Hiram Page: The Forgotten Witness Who Chose Death Over Denying the Book of Mormon

Hiram Page is one of the Eight Witnesses of the Book of Mormon — men who physically handled the gold plates and testified that they had 'seen and hefted' them. Unlike the Three Witnesses who saw an angel, the Eight Witnesses examined the plates as a tangible, physical object in ordinary daylight. Page's name appears permanently in the front of every copy of the Book of Mormon ever printed.

Born around 1800 in Vermont, Hiram married Catherine Whitmer, daughter of Peter Whitmer Sr., making him a son-in-law of the Whitmer family. In June 1829, alongside three members of the Smith family and four Whitmer in-laws, he had the experience with the gold plates that made him an official witness.

His most extraordinary moment of faithfulness came in October 1833, during the violent expulsion of Latter-day Saints from Jackson County, Missouri. A mob of approximately 40 vigilantes chased Hiram Page into the woods. They beat him savagely with whips and clubs while his wife and children were forced at gunpoint to watch, believing he would die before it ended.

As recorded by William E. McLellin — a highly careful firsthand investigator — the mob gave Page a way out: 'If you will deny that book, we will let you go.' Hiram Page's response was simple and unshakeable: 'How can I deny what I know to be true?' They beat him again. When he appeared near death, one of the mob taunted him: 'Now what do you think of your God, when he don't save you?' Page replied: 'I believe in God.' Even some members of the mob were moved. One said: 'I believe the fool will stick to it though we kill him. Let us let him go.' He was confined to bed for a long recovery. At least one historian has noted that his injuries may have contributed to his relatively early death at age 52.

Hiram Page eventually left the Church in 1838 during the crisis years, though he was apparently never formally excommunicated. But he never once abandoned his testimony of the Book of Mormon. He remained involved with other Book of Mormon-based movements until his death. In 1888, nearly four decades after Page died, his son Philander — himself unaffiliated with any branch of Mormonism — was asked about his father: 'I knew my father to be true and faithful to his testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon until the very last. Whenever he had an opportunity to bear his testimony to this effect, he would always do so, and seemed to rejoice exceedingly in having been privileged to see the plates.'

Hiram Page's grave was entirely lost to history until it was rediscovered and relocated in the year 2000, near Excelsior Springs, Missouri. His willingness to suffer near-death rather than deny what he knew to be true stands as one of the most powerful testimonies of the reality of the Book of Mormon.

Fuller account of this event (as retold in FAIR, The Eight Witnesses, August 2019):

When the mob was raging in Jackson C. in 1833 some young men ran down Hiram Page and commenced beating him with whips and clubs. One of them said, if you deny that book, we will let you go. Hiram Page's response was simple and unshakeable: How can I deny what I know to be true? They beat him again. When he appeared near death, one of the mob taunted him: Now what do you think of your God, when he don't save you? Page replied: I believe in God. Even some members of the mob were moved. One said: I believe the fool will stick to it though we kill him. Let us let him go.