The Kinderhook Plates

What are the Kinderhook plates?

The Kinderhook plates are a set of six small (three inches in height), bell-shaped brass plates with inscriptions[1] that a group of men—Wilburn Fugate,[BIO] Robert Wiley,[BIO] and Bridge Whitton[BIO]—forged;[2] planted in a mound[3] near Kinderhook, Illinois; and “excavated”[4] in the spring of 1843. According to Fugate, the plates were fabricated as a sort of prank or joke.[5]

How do we know they are fake?

One of the conspirators who participated in the hoax, Wilburn Fugate, admitted to them being fakes in 1879.[6] Modern scientific tests[7] also confirmed that the last-known surviving plate is of modern, not ancient, origin.[8]

Was Joseph Smith tricked by the hoax?

Probably not. Joseph Smith[BIO] initially took an interest[9] in the Kinderhook plates and reportedly made an initial attempt to translate[10] one of the characters by the secular means available to him.

He then reportedly wanted them authenticated by an expert before he did anything more with them.[11] The owner of the plates took them back, and Joseph never followed up or mentioned them again.[12]

But didn’t Joseph make more than a preliminary guess about the plates? Didn’t he actually try to translate them?

There is evidence that indicates Joseph may have attempted to translate some portion of the plates,[13] specifically one character. The character resembled a hieroglyph from the Egyptian papyri[14] he acquired in the summer of 1835, and Joseph probably compared the two.

A diagram showing one of the Kinderhook plates on top of a hand written page from Joseph Smith's Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language with red circles comparing two similar symbols. — Comparison of a symbol on one of the Kinderhook plates with a similar symbol from Joseph Smith's *Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language.*

What did he think the symbol meant?

According to William Clayton,[BIO] Joseph said the character “contain[s] the history of the person with whom they were found and he was a descendant of Ham through the loins of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the ruler of heaven and earth.”[15]

This matches the description of a boat-shaped Egyptian hieroglyph cataloged in a manuscript Joseph may have helped compile[16] in 1835 called the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language. Of course, since the symbols on the Kinderhook plates were fake, the character matching the hieroglyph is just a coincidence.

Read more in Book of Abraham Facsimiles

Did Joseph attempt to use revelation, the seer stone, or the Urim and Thummin?

Probably not. There is no reliable evidence[17] showing Joseph sought revelation, consulted the seer stone, or used the Urim and Thummim in his translation of the single character on the plates. The available evidence shows Joseph tried a "secular" translation using the scholarly resources available to him[18].

Shouldn’t the Holy Ghost have warned Joseph that the plates were fake?

Maybe? Joseph may have been warned because he seemed to completely lose interest in the plates. Or maybe God just let Joseph figure this one out on his own.[19]

What did Latter-day Saints think of the plates at the time?

The reaction of Latter-day Saints to the announcement of the “discovery” of the plates was positive, even enthusiastic.[20] Non-LDS writers also found the plates of interest[21] and generally assumed they were authentic until the later confession of Fugate.

A photograph of two hands holding the last known Kinderhook plate, a small bell shaped piece of brass that was a forgery of an ancient artifact — A photo from the Chicago Historical Society of the only Kinderhook plate known to still exist.

What happened to the plates after Joseph examined them?

After 1843, the plates moved from person to person until one of them ended up in the Chicago Historical Society in 1920,[22] its current home. The whereabouts of the remaining five plates are unknown and are probably lost.

Doesn’t this whole episode prove Joseph was a fraud?

No, not really. It seems like Joseph either thought the Kinderhook plates were a hoax or, possibly, a genuine ancient curiosity,[23] but he didn’t place any importance on the matter. There is no “Book of Kinderhook” or testimonies about visiting angels or revelations related to the Kinderhook plates.

Didn’t the Church continue to believe that the Kinderhook plates were authentic, even in modern times?

Yes. In the twentieth century, they were mentioned a few times in various Church publications but were considered a historical curiosity and potential evidence for the Book of Mormon[24] rather than anything sacred. For example, in 1962 the Church published a report arguing that the plates were authentic,[25] and in 1979, Mark E. Peterson[BIO] wrote a book titled Those Gold Plates! where he mentioned the Kinderhook plates and said that most experts agreed that they are authentic.[26] A year later, though, they were definitively proven a fraud through scientific analysis.[27]

The Facts

Wilburn Fugate and others forged the Kinderhook plates as a hoax to trick the Mormons.
Joseph Smith examined them, offering a cursory translation of one of the symbols on them.
The historical record indicates that Joseph intended to use secular methods of translation rather than revelation.
Latter-day Saints were excited about this potential new evidence for the Book of Mormon.
After the preliminary examination, Joseph Smith never inquired about them again and moved on.
Some Latter-day Saints into the twentieth century thought they may have been genuine, but they were proven a fraud through scientific testing in 1981.

