Knox Cave Article August 22, 1936
Study Tablets in Helderberg Cave for Mormon Origin
Strange Markings May Be Ancient Language of Indian Tribes or Other Prehistoric Race
While the members of the cast of the Mohawk Drama Festival were busy with their final rehearsals of the world premier of Edgar Lee Masters' historic drama, "Moroni," which is being presented this week in the open air theater at Union College, representatives of the local Van Epps-Hartley Chapter of the New York State Archeological Association were investigating a discovery which may cast new light on the strange events which are the basis of Mr. Masters' play.
Tablet Far Under Ground
At the invitation of D. C. Robinson, manager of the Knox Cave, near Altamont, two members of the local chapter examined a number of broken stone tablets which were found nearly 200 feet underground, in an inaccessible recess of the cave, and which are covered with markings similar to many of the characters of the ancient Egyptian writing from which the Book of Mormon, the Bible of the Mormon religion, was translated over a century ago. In 1827 Jospeh Smith, a young farmer living near Palmyra, New York, announced that he had vision in which the angel Moroni appeared and showed him the hiding place of a book of golden plates, written in an ancient language which gave the history of the peopling of America by Jewish refugess from Jerusalem, 2,500 years ago, and their gradual degeneration into the race of American Indians. These plates, translated with the aid of a pair of magical spectacles, were published in 1830 as the Book of Mormon, and forms the foundation of the Mormon religion. Members of the present=day Mormon Church have studied the tablets from Knox Cave, and state that the markings on them are identical with the sacred hieretic writing of the Egyptian priests in which the Book of Mormon was written.
