Joseph Smith of The Church of Latter-Day Saints: Money Digger?

To those who belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints this episode in the life of their founder and first Prophet has been a very embarrassing one that they have fought very hard to deny. The danger lies not just in the fact that Smith was a convicted con man prior to his creation of the Church, but that the details of his confidence trickery are so similar to those of the story of Joseph Smith finding and translating the golden plates which would become the Book of Mormon.

Sometime between 1823 and 1827 Joseph Smith claimed to have received a vision that there were ancient golden plates buried somewhere on his land. He used the same money digging techniques he had used for Stowell to attempt to find the plates, without success. Other money diggers in the area began to pick up on the story and started coming and looking for the golden plates themselves. Finally, on September 22, 1827, Smith announced that the angel Moroni had given him a vision which lead him directly to the plates.

According to Emma Smith, Joseph's wife, David Whitmer (one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon) and many others, the process used by Joseph Smith in translating the Book of Mormon was the exact same as that which he used in money digging.

While translating Smith did not even have the golden plates in front of him. He used the seer stone, once again placed in his stovepipe hat. He would gaze into the hat, wherein he would see the plates in their hidden location now translated from the "Reformed Egyptian" in which they were originally written.

Because of this similarity between the finding and translation of the golden plates and Joseph Smith's money digging ventures, Mormons have tried to deny the truth of his 1826 trial. Documents found in the archives of the court in Bainbridge in 1971, however, verified that Smith indeed was brought to trial as a glass looker and was convicted for his crime.