David Whitmer corrects the record to correct report and affirm Joseph used a seer stone in a hat, and that Joseph used only one, not two, stones.
David Whitmer, Letter to the editor dated June 13, 1881, in Kansas City Daily Journal, June 19, 1881 in Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents, 5 vols. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2003), 5:81-82
To the Editor of the [Kansas City] Journal. RICHMOND, Mo., June 13 [1881].—I notice several errors in the interview had with me by one of your reporters as published in the Daily Journal of June 5th, ’81, and wish to correct them. . . . In regard to my going to Harmony, my statement was that “I found everything as Cowdery had written me, and that they packed up next day and went to my father’s, (did not say ‘packed up the plates’) and that he, Smith, (not ‘we’) then commenced the translation of the remainder of the plates.” I did not wish to be understood as saying that those referred to as being present were all of the time in the immediate presence of the translator, but were at the place and saw how the translation was conducted. I did not say that Smith used “two small stones,” as stated nor did I call the stone “interpreters.” I stated that “he used one stone (not two) and called it a sun stone.” The “interpreters” were as I understood taken from Smith and were not used by him after losing the first 116 pages as stated. It is my understanding that the stone referred to was furnished him when he commenced translating again after losing the 116 pages. My statement was and now is that in translating he put the stone in his hat and putting his face in his hat so as to excluded the light and that then the light and characters appeared in the hat together with the interpretation which he uttered and was written by the scribe and which was tested at the time as stated.