Antedatings of "Mormon" and "Mormonism"

Shapiro, Fred fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU
Sat Mar 16 18:22:05 UTC 2013


(Note that newspaper database searches yield 1830 citations for "Book of Mormon.")


Mormon, n. (OED 1833)

1831 _Observer and Telegraph_ (Hudson, Ohio) 7 July (19th Century U.S. Newspapers)  A young Prophetess, who is but eleven years of age, and much celebrated among the Mormons, informed her audience, that she had lately had a _vision_.

Mormon, adj. (OED 1833)

1831 _Observer and Telegraph_ (Hudson, Ohio) 24 Feb. (19th Century U.S. Newspapers)  Where shall we look for its commencement [the commencement of their baptism]?  Evidently, as they will themselves acknowledge, when [Joseph] Smith commenced with the Morman dispensation.

1831 _Daily National Journal_ (Washington, D.C.) 30 Mar. (America's Historical Newspapers)  The Editor of the Painsville Ohio Gazette says: -- _Martin Harris_, one of the original Mormon prophets, arrived in the village last Saturday, on his way to the 'Holy Land.'

Mormonism

1831 _Observer and Telegraph_ (Hudson, Ohio) 24 Feb. (19th Century U.S. Newspapers)  (heading) Mormonism.

Fred Shapiro

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list