180 years ago today - Oct 25, 1831

[General] Conference is held in the home of nineteen-year-old Stephen Burnett where Burnett is ordained a High Priest by Oliver Cowdery. A few months later Burnett is appointed by revelation (D&C 75:35 and D&C 80:1) to two missions but later leaves the Church and denounces Joseph Smith. In 1838 an official church publication calls Burnett -an ignorant little blockhead.- Burnett stated that the "last pedestal" of support for belief in the church gave way when he "came to hear Martin Harris state in public that he never saw the plates with his natural eyes only in vision or imagination, neither Oliver [Cowdery] nor David [Whitmer] & that the eight witnesses never saw them & hesitated to sign that instrument for that reason, but were persuaded to do it." The office of deacon is first introduced. Although deacon is referred to in a published revelation of Apr 6, 1830, the earliest manuscript does not seem to date before 1831.

[Source: On This Day in Mormon History, http://onthisdayinmormonhistory.blogspot.com]