Edward Stevenson's Testimony of the Three Witnesses and Speaking in Tongues

Edward Stevenson, born in 1820, lived in Pontiac, Michigan, where he was baptized into the Church in December 1833. As a youth of thirteen, he attended meetings at a local schoolhouse where he heard Joseph Smith, his father, his brother Hyrum, and the Three Witnesses (Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris) preach and testify. Stevenson vividly recalled the Prophet Joseph Smith promising that those who repented and were baptized would receive the Holy Ghost, speak in tongues, and experience the signs following. These gifts were frequently manifest in the Pontiac Branch. Among those who exercised the gift of tongues were a young girl named Mary Curtis—who decades later in the Logan Temple again spoke in tongues as Sister Sarah Kimball interpreted—and Brother Elijah Fordham. Stevenson recounted a specific instance at a testimony meeting when Brother Fordham spoke in tongues while two French travelers were passing on the adjacent turnpike road. Drawn to the open window, the travelers asked a boy outside if he understood the speaker. When the boy replied in the negative, the Frenchmen declared that Brother Fordham was preaching the Gospel to them in French, though Fordham had no natural knowledge of the language. Stevenson also testified to witnessing the power of God manifest in healings and seeing the countenances of those speaking in tongues shine with the Spirit.