The Kinderhook Plates Incident: History, Hoax, and Mormon Significance

LDS Perspective

The Kinderhook Plates incident refers to an event in 1843 when six bell-shaped brass plates were allegedly discovered near Kinderhook, Illinois, and brought to the Prophet Joseph Smith for examination. The plates, covered in unknown characters, generated excitement among Latter-day Saints and others who speculated they might be an ancient record. However, historical and scientific evidence has conclusively demonstrated that the plates were a deliberate forgery—a hoax created by Wilbur Fugate, Robert Wiley, and a local blacksmith named Bridge Whitton. They fabricated the plates by cutting them from copper, etching characters with acid, and burying them in a mound to be "discovered" the next day. Chemical and metallurgical analysis of the only surviving plate, performed at Northwestern Unive

Historical Perspective

In April 1843, six bell-shaped brass plates engraved with unfamiliar characters were unearthed from a burial mound near Kinderhook, Illinois, and subsequently brought to Joseph Smith for examination. According to the detailed journal entry of Smith's secretary, William Clayton, dated May 1, 1843, Smith examined the plates and declared that he had "translated a portion of them," determining that they contained "the history of the person with whom they were found." Smith specifically identified the author as "a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh, king of Egypt," who had received his kingdom from the "Ruler of heaven and earth." This account was published in the church newspaper Times and Seasons and subsequently canonized in the official History of the Church, Volume 5, page 372