This item is reproduced by permission of The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Footnotes
JS, Journal, 4 Jan. 1836. Though the school was officially organized on that day, JS’s journal indicates that he began studying Hebrew informally as early as late November 1835—sometimes alone and sometimes in the company of others—and more “regularly, & systematically” after 26 December 1835. In addition to studying Hebrew, Kirtland residents were taking classes in subjects such as theology, English grammar, geography, writing, and history by January 1836. (JS, Journal, 21 Nov. and 26 Dec. 1835; JS History, 1834–1836, 163; Satterfield, “History of Adult Education in Kirtland,” 97–130.)
Satterfield, Bruce Kelly. “The History of Adult Education in Kirtland, Ohio, 1833–37.” PhD diss., University of Idaho, 2002.
JS, Journal, 26 Jan. 1836.
Cowdery, Diary, 1, 6, and 7 Feb. 1836; JS, Journal, 4 Feb. 1836.
Cowdery, Oliver. Diary, Jan.–Mar. 1836. CHL. MS 3429. Also available as Leonard J. Arrington, “Oliver Cowdery’s Kirtland, Ohio, ‘Sketch Book,’” BYU Studies 12 (Summer 1972): 410–426.
JS, Journal, 26 Jan. and 29 Mar. 1836. In October 1835, Oliver Cowdery exchanged letters with Lucius Parker of Southborough, Massachusetts, about teaching the class, but the school committee rejected his candidacy after learning that he could teach only the “rudiments of Hebrew.” In early November, the committee arranged for Daniel Peixotto, a Jew and professor of medicine and obstetrics at the nearby Willoughby Medical College, to teach the class. Peixotto ultimately failed to fulfill his agreement. (Oliver Cowdery, Kirtland, OH, to Lucius Parker, Southborough, MA, 28 Oct. 1835, in Cowdery, Letterbook, 57; Historical Introduction to Revelation, 2 Nov. 1835; Daniel Peixotto, Willoughby, OH, to Warren Parrish, Kirtland, OH, 5 Jan. 1836; Warren Parrish, Kirtland, OH, to Daniel Peixotto, Willoughby, OH, 11 Jan. 1836, in JS, Journal, 18 Jan. 1836.)
Cowdery, Oliver. Letterbook, 1833–1838. Huntington Library, San Marino, CA.
Phillips, “Levy and Seixas Families of Newport and New York,” 208; Stern, First American Jewish Families, 264; “Seixas,” in Encyclopedia Judaica, 255–256.
Phillips, N. Taylor. “The Levy and Seixas Families of Newport and New York.” In Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, 4: 189–214. Baltimore: American Jewish Historical Society, 1896.
Stern, Malcolm H., comp. First American Jewish Families: 600 Genealogies, 1654–1977. Cincinnati: American Jewish Archives; Waltham, MA: American Jewish Historical Society, 1978.
Encyclopedia Judaica. 16 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1971–1972.
“Testimonials,” verso of Joshua Seixas, Utica, NY, to John Shipherd, Oberlin, OH, 29 May 1835, Office of the Treasurer, Record Group 7, Series 7/1/5, Letters Received by Oberlin College, 1822–1907, Subseries 1, Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin, OH; Longworth, Longworth’s American Almanac [1829], 502; Moses Stuart, Andover, MA, to Joshua Seixas, Charlestown, MA, 6 Sept. 1832, Nathan-Kraus Family Collection, 1738–1939, Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati; Joshua Seixas, Manual Hebrew Grammar for the Use of Beginners (Andover, MA: Gould and Newman, 1834).
Office of the Treasurer Records. Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin, OH.
Longworth’s American Almanac, New-York Register and City Directory for 1829. New York: By the author, 1829.
Stuart, Moses. Letter, Andover, MA, to Joshua Seixas, Charlestown, MA, 6 Sept. 1832. Nathan-Kraus Family Collection, 1738–1939. Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati.
Seixas, Joshua. Manual Hebrew Grammar for the Use of Beginners. 2nd ed., enl. and impr. Andover, MA: Gould and Newman, 1834.
Seixas, Manual Hebrew Grammar, iii. Former students endorsed the professor’s teaching methods as effective, and before moving to Ohio to teach at Oberlin, Seixas forwarded to the college’s president a list of enthusiastic testimonials gleaned from past students. (“Testimonials,” verso of Joshua Seixas, Utica, NY, to John Shipherd, Oberlin, OH, 29 May 1835, Office of the Treasurer, Record Group 7, Series 7/1/5, Letters Received by Oberlin College, 1822–1907, Subseries 1, Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin, OH.)
Seixas, Joshua. Manual Hebrew Grammar for the Use of Beginners. 2nd ed., enl. and impr. Andover, MA: Gould and Newman, 1834.
Office of the Treasurer Records. Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin, OH.
