Grave of Book of Mormon witness identified

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    By Noah Bond

    The grave site of one of the eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon, Hiram Page, was a mystery until two years ago.

    Scholars knew his grave was near a suburb northeast of Kansas City named Excelsior Springs, but the exact location was never pinpointed until two ordinary Excelsior Springs citizens stumbled upon the answer.

    Frank and Kathy Hamer inherited land from Kathy”s father in an obscure area northeast of Excelsior Springs during the late 1990”s.

    They knew the name of the man buried on their property because of family stories passed down for decades.

    According to Kathy, Hiram Page”s son, Peter, traveled to his father”s grave during the early 1900”s.

    During one of Peter”s visits, Kathy”s great-grandparents were told the name of the man buried on the family property but this was all that was told to the generations after Kathy”s great-grandparents.

    The couple wanted to learn more about the man whose grave they intended to mark.

    “I just have this thing about graves. They ought to be properly marked and maintained,” said Frank.

    Their search for information about the man buried on their property seemed fruitless until Frank discovered a web page dedicated to Hiram.

    “I was just scrolling down and noticed a little quotation that he was one of the eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon,” said Frank.

    Frank said he understood the role of the eight witnesses, even though he was not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

    A stranger taught him about the eight witnesses during a truck stop in Utah 25 years earlier.

    “I was just shocked. I was surprised that there was no marker and nobody seemed to know where this is,” said Frank.

    The Missouri Mormon Frontier Foundation, a non-denominational organization aimed at finding and marking significant Latter-day Saint sites, was contacted.

    “We were just ecstatic. We set up an appointment to visit the grave and they brought an abstract along to prove that this was actually the farm,” Curtis said.

    Today, a gravestone marks Page”s burial plot, which has been largely unknown to the world since his death in 1852.

    A formal commemoration ceremony was held April 30, 2002. Members of the Missouri Mormon Frontier Foundation attended, along with Ron Romeg, the head archivist for the Community of Christ Church (formerly known as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints).

    Romeg invited BYU researcher Richard Anderson to speak at the dedication.

    “The program was fairly variegated with individuals representing different points of view while uniting in commemoration of a Book of Mormon witness,” said Anderson.

    The original program said five Latter-day Saint groups were invited to attend.

    About forty people from the community came to the dedication even though a heavy downpour lasted the duration of the ceremony.

    The people gathered to honor a largely-unknown man because he testified to have hefted golden plates containing records of ancient prophets known today as the Book of Mormon.

    Every copy of the Book of Mormon contains Page”s signed testimony of its truthfulness.

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