The Kinderhook Plates are paraded as a “smoking gun” against Joseph Smith and the Restoration. Critics claim that Joseph attempted to translate a 19th-century forgery, proving that his prophetic gift was fraudulent.
Yet, when we actually examine the historical record and the evidence laid out in serious analyses such as Why Did Joseph Smith Attempt to Translate the Kinderhook Plates? and “Kinderhook Plates” – Letter to My Wife Response, a very different conclusion emerges:
Joseph Smith never translated the Kinderhook Plates.
The idea that he did is rooted in misassumptions—especially by William Clayton—and later speculation by historians and critics, not in anything Joseph actually produced or claimed as revelation.
Even more ironically, it is the original fraudsters and later ex-Mormon participants who make it clear that Joseph never delivered a prophetic or secular translation of the plates at all.
What Were the Kinderhook Plates?
In 1843, in Kinderhook, Illinois, a group of men created six small, brass, bell-shaped plates inscribed with mysterious characters. They:
- Manufactured the plates
- Buried them
- Staged a dramatic “discovery” as if they were ancient relics
Their stated purpose, later confessed, was to deceive and to test Joseph Smith.
The plates were eventually brought to Nauvoo and shown to Joseph. From this brief encounter, generations of critics have built an elaborate story: that Joseph Smith translated the Kinderhook Plates and was caught in a fraud when the plates were later proven to be fake.
The historical record, however, does not support that narrative.
The Source of the Myth: William Clayton’s Assumption
The entire claim that “Joseph Smith translated the Kinderhook Plates” essentially hangs from one fragile hook: a journal entry by William Clayton, dated May 1, 1843.
Clayton wrote that Joseph:
“has translated a portion of them and says they contain the history of the person with whom they were found, and he was a descendant of Ham…”
This line has been recycled across anti-LDS literature, the CES Letter ecosystem, and countless online posts as if it were:
- A verbatim quote of Joseph Smith, and
- A report of a completed, inspired translation
But when we treat this as serious historical evidence, several problems become obvious.
Clayton’s Journal Was Interpretive, Not a Transcript
William Clayton’s journals are valuable, but they are not court stenography. He was:
- Recording from memory
- Summarizing conversations
- Filtering events through his own understanding and assumptions
- Recording events that he himself did not even witness
Crucially, there is no actual translation text—no manuscript, no dictated pages, no published “Book of Kinderhook,” nothing comparable to Joseph’s documented translation efforts like the Book of Mormon or the Book of Abraham.
If Joseph Smith had truly translated the Kinderhook Plates—especially if he claimed revelation—we would reasonably expect:
- A written text
- A scribe’s record
- Some later reference or publication
We have none of that. We only have Clayton’s impression that Joseph had “translated a portion.”
If Joseph fabricated translations of the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham, wouldn’t this have been the prime opportunity to make up another supposed translation where he wouldn’t have to also fabricate plates or Egyptian artifacts?
What Did Joseph Actually Do With the Kinderhook Plates?
When we piece together all available evidence, a much more measured reconstruction appears.
Joseph Smith seems to have:
- Shown interest in the Kinderhook Plates as possible artifacts
- Visually compared some of the characters to other character documents he had previously worked with
- Potentially offered some preliminary, conditional speculation about what the symbols on the plates might mean if they were genuine
But there is no evidence that he:
- Claimed or recorded a revelation regarding the Kinderhook Plates
- Initiated a sustained translation project
- Produced a formal written translation
- Canonized, published, or circulated anything as the revealed text of the Kinderhook Plates
The most natural reading is that Joseph looked at the plates and compared characters with those in his GAEL notebook. Clayton interpreted and recorded what he saw in the Gael notebook as “translation of a portion,” even though no such translation survives and none is ever mentioned by Joseph.
From Speculation to “Translation”: How the Myth Grew
Careful modern reviews (including those in the two articles referenced above) now point to something much more concrete than a vague “guess” by Joseph. The key is the GAEL notebook (“Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language”) and how closely one specific GAEL entry matches what William Clayton reports Joseph as having “translated” from the Kinderhook Plates.
The evidence suggests that:
- Joseph was not receiving fresh revelation on the Kinderhook Plates.
- William Clayton was looking at an existing GAEL entry and assuming it represented a translation of the characters on the plates.
The GAEL contains a passage that describes a descendant of Ham, a person of royal lineage, and elements of genealogy and history. Clayton’s journal summary of what Joseph supposedly “translated” from the Kinderhook Plates uses strikingly similar phrases and concepts:
- A man who was a descendant of Ham
- A story about his lineage and kingship
- Historical details about this person’s place in an ancient setting
When you line up Clayton’s description next to the GAEL entry, the parallel language is hard to ignore. The simplest and most natural explanation is that Clayton was not recording a brand-new translation event, but rather importing the GAEL wording into his journal and attributing it to the Kinderhook Plates.
In short:
- The GAEL page already contained this descendant-of-Ham description.
- Clayton saw characters on the Kinderhook Plates that reminded him of GAEL characters.
- He assumed that what the GAEL said was also what the Kinderhook Plates said.