Our Take

At first glance, the Kinderhook plates story can be alarming. Did fraudulent plates trick Joseph Smith? Doesn't this affect his claim of being an inspired prophet and translator of ancient texts?

The historical accounts are fairly simple. Some men created a hoax to fool Joseph. Joseph inspected the false plates and made a cursory translation of a symbol he recognized from his Egyptian studies. Joseph asked for an expert to authenticate them and then seemed to lose interest. He made no prophecy or revelation about them, and there aren't records of him talking about them again.

The Kinderhook plates don't prove very much about Joseph Smith, except that he thought antiquities were interesting. But the story can be upsetting. Conmen faked the finding of an "ancient record" and seemed to have fooled the Saints.

The comparison between the Kinderhook plates and the gold plates of the Book of Mormon highlights the difference between the two—Kinderhook was a hoax, and the Book of Mormon came from God. And though the historical record for the Book of Mormon is robust, Saints rely on a spiritual witness from the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon was revealed by an angel and Joseph Smith was a prophet of God.

What's Your Take?

David D.
“Spirit of revelation not needed to know if Joseph was a prophet, his works and fruits of his labors speak for themselves. The century and decades of people trying to prove otherwise have all failed. And they still keep coming.”
Kim D.
“I agree with Mormonr; however, the evidence of 2 letters from the forgers suggests that the hoaxers actually meant the plates as a joke on the Mormon people rather than Joseph Smith as stated. Regardless, it is a shame that some people have used this as an excuse to lose faith.”
Brad W.
“If the church thought they were real, it would have made an attempt to purchase them as it did with the Egyptian papyri.”
Samuel T.
“This whole thing is such a nothing burger lol.”

