The 1826 Preliminary Hearing

[mormon fool]

Recently the following post of Uncle Dale's was praised as being well researched and contrasted with the befuddled rationalization of apologists. I agree that the unc's stuff is always well researched and I am grateful for his website that contains many of the primary sources one needs to know to form a credible opinion on Joseph's early activities as a village seer. I have personally learned from previous discussion on these boards with him about the very subject.

With that said, I find some of the ideas below the quality and even-handedness what I have come usually come to expect from Uncle Dale. However I can understand that message board debates can sometimes polarizes one's presentation. I am not immune to this, nor do I make any pretensions of having given these issues as much scholarly scrutiny as Uncle Dale has. My approach is obviously different. Mine is faith seeking understanding instead of skepticism seeking rationalization. Joseph Smith is very vulnerable to criticism regarding his gift of seeing in the early stages of his development. Not all his activities were successful or fit into a religious context. Moroni scolded him over using his gift for other than religious purposes, so ultimately both critics and apologists are justified in finding fault with the young man.

I don't think anybody here is saying that the ancient Israelites didn't practice

a number of different sorts of "divining" activities -- some of which may have

fit in well with their religion and some of which perhaps did not.

That's not the point.

It is an issue in as much that the early Saints cast about for biblical parallels for what they are experiencing. And to some degree, it is fun to explore whether Joseph's use of a seer stone sheds any light on how ancient divining aids were used and vice versa. I think that the biblical Urim and Thummim, the Nephite Interpreters, and Joseph's white and dark brown stones all belong in the same class. It is interesting that there was speculation in Joseph's lifetime that associated the white stone in Rev. 2:17 with the High Priest's costume. One might draw from that speculation that the Biblical Urim was a stone embedded in a hat (the crown worn by the High Priest). The rabbis and mystics would debate stuff like why do we need a U&T if there is a prophet? And why were other prophets less spectacular than Moses (they only saw through a darker glass.) So I do see some Biblical parallels appropriate to explore, even if they are not exact and seer stone culture had its own pseudo-science quite apart from a religious/biblical context.

The point is -- there was a law in mid-1820s New York which prohibited glass-looking

for the purpose of telling fortunes, pretending to locate lost items, etc. Joseph Smith, Jr.

broke that law and spent his later years covering up the extent to which he broke the

law and was taken to court over his civil transgressions.

This analysis starts on the wrong foot. Joseph's activities were not illegal. Joseph did not regard them as such and neither did the state of New York in multiple fair hearings. The NY law Dale refers to is the Vagrant Act. Joseph Smith was not a vagrant (homeless) or a wandering con artist/disturber of the peace like the law targets . He had a home with his parents in the finger lakes region. When accounts of the 1826 preliminary hearing agree on is that he was let off easy in part because of his age (20-21). Young men usually didn't marry until 25 and they weren't expected to move out off their parent's attics until they got married and got a place of their own. See David J. Hacker's papers for more information about marriage timing and economic expectations.

To his credit he did make some mention of his two 1830 court appearances, and

evidently passed along some minimal mention of his 1826 arrest to Oliver Cowdery,

for insertion into the Messenger and Advocate series of historical letters.

So -- Smith did not deny his illegal activities -- he merely avoided talking about

them, or tried to put the best face upon them.

Better said "Smith did not deny his activities that Uncle Dale opines [incorrectly] were illegal." The Messenger and Advocate correctly noted that Joseph was honorably discharged and hence does not admit that his acts were illegal. However, Joseph's accounts of Moroni chastising him for using his gift unwisely show that he was not shy about admitting mistakes.

In writing about his employment

by Josiah Stowell, Smith had Oliver Cowdery portray that treasure-locating activity

as his hiring as a common laborer for pick and shovel work.

And this would be significant if it were the only portrayal that Joseph made of himself, or that old employers like Joseph Knight and Martin Harris talked about, or Howe and Hurlbut dug up. Let us give a little more credit to the early Saints for being able to read between the lines here.

