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Kinderhook Plates
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archaeological forgery
   
history of the latter day saint movement
   
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Designed to appear ancient, the plates were in fact a forgery created by three men in Kinderhook who were hoping to trick Latter Day Saints ( Mormons ), whose headquarters at the time were in nearby Nauvoo . According to Latter Day Saint belief, the Book Of Mormon was originally translated from a record engraved on Golden Plates by the ancient inhabitants of the Americas.

The forgers intentionally "discovered" the plates in the presence of a Latter-day Saint neighbor, who took them to the prophet and church founder, Joseph Smith, Jr. According to William Clayton's journal, Smith had begun to "translate" the writing on the plates, but with his assassination in 1844 and the subsequent removal of most of the Latter-day Saints from Illinois, no translation was ever completed or published, and some question that one had ever commenced.

The Kinderhook Plates were presumed lost, but for decades The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter-day Saints published facsimiles of them in its official ''History of the Church'' — pointing to them as a proof that ancient Americans wrote on metal plates. Although, decades later, one of the forgers came forward and signed an affadavit concerning his role in the hoax and another had written of his involvement in a letter, some Latter-day Saint apologists argued that the plates were genuine.

In 1966 a plate similar to one of the Kinderhook Plates was recovered and tested at Brigham Young University and Northwestern University . The insciptions matched facsimilies of the plate published contemporaneously, and the presence of a dent that had been interpreted in the facsimilie as part of a character indicated that the plate was one of the Kinderhook Plates. The tolerances of its metal proved consistent with the facilities available in an 19th century blacksmith shop, and, more importantly, traces of nitrogen were found in what were clearly acid-etched grooves. The tests were deemed conclusive and today there is general agreement that the plates were a hoax.


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