Seixas arrived in Oberlin, Ohio, during the summer of 1835 and, though not an official faculty member, taught classes at the Oberlin Collegiate Institute during the fall. From 8 December 1835 to 23 January 1836, he taught Hebrew to students at the Western Reserve College in Hudson, Ohio. (Joshua Seixas, Utica, NY, to John Shipherd, Oberlin, OH, 29 May 1835, Office of the Treasurer, Record Group 7, Series 7/1/5, Letters Received by Oberlin College, 1822–1907, Subseries 1, Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin, OH; Faculty Minutes, 14 July 1835, Board of Trustees Records, 1833–1982, Record Group 1, Series 2, Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin, OH; Fletcher, History of Oberlin College, 368–370; “Hebrew Lectures,” Ohio Observer [Hudson], 7 Jan. 1836, [2]; “Extracts from the Daily Journal of John Bus,” Enclosure, in F. C. Waite, Cleveland, OH, to Joseph L. Rubin, Washington DC, 8 Nov. 1933, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, OH.)
Office of the Treasurer Records. Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin, OH.
Faculty Minutes. Board of Trustees Records, 1833–1982, Record Group 1, Series 2. Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin, OH.
Fletcher, Robert Samuel. A History of Oberlin College: From Its Foundation through the Civil War. 2 vols. Oberlin, OH: Oberlin College, 1943.
Ohio Observer. Hudson. 1827–1855.
“Extracts from the Daily Journal of John Bus.” Enclosure, in F. C. Waite, Cleveland, OH, to Joseph L. Rubin, Washington DC, 8 Nov. 1933. Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, OH. Copy at CHL.
“Extracts from the Daily Journal of John Bus,” Enclosure, in F. C. Waite, Cleveland, OH, to Joseph L. Rubin, Washington DC, 8 Nov. 1933, Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, OH.
“Extracts from the Daily Journal of John Bus.” Enclosure, in F. C. Waite, Cleveland, OH, to Joseph L. Rubin, Washington DC, 8 Nov. 1933. Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, OH. Copy at CHL.
JS, Journal, 4–6 Jan. 1836. In January 1836, McLellin and Orson Hyde had been sent by the school committee to hire an instructor. McLellin described Seixas as a “highly celebrated . . . hebrew schollar” who “proposes to give us sufficient knowledge to read and translate the language” in seven weeks. (JS, Journal, 4, 6, and 26 Jan. 1836.)
JS, Journal, 26 Jan. 1836.
JS, Journal, 26 Jan. and 1 Feb. 1836; Cowdery, Diary, 1–2 Feb. 1836.
Cowdery, Oliver. Diary, Jan.–Mar. 1836. CHL. MS 3429. Also available as Leonard J. Arrington, “Oliver Cowdery’s Kirtland, Ohio, ‘Sketch Book,’” BYU Studies 12 (Summer 1972): 410–426.
JS, Journal, 4 Feb. 1836; Cowdery, Diary, 4 Feb. 1836.
Cowdery, Oliver. Diary, Jan.–Mar. 1836. CHL. MS 3429. Also available as Leonard J. Arrington, “Oliver Cowdery’s Kirtland, Ohio, ‘Sketch Book,’” BYU Studies 12 (Summer 1972): 410–426.
JS and the committee did have a limited number of books in their possession. In November 1835, Oliver Cowdery had traveled to New York, in part to purchase Hebrew study materials, and JS’s journal notes that he returned with a “Hebrew bible, lexicon & Grammar, also a Greek Lexicon and Websters English Lexicon.” (JS, Journal, 20 Nov. 1835.)
JS, Journal, 4 and 5 Feb. 1836. Apparently Hebrew Bibles were scarce in 1835; in a letter to a trustee at Oberlin, written in May 1835, Seixas remarked that the Bibles “cost rather more than I had anticipated on account of their scarcity. Perhaps there are not ten copies for sale in the U. States.” (Joshua Seixas, Utica, NY, to John Shipherd, Oberlin, OH, 29 May 1835, Office of the Treasurer, Record Group 7, Series 7/1/5, Letters Received by Oberlin College, 1822–1907, Subseries 1, Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin, OH.)
Office of the Treasurer Records. Oberlin College Archives, Oberlin, OH.
Joshua Seixas, Supplement to J. Seixas’ Manual Hebrew Grammar (New York: West and Trow, 1836).
Seixas, Joshua. Supplement to J. Seixas’ Manual Hebrew Grammar, for the Kirtland, Ohio, Theological Institution. New York: West and Trow, 1836.
Cowdery, Diary, 6 Feb. 1836.
Cowdery, Oliver. Diary, Jan.–Mar. 1836. CHL. MS 3429. Also available as Leonard J. Arrington, “Oliver Cowdery’s Kirtland, Ohio, ‘Sketch Book,’” BYU Studies 12 (Summer 1972): 410–426.
Stern, First American Jewish Families, 264, 326; Phillips, “Levy and Seixas Families of Newport and New York,” 208.
Stern, Malcolm H., comp. First American Jewish Families: 600 Genealogies, 1654–1977. Cincinnati: American Jewish Archives; Waltham, MA: American Jewish Historical Society, 1978.
Phillips, N. Taylor. “The Levy and Seixas Families of Newport and New York.” In Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, 4: 189–214. Baltimore: American Jewish Historical Society, 1896.
