In 1826, the founder of the Mormon church would be tried for being an impostor over a gold digging agreement signed with a Pennsylvania farmer.

Joseph Smith, despite being the founder of a uniquely American Religious Movement , will continue to be a figure that causes controversy for centuries. Mormons view him as a hero and prophet, while Non-Mormons vilify Joseph Smith as a con man. The historical record indicates that con man as a portrayal was often more accurate than prophet, despite many Mormons believing that all of Joseph Smith's arrests were false. The first records of a court trial involving the first Mormon prophet are dated 1826 and took place in Chenango County, New York.

Joseph Smith Gold Digging Trial Records Unveiled

The details of the court documents have to do with an agreement signed by Joseph Smith in 1825. In her book, No Man Knows My History, Fawn Brodie included documents that had been found amongst official court records as proof that the trial occurred. The church leadership in the late 1940s attacked Brodie's use of the court records saying it was not a legitimate document. The money digging agreement that would lead to the 1826 court trial was first published in a periodical called The Eclectic Journal in 1873. The documents would be reprinted in the Susquehanna Journal and The Salt Lake Daily Tribune in the 1880s.

Mormon Leaders Defend Joseph Smith

While church leaders attacked Brodie for using accounts of the eyewitnesses of the court proceedings rather than using actual court records, the documents used by Fawn Brodie in No Man Knows My History were made by reliable witnesses. When church leaders became aware of the existence of actual trial records and the account of the gold digging agreement itself, they stopped attacking Brodie's account of the gold digging trial. Mormon historians since then have included details of the trial when they write biographies of Joseph Smith. His gold digging activities may seem at variance with his role as a religious leader, but the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints would not be founded until the 1830s, at which time he might have repented of his earlier activities.

The Guilty Verdict at Joseph Smith's Gold Digging Trial

Court records would show that Joseph Smith, Jr. was found guilty of the charges against him and fined. The records indicate the use of the seer stones which the church has claimed to be the Urim and Thummin years before the Mormon founder started his translation work on the Book of Mormon. Little more than a fine would come from the trial of the Mormon prophet, at least from his perspective. The accounts of the trial have given Mormons historians something to speculate on and Mormon apologists headaches for decades.

Sources:

Signature Books -- Dale Appendix A