On April 16, 1843, a man by the name of Robert
Wiley began an excavation of an Indian burial
mound near Kinderhook Illinois. He had had
the same dream three nights in a row that
told him he should dig there. The work was
very labor intensive, so he hired several
men to assist him in the dig. They dug a shaft
about ten feet into the ground before discovering
a skeleton and other artifacts underneath
a limestone cover. Among the artifacts were
a set of six bell-shaped brass plates covered
in unknown symbols. One of the men present
was a member of the church, and expressed
great excitement when the plates were pulled
from the earth. Word spread quickly to the
Prophet Joseph Smith, and the plates were
sent for so he could examine them.
When Joseph saw the plates, he had them sent
to the Antiquarian societies at Philadelphia,
France, and England. They informed him that
if the language was genuine, it was a dead
one and it was unknown to them. Satisfied,
Joseph began to translate the plates. Through
various publications, he reported,
"I have translated a portion of the plates
and find they contain the history of the person
with whom they were found. He was a descendant
of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh, king
of Egypt, and he received his kingdom from
the ruler of heaven and earth." As with other
quotes taken from the prophet, this quote
was taken down by Joseph's close friend and
scribe, William Clayton, who had spent the
entire day in the Prophet's home, sealing
him to one of his plural wives and speaking
with him about the plates which were on display
in his home.
This statement, along with other statements
about the plates, was published in the form
of a broadside in the Times and Seasons, along
with a promise to publish the translation
once it had been completed. It was speculated
that this translation would form the next
book of Mormon scripture, a book comparable
to the Book of Mormon in importance. Unfortunately,
Joseph was murdered before a full translation
could be completed, and any translation manuscript
which he may have produced has been lost.
In 1879, a man named Wilbur Fugate claimed
in a letter to a Mr. Cobb that he had forged
the plates in order to hoax the church. "I
received your letter in regard to those plates,
and will say in answer that they are a HUMBUG,
gotten up by Robert Wiley, Bridge Whitton
and myself... We read in Pratt's prophecy
that "Truth is yet to spring up out of the
earth." We concluded to prove the prophecy
by way of a joke. We soon made our plans and
executed them... Our plans worked admirably."
Members of the church dismissed Mr. Fugate's
claim, believing the claim itself to be a
hoax. For the next 100 years, the plates remained
a source of faith for the church, lending
credence to the Book of Mormon and Joseph's
gift of translation, and continued to be used
in church publications for these reasons.
In 1920, a surviving plate was found by the
Chicago Historical Society. The September
1962 edition of the Improvement Era published
photos of the plate, along with an article
stating that the plate was genuine and proved
Joseph was a prophet and seer. In 1966, this
remaining plate was tested at Brigham Young
University, but the tests were inconclusive.
In 1980, Professor D. Lynn Johnson of the
Department of Materials Science and Engineering
at Northwestern University examined the surviving
plate. He used microscopy and various scanning
devices and determined that the tolerances
and composition of its metal proved that it
was forged in a 19th-century blacksmith shop.
He also found traces of nitrogen in the hieroglyphs,
evidence of nitric acid-etching, which would
not have been used anciently. This corroborated
the letter written by Mr. Fugate in 1879,
which described nitric acid etching as the
method for inscribing the plates.
In 1981, the church was forced to admit that
the plates were a hoax. They now deny that
Joseph had been fooled into making a false
translation, and insist he had no interest
in the plates, claims which are unsupported
and in fact refuted by the historical record.
