When the Forgery Was Finally Admitted
The Kinderhook Plates did not remain a mystery forever. Decades after the brief episode in Nauvoo faded from memory, the truth about their origin finally surfaced. And it did not surface through Latter-day Saint apologetics. It surfaced through the men who created the plates themselves.
In 1879, Wilbur Fugate publicly admitted that the Kinderhook Plates were a deliberate forgery. He explained that he, along with Robert Wiley and Bridge Whitten, manufactured the plates in an attempt to embarrass Joseph Smith and the Latter-day Saints. The plates were cut from brass, etched with characters using acid, and buried in a mound that already contained human remains to make the discovery appear ancient.
This confession is not disputed. It is the foundation for why everyone today agrees the Kinderhook Plates were fake.
Why the Hoax Was Not Exposed Until 1879
One omission in the CES Letter’s treatment of the Kinderhook Plates is especially difficult to ignore.
If the purpose of the Kinderhook hoax was to expose Joseph Smith as a fraud, why was it never exposed at the time?
Why was the hoax only exposed decades later, and only at the request of an ex-member anti-Mormon, that inspired Fugate to “set the record straight”?
According to the CES Letter’s framing, Joseph Smith translated a set of plates that were not ancient at all. If that were true, the moment the forgery was revealed should have been immediate and devastating. The men who created the plates would have had everything they needed to discredit Joseph Smith while he was alive, while the Church was still centered in Nauvoo, and while witnesses and documents were readily available.
So why didn’t that happen?
Why does the CES Letter never pause to ask why the hoax was not exposed in the 1840s if a false translation actually occurred? Why wait more than thirty-five years, until long after Joseph Smith was dead, to admit the forgery?
That delay is not a small detail. It cuts directly against the conclusion the CES Letter wants the reader to reach.
If Joseph Smith had publicly translated the Kinderhook Plates, the forgers would not have needed decades of silence. They would have exposed the fraud immediately. They could have produced the plates, demonstrated how they were made, and shown that Joseph Smith had confidently translated something they themselves fabricated. They were obviously already opposed to Mormonism. They had spent all that time and effort creating the fake ancient records. That would have accomplished exactly what critics now claim the episode proves.
There was nothing to expose.
No dictated translation existed. No published text existed. No public declaration Joseph Smith made could be thrown back at him once the plates were revealed as fake. No publications in the Nauvoo papers like were done with the Book of Moses and the Book of Abraham. The trap only works if the target takes the bait.
And surely this is what the fraudsters wanted. According to Fugate, Joseph Smith stated that he would only translate the plates if they were first certified as authentic. That raises an obvious question. Why would the forgers go to the trouble and expense of sending the Kinderhook Plates to Philadelphia, France, and England for authentication?
Your CES Letter does not address this problem. It does not explain why a supposedly decisive failure went unchallenged for decades. It does not explain why the men who created the hoax never capitalized on it while it mattered most.
Instead, the letter treats the late confession as if timing is irrelevant.
But timing is everything.
The most natural explanation for the silence is not that Joseph Smith successfully escaped exposure. It is that there was no exposure to make. The hoax failed because Joseph Smith did not translate the plates. Without a translation, the forgery had no public value. Revealing it immediately would have only highlighted a failed attempt to trap him.
Concern about the CES Letter’s Method
Why are details like this left unexplored? Why is the reader not invited to ask why a hoax designed to discredit a prophet was not used to do so until decades later? Why does the CES Letter focus so heavily on what critics want the episode to mean, while passing over facts that weaken that interpretation?
If the Kinderhook Plates are supposed to be one of the strongest examples of Joseph Smith’s fraud, the silence of the forgers during his lifetime demands an explanation. The CES Letter does not provide one.
And when that silence is taken seriously, the conclusion the letter pushes becomes harder, not easier, to maintain.
The Forgers Said Joseph Smith Would Not Translate
The most important part of Fugate’s confession is not merely that the plates were fraudulent. It is what he said about Joseph Smith’s response to them.
According to Fugate, Joseph Smith refused to attempt a translation of the plates unless they were authenticated by recognized antiquarian societies.
He would not agree to translate them until they were sent to the Antiquarian society at Philadelphia, France, and England.
Joseph required independent verification before treating them as genuine artifacts. Fugate stated that the plates were sent for examination and that scholars were unable to identify the characters as ancient or meaningful.
In other words, the man who helped forge the plates directly contradicted the modern claim that Joseph Smith eagerly accepted them as ancient scripture or produced a false translation by revelation.
The forgery was designed to trap Joseph Smith. If he had confidently translated the plates, the hoax would have succeeded. But it did not.
Not only was their no claim of a translation to prove the hoax, but there was not even a claim of an attempted translation by the hoaxers.
No Translation, No Revelation, No Scripture
Once the forgery is placed back into its historical context, the Kinderhook episode looks very different from how it is presented in the CES Letter.
Joseph Smith did not claim revelation. He did not dictate a translation. He did not employ scribes. He did not publish text. He did not canonize anything. The plates were returned to their owners and disappeared from relevance.
That pattern aligns perfectly with Fugate’s account. Joseph treated the plates cautiously, required outside authentication, and declined to proceed further when that authentication did not materialize.
The CES Letter treats the Kinderhook Plates as a failed test of prophetic ability. But the historical record shows no test was ever taken.
Scientific Confirmation of the Hoax
In the twentieth century, physical evidence confirmed Fugate’s account. A plate matching the Kinderhook facsimiles surfaced and was later tested using modern scientific methods. The analysis showed that the characters were etched with acid rather than engraved and that the metal composition matched nineteenth-century brass, not an ancient alloy.
The science supports the confession. The confession supports the historical record. And both undermine the claim that Joseph Smith translated the plates.
Why This Matters for the CES Letter
The CES Letter relies on the Kinderhook Plates to function as a powerful “gotcha.” The logic is simple. If Joseph Smith translated fraudulent plates, then his claims elsewhere unravel.
But that argument only works if Joseph Smith actually produced a false translation.
After reviewing the primary sources, the confessions of the forgers, the absence of any translation record, and the scientific testing of the plates themselves, I cannot find even an inkling of evidence that Joseph Smith translated the Kinderhook Plates at all.
The forgery is real. The hoax is real. The failure to trap Joseph Smith is also real.
A Question the CES Letter Must Answer
This leads to a serious problem for the CES Letter.
If one of the main evidentiary pillars used to portray Joseph Smith as a fraud turns out to be a historical nothing, why should the rest of the letter be trusted?
Who in this generation has even heard of the Kinderhook plates? Only through your CES letter and other anti-Mormon material.
The Kinderhook Plates are only meaningful as evidence against Joseph Smith if they demonstrate a false translation. Without that, they collapse into an insignificant curiosity that critics have inflated far beyond what the sources allow.
To justify disbelief, I need actual evidence that Joseph Smith produced a fraudulent translation of the Kinderhook Plates. Without that, the foundation of doubt built on this episode falls apart.
And if this story, presented as one of the strongest examples of deception, dissolves under scrutiny, then an uncomfortable conclusion begins to form.
If the Kinderhook Plates are not the fraud, then what exactly is?
Is the Kinderhook episode evidence against Joseph Smith, or evidence that the CES Letter has relied on exaggeration, assumption, and selective framing?
This matters. Because if the Kinderhook Plates were supposed to shatter confidence in Joseph Smith and instead do the opposite, then the credibility of the CES Letter itself deserves to be examined just as carefully.