Multiple sources, however, testify to the fact that Smith did no digging. He refused

to do such work, as it would interfere with his scrying in the peepstone

I couldn't be more satisfied if the entire Lewis/Hale clan had so testified. Joseph Smith was not a lazy person as some of his critics swore. One neighbor pointed out that Joseph was his best hired hand and certainly one can come up with a fair idea of how much he and his family worked by hiw many tons of trees they cleared, etc. I think Joseph's lifetime of work and productivity speaks for itself. Suppose we take those contrary sources seriously, though. So what? Monitoring his seer stone is precisely the activity that was expected of a village seer. Behaving in a different way could cause his co-workers to lose faith, which was vital if there was any chance of succeeding (from the perspective of sincere seekers).

-- a notion

which got carried over into the early D&C section that prohibits Smith from doing

any common labor. His role was to be an armchair oracle -- the "choice seer."

Aparently Joseph never got the message, hardly ever resting on his laurels, while pleading for help to have time to attend to more spiritual things.

There was nothing wrong with Smith looking into a stone for his own purposes --

if that activity helped calm his mind for prayer, contemplation, imaginative creation,

etc. Where he crossed the line was in directing others to hunt for buried treasure,

based upon his pretended ability to see fifty feet under the ground.

None of this crosses any line. If I knew someone had a better success rate at finding something that I lost, I wouldn't hesitate to consult them. If I knew someone was good at praying for blessings, I wouldn't hesitate to ask them to pray for me. If I came to believe that Joseph could see something one foot underground (like the gold plates), seeing 50 feet underground is really not all that much more miraculous or amazing. His seer stones were seen in vision before digging them up and they were over 20 feet deep (if one puts any stock in such stories).

He possessed

no such ability.

I disagree of course. I do not how his gift of seeing worked and will concede that it had its moments of unreliability, but I trust Joseph's sincerity.

It was illegal under New York law for him to solicit or accept any

scryer's work based upon those claims --- and especially so if he attempted to

make a living by such stuff. In that case he would be a vagrant -- not necessarily a penniless man, but rather

one who had no honest means of self-support, and thus must be gaining a living

by illegal means. The type of illegal means was covered under the laws pertaining

to a "disorderly person."

This type of reasoning might have been compelling to Joseph's critics back in the day, enough to try it in a hearing. However the reasoning seems to be backwards. The statue can be found here:

" and also all persons, who not having wherewith to maintain themselves, live idle without employment, and also all persons who go about from door to door or place themselves in the streets, highways or passages, to beg in the cities or towns where they respectively dwell, and all juglers, and all persons pretending to have skill in physiognomy, palmestry or like crafty science or pretending to tell fortunes, or to discover where lost goods may be found; and all persons who run away and leave their wives or children, whereby they respectively become chargeable to any city or town; and all persons wandering abroad and lodging in taverns, beer houses, out houses, market places or barns, or in the open air, and not giving a good account of themselves, and all persons wandering abroad and begging, and all idle persons not having visible means of livelihood and all common prostitutes, shall be deemed and adjudged disorderly person."

So I disagree that accepting scryer's work made someone a vagrant any more than begging would. If someone obtained their entire livelihood through begging and were otherwise idle a case could be made that they were "disorderly persons." Likewise, it is easy to demonstrate that Joseph's entire livelihood was not tied to scrying. He had other means of support both before he was recruited by Stowell and after. His main digging for salary took place in PA [the trial mentions Bend Mountain, clearly referring to Great Bend, PA], outside of the jurisdiction of New York laws.

Both Mormon and non-Mormon sources agree that in

March of 1826 he was arrested and brought before a Justice of the Peace for an

examination on the charge of being a "disorderly person." The part of the statute

which applied to his activities was the crime of "juggling" which included glass-looking

in order to tell fortunes or locate lost objects. The "glass" therein mentioned could

be a peepstone, crystal ball, etc.

Juggling is in the statute but it seems to be listed separately. I think it is stretch to include all of those items under juggling. According to 1828 Webster:

JUG'GLER, n.

1. One who practices or exhibits tricks by slight of hand; one who makes sport by tricks of extraordinary dexterity, by which the spectator is deceived. Jugglers are punishable by law.