Read More Difficult Questions

40 Primary Sources

Footnotes

BIOWilburn W. Fugate
Wilburn Fugate (1800–ca. 1884) was born in Virginia. He was an Illinois farmer and one of the co-conspirators in the fabrication of the Kinderhook plates alongside Robert Wiley and Bridge Whitton. Fugate confessed to the fabrication of the plates in two letters written to James T. Cobb in 1878 and 1879.
BIORobert Wiley
Robert Wiley (cira 1800's) was an Illinois merchant and co-conspirator in the fabrication of the Kinderhook Plates alongside Wilburn Fugate and Bridge Whitton. According to Fugate's confession letter to James T. Cobb, Wiley prepared the mound, dug the the 8 foot hole, and planted the plates on April, 16 1843. Wiley may have attended medical school in St. Louis sometime before 1855. Little else is known about Wiley.
BIOBridge Whitton
Bridge Whitton (cira early 1800's) was a native of New York. He was the co-founder of the village of Kinderhook, Pike County, Illinois. Whitton was a blacksmith and the first postmaster of Kinderhook. As a blacksmith, Whitton fabricated the Kinderhook plates along with his co-conspirators Wilburn Fugate and Robert Wiley. Later, he moved to Alton, Illinois.
BIOJoseph Smith, Jr.
Joseph Smith (1805–1844) organized The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Born in Sharon, Vermont, he began to experience visions of deity and angels at a young age. One vision featured the Angel Moroni, who revealed the location of gold plates with an account of ancient Americans. He translated this record and published it as The Book of Mormon. He continued to receive revelations throughout his life which serve as the foundation for the Church's doctrine today. He led the Latter-day Saints across the country from New York to Illinois. In 1844, he was martyred while awaiting trial in Carthage, Illinois.
BIOWilliam Clayton
William Clayton (1814–1879) was a close associate of Joseph Smith and an early convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Born in Penwortham, Lancashire, England, he joined the Church in 1837 and soon after became a scribe for Joseph Smith, often involved in the dictation of the Prophet's revelations. Clayton meticulously kept journals that provide a detailed account of early Church history, including the migration of the Latter-day Saints to the Salt Lake Valley. He is best known for writing the hymn "Come, Come, Ye Saints." After the martyrdom of Joseph Smith, Clayton continued to serve the Church under Brigham Young's leadership, contributing significantly to the establishment of the Saints in the Utah Territory. He passed away in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1879.
BIOMark E. Petersen
Mark E. Petersen (1900-1984) served as an apostle for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Born in Salt Lake City, Petersen served a mission to Nova Scotia and attended the University of Utah, where he studied journalism. He worked as a reporter for the Deseret News and soon became the Deseret News general manager. In 1944, he was appointed to the apostleship. He became the author of multiple short books on scriptural figures such as Moses and Joshua and moral issues such as alcohol consumption and sexual relationships. Petersen also was an ardent opponent of the Civil Rights Movement, warning that it would lead to racial intermarriage. Petersen died from cancer in 1984.
[1]↩︎
Brigham Young and William Clayton both made sketches of one of the plates, and a contemporary facsimile of the plates was also published. A high-resolution photograph of the last known surviving plate was published in 2020.
[2]↩︎
According to Wilburn Fugate in his confession, Bridge Whitton cut the plates out of pieces of copper, and Robert Wiley and Wilburn Fugate made hieroglyphics by “making impressions on beeswax and filling them with acid and putting it on the plates.”
Once those were done, they “put them together with rust made of nitric acid, old iron and lead, and bound them with a piece of hoop iron, covering them completely with the rust.”
- Wilburn Fugate's confession letter.
[3]↩︎
Whitton, Whiley, and Fugate designated a "certain Sunday" for digging. The night before, Wiley planted the plates:
The night before, Wiley went to the Mound where he had previously dug to the depth of about eight feet, there being a flat rock that sounded hollow beneath, and put them under it.
- Wilburn Fugate's confession letter.
[4]↩︎
Descriptions of the "discovery" of the plates were reported by contemporary papers, including by John Taylor in the Times and Seasons and the Nauvoo Neighbor. Non-LDS papers and one of the forger's later confessions also reported the details of the "discovery" of the plates.
[5]↩︎
Fugate later confessed that he got the idea for the "joke" (his word in two different letters) after reading Parley P. Pratt's influential pamphlet A Voice of Warning.
According to Fugate's confession letters, it seems that the immediate intention behind the hoax was not necessarily to entrap Joseph Smith with a ruse. He simply "conceived a little plan by which to startle the natives."
[6]↩︎
Fugate confessed to the hoax in letters to James T. Cobb, a disaffected Latter-day Saint, in 1879. One of these letters was published in Wilhelm W. Wyl's (Wymetal) influential 1886 anti-Mormon book, Mormon Portraits.
- Wilburn Fugate's confession letter.
- Confession letter of WF; says JS would not translate the plates until authenticated.
[7]↩︎
George M. Lawrence conducted an unpublished test in 1966. In 1981, the Ensign published another test, noting the Kinderhook plates to be "faked antiquities."
- Stanley B. Kimball published article in the Ensign on Kinderhook Plates.
- George M. Lawrence provides scholarly examination of the plates.
[8]↩︎
In the unpublished 1966 test, George M. Lawrence examined the metal of the last surviving Kinderhook plate and the engravings. He concluded from his test that the metal was produced with modern methods, as were the engravings:
The dimensions, tolerances, composition and workmanship are consistent with the facilities of an 1843 blacksmith shop and with the fraud stories of the original participants.
- George M. Lawrence provides scholarly examination of the plates.
[9]↩︎
Joseph's own journal, and the documents from William Clayton, Brigham Young, and Parley P. Pratt, record the experience.
[10]↩︎
William Clayton's journal entry for May 1, 1843, notes Joseph's initial reaction to the Kinderhook plates.
- William Clayton journal entry describing Joseph translating Kinderhook Plates.
[11]↩︎
Fugate, the perpetrator of the hoax, understood that Joseph would not work on the plates beyond his initial assessment until they could be authenticated. In a letter to James Cobb, Fugate wrote:
We understand Jo Smith said they would make a book of 1200 pages but he would not agree to translate them until they were sent to the Antiquarian society at Philadelphia France, and England.
