The Kinderhook plates were a set of six small, bell-shaped pieces of brass with strange engravings which were claimed to have been discovered in 1843 in an Indian mound near Kinderhook, Illinois.
According to Wilbur Fugate in 1879, the plates were carefully forged by himself and two other men (Bridge Whitten and Robert Wiley) from Kinderhook who were testing the validity of the claims made by Joseph Smith, Jr. (founder of the Latter Day Saint movement), at that time headquartered in Nauvoo. According to Latter Day Saint belief, the Book of Mormon was originally translated by Smith from a record engraved on Golden Plates by the ancient inhabitants of the Americas.
Read more about Kinderhook Plates: Purported Discovery, Smith's Response, Rediscovery, Analysis, and Classification As A Hoax
Famous quotes containing the word plates:
“Behold now this vast city; a city of refuge, the mansion house of liberty, encompassed and surrounded with his protection; the shop of war hath not there more anvils and hammers waking, to fashion out the plates and instruments of armed justice in defence of beleaguered truth, than there be pens and hands there, sitting by their studious lamps, musing, searching, revolving new notions.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)