Stern, First American Jewish Families, 264; Fletcher, History of Oberlin College, 369.
Stern, Malcolm H., comp. First American Jewish Families: 600 Genealogies, 1654–1977. Cincinnati: American Jewish Archives; Waltham, MA: American Jewish Historical Society, 1978.
Fletcher, Robert Samuel. A History of Oberlin College: From Its Foundation through the Civil War. 2 vols. Oberlin, OH: Oberlin College, 1943.
JS, Journal, 13 Feb. 1836; Cowdery, Diary, 13 Feb. 1836. According to JS’s journal, JS and the school committee “made arrangements with Mr. Seixas about continuing longer with us & bringing his family to this place” on 11 March. The family arrived three days later, though it is not clear how long they remained. (JS, Journal, 11–14 Mar. 1836.)
Cowdery, Oliver. Diary, Jan.–Mar. 1836. CHL. MS 3429. Also available as Leonard J. Arrington, “Oliver Cowdery’s Kirtland, Ohio, ‘Sketch Book,’” BYU Studies 12 (Summer 1972): 410–426.
Warren F. Cowdery was the son of Warren A. Cowdery, Oliver Cowdery’s older brother.
Cowdery, Diary, 6 Feb. 1836.
Cowdery, Oliver. Diary, Jan.–Mar. 1836. CHL. MS 3429. Also available as Leonard J. Arrington, “Oliver Cowdery’s Kirtland, Ohio, ‘Sketch Book,’” BYU Studies 12 (Summer 1972): 410–426.
Cowdery, Diary, 7 Feb. 1836.
Cowdery, Oliver. Diary, Jan.–Mar. 1836. CHL. MS 3429. Also available as Leonard J. Arrington, “Oliver Cowdery’s Kirtland, Ohio, ‘Sketch Book,’” BYU Studies 12 (Summer 1972): 410–426.
JS, Journal, 13 Feb. 1836.
The Hebrew School. In the preface to Joshua Seixas’s Supplement to J. Seixas’ Manual Hebrew Grammar, Oliver Cowdery used the term “Kirtland Theological Institution.” This may have referred to the Hebrew School specifically or to the Elders School generally. (Seixas, Supplement to J. Seixas’ Manual Hebrew Grammar, 7.)
Seixas, Joshua. Supplement to J. Seixas’ Manual Hebrew Grammar, for the Kirtland, Ohio, Theological Institution. New York: West and Trow, 1836.
The Old Testament was written mostly in Hebrew; the New Testament was written in Greek. Like his contemporaries, JS saw learning Hebrew as a means to read and understand the scriptures “in the language in which they were givn.” Following the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation, a movement to study Hebrew began on the European continent and spread to universities in England, such as Cambridge and Oxford. In America, Harvard, Yale, and other prominent Protestant universities trained religious students in Hebrew during the colonial era. Though the study of Hebrew at American universities had diminished by the 1780s, a resurgence of biblical study—sparked by the Second Great Awakening, the professionalization of college teaching, and the revival of seminary education in the first decades of the nineteenth century—created a renewed interest in Hebrew among Christian intellectuals. Amid this revival, newly established religious institutions in Ohio, such as Oberlin and Western Reserve College, offered courses in Hebrew to their students. JS had studied Greek prior to this time, though it is unclear if and to what extent his study was done in order to understand the New Testament in its original language. (JS, Journal, 23 Dec. 1835 and 4 Feb. 1836; Jones, Discovery of Hebrew in Tudor England, 180–220; Goldman, God’s Sacred Tongue, 116–118, 129, 147–150; Fletcher, History of Oberlin College, 367; Cutler, History of Western Reserve College, 21; see also Grey, “Word of the Lord in the Original,” 249–275; and Welch, “Joseph Smith’s Awareness of Greek and Latin,” 310–316.)
Jones, G. Lloyd. The Discovery of Hebrew in Tudor England: A Third Language. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983.
Goldman, Shalom. God’s Sacred Tongue: Hebrew and the American Imagination. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 2004.
Fletcher, Robert Samuel. A History of Oberlin College: From Its Foundation through the Civil War. 2 vols. Oberlin, OH: Oberlin College, 1943.
Cutler, Carroll. A History of Western Reserve College, During Its First Half Century, 1826–1876. Cleveland: Crocker’s Publishing, 1876.
Grey, Matthew J. “‘The Word of the Lord in the Original’: Joseph Smith’s Study of Hebrew in Kirtland.” In Approaching Antiquity: Joseph Smith and the Ancient World, edited by Lincoln H. Blumell, Matthew J. Grey, and Andrew H. Hedges, 249–302. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015.
Welch, John W. “Joseph Smith’s Awareness of Greek and Latin.” In Approaching Antiquity: Joseph Smith and the Ancient World, edited by Lincoln H. Blumell, Matthew J. Grey, and Andrew H. Hedges, 303–328. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015.
As members of the school committee, JS, Sidney Rigdon, Frederick G. Williams, and Oliver Cowdery acted as trustees of the Hebrew School.