“I had seen him two or three times, while visiting at my sisters, but did not think it worth my while to take any notice of him. I never spoke to him, for he was a total stranger to me. However, I thought him odd looking and queer. He also told his friends that he could see money in pots, under the ground. He pretended to foretell people’s future destiny, and, according to his prognostication, his friends agreed to suspend their avocations and dig for the treasures, which were hidden in the earth; a great share of which, he said, was on Joseph Knight’s farm…

“[I]n the time of their digging for money and not finding it attainable, Joe Smith told them there was a charm on the pots of money, and if some animal was killed and the blood sprinkled around the place, then they could get it. So they killed a dog, and tried this method of obtaining the precious metal; but again money was scarce in those diggings. Still, they dug and dug, but never came to the precious treasure. Alas! how vivid was the expectation when the blood of poor Tray [dog] was used to take off the charm, and after all to find their mistake, that it did not speak better things than that of Abel.”

Emily Coburn, in Emily M. Austin’s Mormonism; or, Life Among the Mormons (Madison, WI: M. J. Cantwell, 1882), 32-33.