Joseph Smith's 1826 Glass-Looking Trial: Details and Evidence

LDS Perspective

Based on the Church’s official historical records and scholarly sources, Joseph Smith’s 1826 trial involved an accusation of “glass-looking” or using a seer stone to search for lost property, stemming from his employment by Josiah Stowell to help locate lost Spanish silver near the border of New York and Pennsylvania. The trial was held before Justice of the Peace Albert Neely in Chenango County, New York. The Supreme Court of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints acknowledges this event and publishes its historical details through the Joseph Smith Papers Project, noting that the arrest appears to have been based on a New York state statute outlawing “pretending… to discover where lost goods may be found.” The historical record includes four accounts of the hearing, all of which

Historical Perspective

The 1826 trial of Joseph Smith in South Bainbridge, New York, centered on charges that he was a "disorderly person and an imposter" for his activities as a "glass looker"—a folk magic practitioner who claimed to locate hidden treasures using a seer stone. The case was initiated by a written complaint from Peter G. Bridgeman, a nephew of Josiah Stowell, who had employed Smith for treasure digging. The trial occurred on March 20, 1826, before Justice of the Peace Albert Neely. According to the court records, Smith testified that he had "a certain stone which he had occasionally looked at to determine where hidden treasures in the bowels of the earth were," and that he had used this stone to locate gold mines and buried money for Stowell and others. Smith also stated he had engaged in this pr