Hiram Page was born in the year 1800 in Vermont. Hiram "studied medicine when he was quite young and later traveled in New York and Canada as a doctor." [Dear, Two Hundred Thirty-eight years of the Whitmer Family, 1737-1976 (Richmond, MO Beck Printing Company, 1976), 43.] He moved to the Fayette, Seneca County, New York, area and married Catherine Whitmer (1807-??), 10 November 1825.
    When, Joseph Smith, Jr., (originator of a new American religion known as Mormonism), moved into the Peter Whitmer, Sr., home in 1829, Hiram was enlisted as one of eight special witnesses. His signed statement affirms his belief in the authenticity of metallic plates associated with the translation of the Book of Mormon. Hiram was baptized into the new church by Oliver Cowdery in Seneca Lake, 11 April 1830. Catherine received baptism at the same time.
    Hiram was thereafter ordained a teacher at the church's first conference 9 June 1830. He came into possession of a stone whereby he received private revelations concerning the order of the church and building up of Zion. After examination by Joseph Smith, Hiram and other family members renounced this activity in September 1830.
    When church members gathered west, along with the extended Whitmer clan, Hiram and Catherine moved to the Kirtland and Hiram, Ohio, area. In 1832, the family relocated on the western frontier of the United States in Jackson County, Missouri. Later, as a result of a citizen campaign to force the removal of church members from Jackson County, Hiram, along with three others, traveled to Lexington, Missouri. There they successfully obtained a peace warrant from the circuit judge. But this accomplished little good. The night of 31 October 1833 the "Whitmer Settlement was raided and Hiram was severely beaten.
    Before church members were expelled from the county in November 1833, Page "prophesied . . . that the stars would fall from heaven and frighten many people." [David Whitmer, Address to All Believers in Christ.]
    Fleeing with the Whitmer Family, Hiram and Catherine found refuge in Clay County, Missouri. Before long, non-Mormons of Clay County urged the church to also leave their county. On 29 June 1836 they petitioned, that the Mormons, "leave us, when their crops are gathered, their business settled, and they have made every suitable preparation to move." [HC, 2449-51.] Meanwhile, the state legislature established a new county in Northern Missouri, known as Caldwell, Missouri, as a home for the Mormons. [John Corrill working with Alexander Doniphan at the state level, helped secure this church sanctuary, Differing Visions (Urbana, IL University of Illinois Press, 1994), 57-58; Missouri House Journal, 1836-1837 (Jefferson City, MO 1837), 188.] Along with his brother-in-law John and W. W. Phelps, Hiram Page helped co-found the new Mormon town of Far West in Caldwell County.
    During two years of spectacular growth, Far West flourished. When Joseph Smith moved to the community, relations between the Whitmers and Smith soured. Compelled to leave nearly everything behind, Hiram, Catherine, and the rest of the clan fled from Far West to Richmond, Ray County, Missouri, for their personal safety.
    Soon the advent of the 1838 Mormon War forced the church and its leaders from the state of Missouri. The Whitmer Family remained in Ray and Caldwell counties. Hiram purchased a farm northeast of Excelsior Spring, Missouri, where he settled with his family of nine children.
    Hiram remained affiliated with David Whitmer while considering the possibility of establishing a religious alternative to institutional Mormonism. Hiram's surviving correspondence with William E. McLellin and Hazen Aldrich in the 1840s characterizes Whitmer's religious perspective. Hiram died and was buried on his farm on 12 August 1852. His son Philander stated his father was "true and faithful to his testimony of the divinity of the Book of Mormon till the very last." [Jenson, LDS Biographical Encyclopedia, 1277-78.] Hiram Page's grave remained unmarked through the years. The property subsequently passed into the hands of the Frank and Kathy Hamer Family, who continued to care for the gravesite. The Hamers' effort to obtain more information about Hiram Page resulted in the "rediscovery" of the location of his grave by members of the Missouri Mormon Frontier Foundation in 2000.
    -Compiled by Ron Romig, August 2001

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