Anonymous source describing experience with Kinderhook Plates.

Date
May 30, 1843
Type
Letter
Source
Unknown
Non-LDS
Hearsay
Direct
Reprint
Reference

"A Gentile," letter dated May 7, 1843, New York Herald, May 30, 1843

Scribe/Publisher
New York Herald
People
Unknown, Joseph Smith, Jr.
Audience
Reading Public
Transcription

Another set of plates have been found in Pike county, in this State; they were dug out of a large mound, fifteen feet from the summit, by a company of persons, fifteen in number, who all affirm to the fact of their situation when found. There were six in number, about three inches in length, and two and a half broad at one end, and one inch broad at the other, being something of the form of a bell, about the sixteenth of an inch thick, with a hole in the small end of each, fastened together with a ring, apparantly of iron or steel, but which was so oxidised as to crumble to pieces when handled. The plates are evidently brass, and are covered on both sides with hyerogliphics. They were brought up and shown to Joseph Smith. 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. He therefore will be able to decipher them. There can be no doubt but they are a record of some kind, buried with an individual, centuries ago; a skeleton was found with them—some of the bones in such a state of preservation as to show the size of the individual, whose height must have been eight and a half feet. You may expect something very remarkable pretty soon.

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