Another late, unsourced anti-Mormon article also indicated that Joseph first wanted the plates authenticated before he attempted to translate them.
- Confession letter of WF; says JS would not translate the plates until authenticated.
- The Daily Inter Ocean provides critical account of Kinderhook Plates discovery.
[12]↩︎
After Joseph Smith's journal entry from May 7, 1843, he never mentions the Kinderhook plates again.
- JS journal entry describing encounter with Kinderhook Plates.
[13]↩︎
One anonymous source wrote in the May 7, 1843 New York Herald that:
He compared them in my presence with his Egyptian alphabet, which he took from the plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated, and they are evidently the same characters.
Joseph Smith's journal recorded that he sent for books to help him with translation :
May 7[th] Sunday 1843. forenoon visited by several gentlemen concerning the plates which were dug out of a mound near quncy [Quincy] sent by Wm Smith to the office for Hebrew Bible & Lexicon
And Parley P. Pratt said recorded that the plates contained "the genealogy of one of the ancient Jaredites back to Ham the son of Noah" and that they were to be brought to Joseph for "examination & translation."
[14]↩︎
This boat-shaped hieroglyph apparently comes from a portion of the Egyptian papyri that have been lost but was preserved in the Kirtland-era Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language. One contemporary source, a Latter-day Saint missionary writing in a Church newspaper, noticed this and remarked on the similarity of the characters on the plates with those on the Egyptian papyri.
- In WWP's hand, GAEL gives definition of "boat" hieroglyph.
- LDS missionary Richard Savary compares Kinderhook Plates with Egyptian papyri.
[15]↩︎
In later publications, this journal entry was reworked from the third person to the first person (and attributed to Joseph Smith). This was not uncommon in nineteenth-century publishing.
[16]↩︎
The extent of Joseph Smith's participation in the composition of the Grammar and Alphabet documents is unclear, but he was at least aware of it and consulted it. One anonymous source claims that Joseph "compared [the engravings on the Kinderhook plates] in my presence with his Egyptian alphabet."
- In WWP's hand, GAEL gives definition of "boat" hieroglyph.
- Anonymous source describing experience with Kinderhook Plates.
[17]↩︎
The closest evidence that Joseph attempted to translate the plates by revelation comes from a woman named Charlotte Haven. She visited Nauvoo in 1843 and wrote back home to her mother about, among other things, the excitement surrounding the Kinderhook plates. According to her:
[Joseph Smith] said that the figures or writing on them was similar to that in which the Book of Mormon was written, . . . he thought that by the help of revelation he would be able to translate them.
The source for Charlotte's claim, however, is unknown.
There was also an anonymous, unsourced account published in a Chicago newspaper over thirty years later that claimed that Joseph used his "magical spectacles" (the Urim and Thummim or possibly a seer stone) to translate the Kinderhook plates.
- Charlotte Haven describes her encounter with the Kinderhook Plates.
- The Daily Inter Ocean provides critical account of Kinderhook Plates discovery.
[18]↩︎
Joseph's journal for May 7, 1843, records that he sent for a Hebrew dictionary, presumably to use as a reference for translation of the plates.
The New York Herald reported that Joseph compared the plates with his "Egyptian alphabet" to try and translate them.
- JS journal entry describing encounter with Kinderhook Plates.
- Anonymous source describing experience with Kinderhook Plates.
[19]↩︎
It seems God allows prophets to be deceived or allows them to figure things out for themselves.
For example, the biblical prophet Isaac was "tricked" by his son Jacob, who disguised himself as his brother Esau in order to secure a blessing from his father (Genesis 27). Jacob, in turn, was deceived to think his own son, Joseph, was dead (Genesis 37:31–35).
- Genesis 27; Jacob deceives Isaac into blessing him.
- Genesis 37; Joseph's brothers fake his death, trick Jacob/Israel into thinking he is dead.
[20]↩︎
Until they were proven fraudulent, the typical Latter-day Saint attitude was to accept the Kinderhook plates as genuine and as evidence for the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.
For instance, John Taylor, acting as editor of the Church's periodical Times and Seasons, said the Kinderhook plates would "go a good way to prove the authenticity of the Book of Mormon."
Richard Savary, a Latter-day Saint missionary, also used the plates as evidence that "the Aborigines of this country to be the seed of Abraham and descendants of Joseph, the son of Jacob."
[21]↩︎
David Orr, for example, wrote to Joseph inquiring about the plates, and both friendly and critical non-LDS sources voiced a range of opinions on the plates. Their "discovery" excited not just the Latter-day Saints, but others as well.
[22]↩︎
Stanley B. Kimball and other historians have traced the chain of custody of the plates after they left Nauvoo.
- Stanley Kimball published article in the Ensign on Kinderhook Plates.
[23]↩︎
Joseph was generally curious about ancient artifacts and languages. He studied Hebrew, Egyptian papyri, and was interested in Native American artifacts.
- Religious Studies Center 2015 publication on JS interest in ancient languages, artifacts.
[24]↩︎
Some Church authors in the early twentieth century, such as B. H. Roberts, continued to insist that the plates were authentic and cited them as evidence for the Book of Mormon.
- B. H. Roberts made an argument for plates being genuine.
- Improvement Era writer uses Kinderhook Plates as evidence for the Book of Mormon.
[25]↩︎
The Church's magazine, the Improvement Era, published the results of a test done in the 1950s by two non-Mormons that indicated the plates were etched, not engraved with acid as Fugate claimed. This, the article reasoned, was evidence that the plates were authentic since they were seemingly engraved in a way that contradicted Fugate's claims. Subsequent studies would call these results into serious doubt.
[26]↩︎
Petersen didn't make too much out of the Kinderhook plates. He merely included them along with other examples of (authentic) ancient plates with writing on them to show how the existence of the gold plates as described by Joseph Smith was not farfetched.
- Mark E. Petersen uses Kinderhook Plates as evidence for the BOM.
[27]↩︎
In 1981, the Church's official magazine published the results of the analysis that concluded that the plates were a hoax.
Interestingly, 15 years earlier, a Latter-day Saint physicist in New Jersey conducted a study on the surviving plate and concluded that it was fraudulent.
- George M. Lawrence provides scholarly examination of the plates.
- Stanley B. Kimball published article in the Ensign on Kinderhook Plates.