Tucson Artifacts Bear Out Mormon Traditions Except Dates, Says Elder
Arizona Daily Star, December 16, 1925
But President of Church Doubts Kimball Is Qualified to Speak; Withholds Church’s Opinion
Gordon Kimball, first counselor to the presiding elder, A. B. Ballantyne, points out the definite resemblance between “the inscriptions on the artifacts and the story as told in the Book of Mormon of the landing of the tribes of Chile, of their later wanderings through the ‘narrow neck of land’ (the Isthmus of Panama), their villages and towns in the west and southwest and their final extinction by their accursed brethren, the tribe of Laman, which, he said, is supposed to have occurred at the Hill Cumorah in Ontario County, New York.”
The Golden Book, which was written on thin plates of gold, was hidden by Mormon, the last of the white race and found years later by Joseph Smith, Kimball said. “Its history dates from 600 B.C. to 400 A. D., and in those dates, which do not agree exactly with the dates after 700 A. D. as contained on the artifact, the Mormons see the only discrepancy.”
Heber J. Grant, President of the Mormon Church, said, “We do not care to make any statements at this time.”
