But the true story of the Kinderhook plates was disclosed by an affidavit made by W. Fugate of Mound station, Brown county, Illinois, before Jay Brown justice of the peace, on June 30, 1879. In this he stated that the plates were a humbug, gotten up by Robert Wiley, Bridge Whitton, and myself. Whitton (who was a blacksmith) cut the plates out of some pieces of copper; Wiley and I made the hieroglyphics by making impressions on beeswax and filling them with acid, and putting it on the plates. When they were finished, we put them together with rust made of nitric acid, old iron and lead, and bound them with a piece of hoop iron, covering them completely with rust. He describes the burial of the plates and the digging up, among the spectators of the latter being two Mormon Elders, Marsh and Sharp. Sharp declared that the Lord had directed them to witness the digging. The plates were borrowed and shown to Smith, and were finally given to one Professor McDowell of St. Louis, for his museum.[[6]]
Of this presentation of the matter it is only necessary to say that it is a little singular that Mr. Fugate alone out of the three said to be in collusion in perpetrating the fraud should disclose it, and that he should wait from 1843 to 1879—a period of thirty-six years—before doing so, when he and those said to be associated with him had such an excellent opportunity to expose the vain pretensions of the Prophet— if Fugate's tale be true? For while the statement in the text of the Prophet's Journal to the effect that the find was genuine, and that he had translated some of the characters and learned certain historical facts concerning the person with whose remains the plates were found, may not have been known at the time to the alleged conspirators to deceive him, still the editor of the Times and Seasons—John Taylor, the close personal friend of the Prophet—took the find seriously, and expressed at once explicit confidence in an editorial in the Times and Seasons, of May 1st, 1843, that the Prophet could give a translation of the plates. And this attitude the Church, continued to maintain; for in The Prophet, (a Mormon weekly periodical, published in New York) of the 15th of February, 1845, there was published a fac-simile of the Kinderhook plates, together with the Times and Seasons editorial and all the above matter of the text. How easy to have covered Joseph Smith and his followers with ridicule by proclaiming the hoax as soon as they accepted the Kinderhook plates as genuine! Why was it not done? The fact that Fugate's story was not told until thirty-six years after the event, and that he alone of all those who were connected with the event gives that version of it, is rather strong evidence that his story is the hoax, not the discovery of the plates, nor the engravings upon them.
III.
The Tuccabatchey Plates.
In further evidence that the native Americans engraved records on metallic plates I quote the following from Adair's "History of the North American Indians." The passage is a footnote on the custom of the Indians burying a dead person's treasures with him:
In the Tuccabatches on the Tallapoose river, thirty miles above the Allabahamah garrison are two brazen tables, and five of copper. They (the Indians) esteem them so sacred as to keep them constantly in their holy of holies, without touching them in the least, only in the time of their compounded first-fruit offering, and annual expiation of sins; at which season, their magus carries one under his arm, ahead of the people, dancing round in sacred armor; next to him their head warrior carries another; and those warriors who choose it carry the rest after the manner of the high priest; all the other carry white canes with swan-feathers at the top. Hearing accidentally of these important monuments of antiquity, and inquiring pretty much about them, I was certified of the truth of the report by four of the southern traders, at the most eminent Indian trading house of all English America. One of the gentlemen informed me, that at my request he endeavored to get the liberty of viewing the aforesaid tables, but it could not possibly be obtained, only in the time of the yearly grand sacrifice, for fear of polluting their holy things, at which time gentlemen of curiosity may see them. Old Bracket, an Indian, of perhaps one hundred years old, lives in that old beloved town, who gave the following description of them:
The shape of the five copper plates: One is a foot and a half long and seven inches wide, the other four are shorter and narrower.
The shape of the two brass plates was circular, about a foot and a half in diameter.
He [Bracket] said that he was told by his forefathers that those plates were given to them by the man we call God; that there had been many more of other shapes, some as long as he could stretch with both his arms, and some had writing upon them which are buried with particular men; and that they had instructions given with them, viz., they must only be handled by particular people, and those feasting [fasting?]; and no unclean woman must be suffered to come near them or the place, where they are deposited. He said none but his own town's people had any such plates given them, and that they were a different people from the Creeks. He only remembered three more which were buried with three of his family and he was the only man of the family now left. He said, there were two copper plates under the king's cabin which laid there from the first settling of the town.
This account was taken in the Tuccabatchey square, 27th July, 1759, per Will. Bolsover.[[7]]
The foregoing account of engraven records on gold and copper plates is important as evidence to the truth of the Book of Mormon only this far; the Book of Mormon repeatedly declares that such was the manner of keeping records among the Nephites and the Jaredites, Mormon's abridgment of the larger Nephite records being engraven in this manner on plates of gold. And the discoveries related above, all of which were unknown to Joseph Smith, prove that in ancient America records were so kept, and constitutes at least important incidental evidence to the truth of that part of the Book of Mormon statement.
Footnotes
[1]. Mill. Star, Vol. XIX., p. 103.
[2]. A fac-simile of the plate is to be found in Mill. Star, Vol. XIX., p. 632.