Wow. Flabbergasted that somebody like you has bought this line, hook & sinker attached. (Better have someone extract that hook so that as you remain on the fish string, at least you won't be in pain). WHO taught you that propaganda? Did you know, Rip, that the church printing office was sold in Kirtland, Jan. 15, 1838 at a public auction to pay a debt? (Did you that Smith left in the middle of the night from Kirtland because of his debts?)
Did you know that it wasn't til the day after this sale, that the printing office burned? And that a man Smith named to be an Lds apostle has been pinpointed by historians as the culprit? (A Mormon journalist I cite below mentions the reason...the Mormons didn't want the printing press to fall into the "anti-Mormons'" hands)
Just last week, at Great Moments in Mormon History, I mentioned in post #24:
1838: Jan. 15: The church printing office in Kirtland is attached and sold at public auction to pay a debt to Grandison Newell. [Source: Saints Without Halos
Jan. 16: The church printing office burns. Dissenters claim the church burned it rather than let anyone else have it. Members claim dissenter Lyman Sherman burned it to keep the church from getting it back. [Source: Saints Without Halos
Comment: The Mormon leaders did not want the "anti-Mormons" to have this printing press to produce anti-Mormon material. So, just like the Nauvoo Expositor issue to come 77 months later, the Mormons destroyed a printing press! According to this Utah Mormon journalist -- see Early Mormon Sherman died without ever knowing he was called to be an apostle :
Sherman was a close friend of Joseph Smith. He served as a president in the first Quorum of the Seventies from 1835 to 1837...Sherman also participated in secret anointings and ceremonies in the Kirtland Temple and according to reports, spoke in tongues. As the saints were being forced from Kirtland, opposition leaders sought to use a printing office to manufacture anti-LDS tracts. That printing office was destroyed by fire to prevent that, and historians believe it was the ever-faithful Sherman who set the blaze to thwart Smith’s enemies. Sherman then moved to Missouri and was on the Far West stake high council. Here’s where it gets interesting. While in Liberty Jail in January 1839, Smith, Sidney Rigdon and Hyrum Smith wrote to Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball that Sherman should be made an apostle. However, unknown to Smith, Sherman’s health was ruined after the Kirtland strife and he was dying. Kimball and Young, for reasons still unclear, chose not to tell Sherman of his call to the apostleship. Perhaps Sherman was in a coma? In any event, this early church leader died in February 1839, in Far West, never knowing about his call.
Colo - 1838: Jan. 15: The church printing office in Kirtland is attached and sold at public auction to pay a debt to Grandison Newell. [Source: Saints Without Halos
Jan. 16: The church printing office burns. Dissenters claim the church burned it rather than let anyone else have it. Members claim dissenter Lyman Sherman burned it to keep the church from getting it back. [Source: Saints Without Halos
You know Rip, we 'antis' have been accused time and time again for putting out falsehoods and lies - without ponying up to provide the evidence. Here a mormon lie have been caught and the excuse is baseless. Further Rip, the Expositor was destroyed at the order of Smith in his capacity of the mayor/general of Nauvoo. This Ohio press was properly attached and sold because of the Kirkland bank scheme - only to be burned by MORMONS. Could this be another episode of infamous mormon 'lying for the lord' apologetics?
One word of advice though, if you try to make one an offender for a word, or in my case, as state, it's bad form. Please don't unleash such a torrent of indignation again, or at least don't expect a response.