2. A cheat; a deceiver; a trickish fellow.

In a 1819 NY law:

The meaning of the term

jugglers

in this act (passed in 1788) is probably identical to the meaning of the term in the 1819 "Act to suppress Common Showmen, Mountebanks, and Jugglers," which act made it illegal in New York "for any person or persons, to exhibit or perform, for gain or profit, any puppet show, wire dance, or any other idle shows, acts or feats, which common showmen, mountebanks or jugglers, usually practise or perform."

Is a law criminalizing puppet shows even constitutional? Jim Henson would be horrified.

"he [Joseph Smith] never Pretended to Play the Slight of hand [juggle]" --- Josiah Stowell, Jr. Non-LDS 17 February 1843

So, it is not relevant that the Patriarch Joseph engaged in divining long before the

Law of Moses was codified. What would be more analogous to Smith's activities

would be King Saul's summoning up a spirit through the magic of the Witch of Endor.

Israelite law was not set up with provisions sanctioning such magical activities.

or David consulting the Urim and Thummim about battle strategy. Joseph's treasure seeking probably fits somewhere in between Saul and the witch and David and war. Maybe a closer parallel, Samuel locating Saul's presumed missing ***?

In the same way, New York law did not allow for magic. If Joseph Smith went into

court in March of 1826 and admitted to engaging in glass-looking for pay, that

magical activity was illegal,

I did not see where the hearing investigated whether money switched hands or that Joseph admitted magic was illegal. Rather I see him regretting that he had been pressured into using his gift of seeing for less that Godly purposes.

whether or not it was effective -- whether or not he

was able to really tell the future or locate buried treasure.

Yet whether he was sincere or not was an issue examined at the hearing. Hence we have both positive and negative testimony that went beyond establishing what Joseph professed to be able to do. The negative testimony is quite a bit weaker than the positive testimony, in my opinion. Arad and McMasters were disgusted because Joseph could read a book with his back turned.

Joseph's self-defense before the judge seems to have consisted in admitting to

the glass-looking, but then presenting evidence that he did not receive payment

for such magical "juggling." The defense did not work, and he was found guilty.

I think Uncle Dale will recognize that he is misrembering his facts on these items. Joseph was not found guilty (although I will cut UD some slack on that point because some of Joseph's critics spun it that way), nor could he at a pre-trial hearing. Uncle Dale has misrepresented Joseph's self-defense:

Prisoner examined: says that he came from the town of Palmyra, and had been at the house of Josiah Stowel in Bainbridge most of time since; had small part of time been employed in looking for mines, but the major part had been employed by said Stowel on his farm, and going to school. That he had a certain stone which he had occasionally looked at to determine where hidden treasures in the bowels of the earth were; that he professed to tell in this manner where gold mines were a distance under ground, and had looked for Mr. Stowel several times and had informed him where he could find these treasures, and Mr. Stowel had been engaged in digging for them. That at Palmyra he pretended to tell by looking at this stone where coined money was buried in Pennsylvania, and while at Palmyra had frequently ascertained in that way where lost property was of various kinds; that he had occasionally been in the habit of looking through this stone to find lost property for three years, but of late had pretty much given it up on account of its injuring his health, especially his eyes, making them sore; that he did not solicit business of this kind, and had always rather declined having anything to do with this business.

However, the weight of the evidence of witnesses testifying that Joseph did indeed

possess magical powers seems to have had some effect, and no punishment was

meted out to the young criminal. He was allowed to leave that jurisdiction.

And come back a short time later to be married by a justice of the peace. And to be tried in 1830 on the same charge and found not guilty.

[Brant Gardner]

From Uncle Dale:

So, it is not relevant that the Patriarch Joseph engaged in divining long before the

Law of Moses was codified. What would be more analogous to Smith's activities

would be King Saul's summoning up a spirit through the magic of the Witch of Endor.

Israelite law was not set up with provisions sanctioning such magical activities.

This analysis does not square with recent research on the topic. I recommend: Shawna Dolansky, Now You See It, Now You Don't: Biblical Perspectives on the Relationship Between Magic and Religion (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2008). It isn't a very long book, but does a very good job of covering the evidence. Dolansky would not agree with Dale on this subject.