Several videos below that support Oliver’s major role in the restoration:
Critics have little to pick on with regard to Oliver Cowdery, but there are a few points to refute. Watch videos #1-4:
Brian Hales addresses anti-Mormon arguments:
Critics suggest Oliver isn’t a credible witness, given his use of divining rods. From this article below you find that people all over the world — including in the highly educated and hardly superstitious United Kingdom — still use such divining rods.
These rods are used for one reason: they work for unknown reasons. Diving rods aren’t used by crazy, superstitious people with imaginations so wild they’ll believe anything. Instead, this is a predictable practice that was linked to finding things.
U.K. Water Companies Sometimes Use Dowsing Rods To Find Pipes
Jeff at LDS Q&A discusses Oliver and divining rods, starting around the 17:50 mark: