDS church over steeple height.” I hope that, when the temple is finally completed, the city fathers will be able to mobilize crowds of hostile placard-waving demonstrators to help to celebrate its open house and dedication.

Rumor has it that critics of the Fairview Texas Temple might be satisfied if the Church were to agree to construct it not as a full-scale building but, rather, as a small symbolic model to be placed in the new visitors center at Temple Square in Salt Lake City. (See the second photograph here for an illustration of the concept.)

At the Joseph and Polly Knight farm, in Colesville (now Nineveh), New York. From the Colesville Restoration website.

I’ll be speaking to the Joseph Knight Sr. Family Reunion in American Fork, Utah, on 19 June and — it’s about time! — I’m beginning to marshal my thoughts for the presentation. Here’s something that I almost certainly won’t be using that evening, but that I thought I would share here. My thoughts were turned toward the incident by Glenn Dawson and Dennis Lyman, eds., Joseph Smith Jr.: Testimonies of Those Who Knew Him (Sandy, UT: History of the Saints Inc., 2021), although the story is widely available in various places — after this first quotation, I draw mostly from the so-called Documentary History of the Church:

Among the truest friends that the Prophet Joseph Smith had in his lifetime was the Joseph Knight Sr. family of Colesville, New York. They were there to assist the Prophet as early as the time during which he translated the Book of Mormon. When the Church was organized on April 6, 1830, the Knight family and their numerous connections were in attendance. (1)

Shortly after that organizational meeting, Joseph Smith traveled to Colesville, preaching to the Knights and their friends. Newel Knight, a son of Joseph Knight Sr., was there, and the Prophet asked him to pray vocally. Newel was reluctant despite encouragement, so Joseph suggested that he attempt to pray alone, outside in the woods, as a first step toward public prayer. And now for the account as it appears, seemingly recounted by Joseph Smith himself, in the Documentary History:

Accordingly, he deferred praying until the next morning, when he retired into the woods,
where (according to his own account afterwards) he made several attempts to pray, but
could scarcely do so, feeling that he had not done his duty, but that he should have
prayed in the presence of others. He began to feel uneasy and continued to feel worse
both in mind and body until upon reaching his own house his appearance was such as to
alarm his wife very much.
He requested her to go and bring me to him. I went and found him suffering very much
in his mind and his body acted upon in a very strange manner. His visage and limbs were
distorted, and twisted in every shape and appearance possible to imagine, and finally he
was caught up off the floor of the apartment and tossed about most fearfully. His
situation was soon made known to his neighbors and relatives, and in a short time as
many as eight or nine grown persons had got together to witness the scene.
After he thus suffered for a time, I succeeded in getting hold of him by the hand, when
almost immediately he spoke to me and with great earnestness requested of me, that I
should cast the devil out of him, saying that he knew he was in him, and that he also
knew that I could cast him out. I replied, if you know that I can, it shall be done, and
then almost inconsicously[sic] I rebuked the devil and commanded him in the name of
Jesus Christ to depart from him, when immediately Newel spoke out and said that he
saw the devil leave him and vanish from his sight. This was the first miracle which has been done in this church or by any member of it, and it was done not by man, but it was
done by God, and by the power of godliness; therefore let the honor and the praise, the
dominion and the glory be ascribed to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit for ever and ever,
Amen.
The scene was now entirely changed, for as soon as the devil had departed from our
friend, his countenance became natural, his distortions of body ceased and almost
immediately the Spirit of the Lord descended upon him, and the visions of eternity were
opened to his view. He [Newel] afterwards related his experience as follows:
I [Newel] now began to feel a most pleasing sensation resting upon me, and immediately
the visions of heaven were opened to my view. I felt myself attracted upwards, and
remained for sometimes enwrapt [enwrapped] in contemplation, insomuch that I knew
not what was going on in the room. By and by I felt some weight pressing upon my
shoulder and the side of my head, which served to recall me to a sense of my situation,
and found that the spirit of the Lord actually caught me up off the floor, and that my
shoulder and head were pressing against the beams. All this was witnessed by many to
their great astonishment and satisfaction, when they saw the devil thus cast out and the
power of God and his Holy Spirit thus made manifest.

Joseph Smith resumes the account:

As soon as consciousness returned, his [Newel’s] bodily weakness was such that we
were obliged to lay him upon his bed and wait upon him for some time. As may be
expected, such a scene as this contributed much to make believers of those who
witnessed it, and finally, the greater part of them became members of the Church.

During the last week of May 1830, Newel himself went to Fayette, New York, where the Whitmer family lived. While he was there, he was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by David Whitmer, one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon.

The Susquehanna River, near Nineveh, New York (formerly Colesville). We took this photo during a trip there in May 2015, when it was still fairly cool. So the trees hadn’t yet filled in.

In July 1830, hostile local religious leaders and other antagonists filed criminal charges in Colesville against Joseph Smith, claiming that he was a “disorderly person” who had committed fraudulent religious activities. (This was among the first of Joseph Smith’s thirty to forty arrests.) At trial, Newel Knight was called as a witness on Joseph’s behalf. Under oath — which strikes me as not unimportant — he testified that the Prophet had cast a devil out of him and described the incident. Newel recorded in his journal his interrogation by the prosecuting attorney:

“Mr. Seymour asked: ‘Did the prisoner, Joseph Smith, Jun., cast the devil out of you?’

“[Newel’s] Answer: ‘No, sir.’

“Question: ‘Why, have you not had the devil cast out of you?’

“Answer: ‘Yes, sir.’

“Question: ‘And had not Joseph Smith some hand in it being done?’

“Answer: ‘Yes, sir.’

“Question: ‘And did he not cast him out of you?’

“Answer: ‘No, sir, it was done by the power of God, and Joseph Smith was the instrument in the hands of God on this occasion. He commanded him to come out of me in the name of Jesus Christ.’

“Question: ‘And are you sure it was the devil?’

“Answer: ‘Yes, sir.’

“Question: ‘Did you see him after he was cast out of you?’

“Answer: ‘Yes, sir, I saw him.’

“Question: ‘Pray, what did he look like?’

“(Here one of the lawyers on the part of the defense told me I need not answer that question.) I replied:

“‘I believe I need not answer that question, but I will do it if I am allowed to ask you one, and you can answer it. Do you, Mr. Seymour, understand the things of the Spirit?’

“‘No,’ answered Mr. Seymour, ‘I do not pretend to such big things.’

“‘Well, then,’ I replied, ‘it will be of no use for me to tell you what the devil looked like, for it was a spiritual sight and spiritually discerned, and, of course, you would not understand it were I to tell you of it.’