John Whitmer (1802–1878) was an early leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was one of the Eight Witnesses of the Book of Mormon. He was also the first official church historian and a member of the presidency of the Church in Missouri. John Whitmer was born on August 27, 1802, in York, Pennsylvania to Peter Whitmer, Sr. and Mary Musselman. By the 1820s, the Whitmer family had moved to a farm in Fayette, in New York's Finger Lakes area. John Whitmer's brother, David, and his entire family became members of the Mormon Church.