Daviess County MO Archives History .....REMAINS OF ADAM ANDI AHMAN AND OLD MORMON TOWN  
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Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 4, 2008, 4:46 pm

REMAINS OF ADAM ANDI AHMAN AND OLD MORMON TOWN IN DAVIESS COUNTY
	Narrator:  Mrs. Boyd Dudley, 72, Gallatin

     Mrs. Belle Holmes (wife of Boyd Dudley) who died 1934, was an early comer 
to Hamilton, arriving with her parents Mr. and Mrs. Benj Holmes, in 1869.  
They built the big Holmes house, on a ten acre tract towards the south end of 
Main street (now the Col. Williams home).  After her marriage, Mrs. Dudley 
moved to Gallatin where she became acquainted with the Mormon history of that 
county.  She was active in D.A.R. state work for many years and as such was 
interested in our D.A.R. project.  She gave the following facts, gleaned from 
interviews with those familiar with Mormon sites in that county.
     One of the most noted Mormon sites is the old town site 4 miles east of 
Jameson, Adam-ondi-Ahman, so called by the prophet Joseph Smith, because "it 
was the place where old Adam would come to visit his people" (the Saints).  
There are two things to see there:  Adam's grave and the house of Lyman Wight 
(an important Mormon leader).
     One of the interviewed conferees was Mrs. Blanche Carlisle who actually 
lived on the very farm where "Adam" is buried.  She says that she was told 
that an early Mormon named Adam was really buried there, and for that reason 
it was called Adam's grave by the early Mormons in the Mormon time, later when 
the Gentiles came, they misunderstood it and took it to mean the Bible Adam.  
However most old timers say the Mormons themselves believed it Adam's grave 
(of the Bible).  Mr. McKinney who lived on an adjoining farm declared that no 
one could possibly be buried on the spot, since it was solid rock.
     The farm on which this Adam's grave is located belongs to Eugene Johnson 
of Gallatin (although it was long known as the McDonald farm).  It is not 
worth much now, judging from the stones, weeds, brambles and rattlesnakes.  It 
is one of the scared spots in Missouri in the Mormon mind who have made many 
painful pilgrimages to it because Joseph Smith walked there and God is 
supposed to have given him inspiration there.  Some say that the big pile of 
rocks marking the grave has been increased by the piety of later visitants 
adding a stone, others say it has been decreased by souvenir hunters.
     The house of Lyman Wight is in a sad state and is all that is left of the 
village of Adam-ondi-Ahman, which in 1837 numbered 500 Saints.  The town 
lasted a year and then the Saints were driven out of the county.  The town was 
ordinarily called Diaman.
     Today the house is a ruin.  The roof has fallen in, the upper floor is 
open to the sky; it was a two story house made of hand hewn logs and stone, 
with a lean to at the rear, probably one of the finest of the pioneer 
dwellings.  Now it is only a tumbled down shack.  The neighbors told Mrs. 
Dudley that many tourists drove up in fine cars to visit it yet, and the 
license plates of most of them read Utah.  In the 60s and 70s people were 
still digging around on this farm hoping to find the Mormon treasures which 
the Mormon leaders are supposed to have buried there in their haste of leaving 
the county back in 1838.
     Interview  1933.


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