- He then wrote in his journal that Joseph “has translated a portion of them,” when in reality he was projecting an existing GAEL explanation onto the set of forged characters.
This is why modern researchers can say, with good reason, that Clayton’s statement does not prove Joseph translated the Kinderhook Plates. It proves that Clayton connected the Kinderhook characters to the GAEL notebook and then mistakenly treated the GAEL entry as if it were a translation of the Kinderhook Plates.
Later historians and critics then took Clayton’s phrasing and ran with it, building an elaborate accusation:
The plates were fake. Joseph translated them. Therefore Joseph was a false prophet.
But this chain breaks at its weakest link: Joseph never actually translated them.
Who Really Exposed the Kinderhook Plates Hoax?
One of the most telling aspects of the Kinderhook Plates story is who actually exposed the fraud and what their testimonies really show.
It was not:
- Modern laboratories disproving a published translation of the plates, nor
- A revelatory condemnation
Instead, the key voices are:
- The original fraudsters, and
- Later ex-Mormon / anti-Mormon participants and commentators
And their testimonies point solidly in one direction: Joseph Smith never produced a real translation of the Kinderhook Plates at all.
The Fraudsters Admit the Plates Were Fake
Years after the event, conspirators like Wilbur Fugate openly confessed that the Kinderhook Plates were:
- Deliberately etched in modern times
- Buried for the purpose of a sham discovery
- Intended to test and trap Joseph Smith
- That Joseph Smith would not translate the plates unless they first sent them to London and Paris.
Their confession confirms that the Kinderhook Plates hoax was entirely a 19th-century fraud.
But here’s the key: if Joseph had truly transliterated or translated the plates and published or dictated a text, the hoaxers would have had perfect ammunition. Going through all that effort of making fake plates, staging a digging, and getting them in the hands of the Prophet to make him look like a fool was the goal.
Instead:
- There is no record that Joseph publicly vouched for the plates as ancient scripture
- There is no canonized or even informal “Kinderhook translation” text to point to
- The story effectively dies out in Joseph’s own ministry
This silence is powerful evidence. It aligns with the conclusion that Joseph never actually translated them.
Ex-Mormons and Critics Preserve the Evidence—And Undercut the Translation Claim
Later, ex-Mormons and critics seized on the Kinderhook Plates story to attack Joseph Smith, repeating Clayton’s journal line and the confession of the forgers.
In doing so, they preserved crucial information:
- The plates were a known hoax
- The forgers admitted their intent
- No translation text exists
Ironically, that same body of evidence demonstrates that the popular story—“Joseph Smith translated the Kinderhook Plates and got caught”—is itself an exaggeration built on:
- Clayton’s assumption
- Later retellings
- A modern desire for a simple, decisive ‘gotcha’
The very fraudsters and ex-Mormons whose stories are waved around to damage Joseph Smith are, in fact, the ones who demonstrate that no translation was ever produced, neither secular nor prophetic.
Why the “Joseph Translated the Kinderhook Plates” Story Persists
If the evidence is this thin, why does the claim survive so aggressively in discussions of the Kinderhook Plates?
The Appeal of a “Smoking Gun”
Critics of Joseph Smith are often eager for a clean, one-step argument:
- Find one undeniable mistake
- Use it to dismiss everything else
The Kinderhook Plates look like the perfect tool:
- Known forgery
- Alleged prophetic translation
- Case closed
But when we ask the inconvenient question—“Where is the translation?”—the case collapses. There is no translation. There is only one man’s interpretive journal entry, that was refering to an entirely different, irrelevant, document.
Confusing Interest and Speculation With Revelation
Another persistent problem is the tendency to collapse everything Joseph said or did into ‘prophecy.’
Joseph could:
- Show curiosity about an artifact
- Make a non-revelatory comment
- Explore possibilities with those around him
without that becoming canon, translation, or prophecy.
The Kinderhook Plates belong in this second category:
- Preliminary interest
- No revelation recorded
- No translation text produced
Calling this a “translation” is not warranted by the evidence.
The Bottom Line: Did Joseph Smith Translate the Kinderhook Plates?
Putting the pieces together from the historical record and the modern analyses:
- Joseph Smith did not produce a written, prophetic, or secular translation of the Kinderhook Plates.
- The oft-repeated claim rests almost entirely on William Clayton’s misinterpretation of Joseph’s preliminary remarks.
- Later historians and critics, motivated in part by a strong desire for definitive evidence against Joseph, built a larger narrative on this single, shaky foundation.
- The fraudsters themselves, and later ex-Mormon participants, openly admitted the plates were fake and simultaneously confirmed that Joseph never actually translated them—not canonically, not prophetically, not even in a documented secular way.
So when someone asks, “What about the Kinderhook Plates?” an accurate, historically grounded answer is:
The Kinderhook Plates were a hoax. Joseph Smith briefly examined them, may have speculated about what they could mean, but he never produced a translation. The story that he did is a myth born of misassumptions, later repetition, and the temptation to force a “smoking gun” where the hard evidence just doesn’t exist.
Far from undermining Joseph Smith’s prophetic work, the Kinderhook Plates story—properly understood—exposes the weakness of his critics’ narrative, not the weakness of his actual, documented translations.