thumb|upright=1.3|right|Front and back of four of the six Kinderhook plates are shown in these facsimiles, which appeared in [[History of the Church (book)|History of the Church.]]

The Kinderhook plates are a set of six small, bell-shaped pieces of brass with unusual engravings, created as a hoax in 1843, surreptitiously buried and then dug up at a Native American mound near Kinderhook, Illinois, United States. The plates were forged by three men from Kinderhook as part of a plan to discredit Latter Day Saint movement founder Joseph Smith. According to Mormonism, the Book of Mormon is a record of the ancient Judeo-Semitic inhabitants of the Americas, originally translated by Smith from golden plates engraved in the language of reformed Egyptian.

Latter Day Saint residents of Kinderhook sent the plates to Smith in Nauvoo for translation, where Smith said they were of ancient origin and translated a portion of them. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) defended the plates until 1981. In 1980, scientific testing confirmed the hoax, and that the plates were a modern creation. Within the Latter Day Saint movement, Smith's translation was never accepted in the canon of scripture, but was generally considered authentic.

Background

In the late 1830s, followers of the nascent Latter Day Saint movement had been expelled from Missouri and were settling in and around modern-day Nauvoo, Illinois. By 1842, there was a congregation of around one hundred Latter Day Saints located several miles south of the village of Kinderhook. Two residents of Kinderhook, a farmer named Wilburn Fugate and a merchant named Robert Wiley, were proselytized by missionaries using the Parley Pratt tract A Voice of Warning, which used the phrase, "Truth would spring up out of the earth." Fugate and Wiley decided to "prove the prophecy by way of a joke" and enlisted the help of Bridge Whitton, the village's postmaster and blacksmith, to create a set of six small plates of brass.

The purpose in creating the hoax has been debated. It is frequently presented as being a trap for Joseph Smith, to expose his translating abilities or lack thereof. Local recollections indicate that the creators of the hoax never intended for the plates to be delivered to Smith for translation, but as more of a community prank. Fugate himself stated the purpose was "simply for a joke" on the Latter Day Saint congregants, and one of his sons said that rather than being an elaborate trap for Smith it was "a little plan by which to startle the natives."]]

On April 16, 1843, Wiley began to dig a deep shaft in the center of an Indian mound near Kinderhook. It was reported in the Quincy Whig that the reason for his sudden interest in archaeology was that he had dreamed on three consecutive nights that there was treasure buried beneath the mound. At first, Wiley undertook the excavation alone, and reached a depth of about

The plates were briefly exhibited in Kinderhook before they were sent on to Smith, who had said he had translated the Book of Mormon from a similar set of buried golden plates in 1830. The finders of the Kinderhook plates, and the general public, were keen to know if Smith would be able to decipher the symbols on these new plates as well. Pratt wrote that the plates contained Egyptian engravings and "the genealogy of one of the ancient Jaredites back to Ham the son of Noah."

Smith's response

Several sources suggest Smith made an attempt to translate the plates. William Clayton, Smith's private secretary, recorded that upon receiving the Kinderhook plates Smith sent for his "Hebrew Bible & Lexicon". On May 1, Clayton wrote in his journal:

Apostles John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff, editors of the Nauvoo Neighbor,

upright=1.5|thumb|right|Page from William Clayton Diary, with tracing of a plate, and Smith's translation

The History of the Church also states Smith said the following:

Stanley B. Kimball says the statement found in History of the Church could have been an altered version of Clayton's statement, placing Smith in the first person.

A prominent character from one of the plates matches well with a character in the GAEL, and the translation of that character in the GAEL compares with the description given by Clayton.

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! Kinderhook Plate character !! Egyptian Language character

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! William Clayton's description !! Egyptian Language character translation

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| ...he was a descendant of Ham, , King of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom through

|| ...honor by birth, kingly power possession by birth one who riegns [sic] upon his throne universally— and of the blessings of the earth.

|}

Rediscovery, analysis, and classification as a hoax

The Kinderhook plates were presumed lost, but for decades the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) published facsimiles of them in its official History of the Church. In 1920, one of the plates came into the possession of the Chicago Historical Society (now the Chicago History Museum). In 1979, apostle Mark E. Petersen wrote a book called Those Gold Plates!. In the first chapter, Peterson describes various ancient cultures that have written records on metal plates, claiming: "There are the Kinderhook plates, too, found in America and now in the possession of the Chicago Historical Society. Controversy has surrounded these plates and their engravings, but most experts agree they are of ancient vintage."

In 1980, Professor D. Lynn Johnson of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Northwestern University examined the remaining plate. Using microscopy and various scanning devices, he determined that the tolerances and composition of its metal proved entirely consistent with the facilities available in a 19th-century blacksmith's shop and, more importantly, found traces of nitrogen in what were clearly nitric acid-etched grooves. In addition, he discovered evidence that this particular plate was among those examined by early Mormons, including Smith, and not a later copy. One of the features of the plate was the presence of small dents in the surface caused by a hexagonally-shaped tool. Johnson noticed that one of these dents had inadvertently been interpreted in the facsimile as a stroke in one of the characters. If the plate owned by the Chicago Historical Society had been a copy made from the facsimiles in History of the Church, that stroke in that character would have been etched, like the rest of the characters. He concluded that this plate was one that Smith examined, that it was not of ancient origin, and that it was in fact etched with acid, not engraved, confirming Fugate's 1879 description.

See also

  • The Greek Psalter Incident
  • List of plates in Mormonism
  • List of religious hoaxes
  • Mark Hofmann
  • Voree plates
  • Zelph

References

Further reading

  • [Held in the library collections of Brigham Young University and the University of Utah.]