Parley P. Pratt
Cumorah is Cumorah

Many of the writings of the Brethren of the Church refer to the Hill Cumorah.  And their implied inference is understood, as all knew and considered the Hill Cumorah to be the one and only Hill Cumorah that had ever been presented to them.  Thus in their writings they presumed the understood and did not overly emphasized the fact that the Hill Cumorah in the Book of Mormon was the same as the Hill Cumorah in Palmyra, New York.  It just was.  That was just the fact of the matter.  Such is the manner of expression in the following statement make by Parley P. Pratt in his Autobiography. 

(Autobiography of Parley P. Pratt, p. 43)

            "This Book, which contained these things, was hid in the earth by Moroni, in a hill called by him, Cumorah, which hill is now in the State of New York, near the village of Palmyra, in Ontario County.”

Parley P. Pratt needed not to make an extensive expose stating that the Hill Cumorah in New York was the Hill Cumorah refered to in the Book of Mormon.  But from the for going words of Parley P. Pratt, it can be ascertained that it was understood that even the Angel Moroni called the hill Cumorah.  Now why would Moroni so confuse the issue by stating that the hill in New York, in which he had hide the plates was Cumorah if it really wasn’t that hill Cumorah in the Book of Mormonf?  The thought makes reason stare.  And just as truth is reason, truth eternal, is not Cumorah understandably Cumorah?

Then again, Parley P. Pratt, in his writing entitled, Key to the Science of Theology, used the same unassuming non-argumentive tone.  Cumorah was just Cumorah.  Yet Parley P. Pratt again points out that it was the angel who directed Joseph to the hill call anciently Cumorah.  This second reference confirms that it was the angel that was the source of calling the hill in Palmyra, New York by the name of Cumorah. And to the angel Moroni, certainly Cumorah would be and is Cumorah.

(Key to the Science of Theology, p. 83 - 84)

            “On the 22nd September, 1827, the angel directed him to a hill a few miles distant, called anciently Cumorah. Around this hill, in the fifth century of the Christian era, had rallied the last remnant of a once powerful and highly polished nation called the Nephites.”

Parley P. Pratt was one of the first members of the Chruch.  It was he who was called to serve as a part of the first mission to the Lamanites with Oliver Cowdery, Peter Whitmer, and Ziba Peterson.  And it was he who baptized my second great grand father Philo Dibble on his way to that mission as they stopped over in Ohio on their course to the Indian Territory adjacent Missouri.

(A Voice of Warning, p. 67)

            “Mormon lived in that age of the world, and was a Nephite, and a prophet of the Lord. He, by the commandment of the Lord, made an abridgment of the sacred records which contained the history of his forefathers, and the prophecies and gospel which had been revealed among them; to which he added a sketch of the history of his own time, and the destruction of his nation. Previous to his death, the abridged records fell into the hands of his son Moroni, who continued them down to about A. D. 421; at which time he deposited them carefully in the earth, on a hill which was then called Cumorah, but is situated in Ontario County, township of Manchester, and state of New York, North America. This he did in order to preserve them from the Lamanites, who overran the country and sought to destroy them and all the records pertaining to the Nephites. This record lay concealed or sealed up, from about A. D. 421 to September 22nd, 1823, at which time it was found by Mr. Joseph Smith, Jr., he being directed thither by an angel of the Lord.

Again from Parley P. Pratt’s writing, ‘A Warning Voice’ comes the same un-presumptive tone of explaining an item of fact in a simple simple straight forward manner.  The hill was called Cumorah at the time of Mormon and Moroni where Moroni deposited the plates.  And that hill which was Cumorah of Mormon’s and Moroni’s time was that hill in Ontario County near the township of Manchester in the state of New York, North America.  Parley would have heard the Prophet Joseph Smith tell of that hill many times in that same simple disclosure, manner of fact way.  Cumorah was Cumorah. There was no 'over' emphasis to the matter. There didn't need to be. It just was what was, and no one back there questioned it or needed to question it. It was the stated fact of the situation.