The earliest extant account of the First Vision was handwritten by Smith in 1832 in a letter book, but its existence was not known outside the Church History department until it was published in 1965. Sometime around 1930, the pages on which the account was written were torn from the letter book, removed from the Church Historian's collection and placed into a private safe in the custody of Apostle Joseph Fielding Smith. In 1952, General Authority Levi E. Young met with amateur historian LaMar Peterson and told him of a "strange account" in Joseph's handwriting that did not mention God the Father. In 1964, Peterson told Jerald and Sandra Tanner about the account, and they subsequently asked permission from Joseph Fielding Smith to see it, but were denied. In 1964, Smith authorized the showing of the account to Paul R. Cheesman, a BYU student working on his master's thesis. The Tanner's obtained a copy of the thesis transcript and the account was published for the first time in 1965.