Kinderhook plates: Examining a nineteenth-century hoax, The

Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Summer 2003 by Peters, Jason Frederick

After moving to Ohio, the church began to expand. Later in 1831, Mormon missionaries moved into Missouri to obtain new converts.5 At the same time, Smith began expanding the Mormon religious canon by beginning to work on translating the "Book of Abraham" from a papyrus obtained by some of the saints at Kirtland.6 However, this period of growth was met with trials and resistance. Mob violence had threatened the settlements of Mormon missionaries in Jackson County, Missouri and, by 1837, economic troubles were threatening to force the Mormons from Kirtland.

The move from Kirtland to Missouri in January 1838 was met with an order issued by Governor Boggs forcing all Mormons from Missouri later that year.7 In searching for a new place to locate, Smith and the Mormons spent the winter of 1838-39 exiled in Quincy, Illinois.8 In the spring of 1839, a location was found and Smith purchased the site of Commerce in Hancock County, Illinois, about forty-five miles north of Quincy.9 While still troubled with pending litigation and retribution from Missouri, Commerce, renamed Nauvoo in 1840, provided the Mormons with a base of operations and the town soon grew to be one of the most prosperous in the state. By 1842, Nauvoo had a population of around ten thousand inhabitants.10

Once fully established in Nauvoo, Smith worked toward achieving two main goals: solving the troublesome Missouri problem and further defining the Mormon doctrine for his followers. The Mormon expulsion from Missouri as well as their financial losses was a major problem for the church. In the fall of 1839, Smith visited Washington, D.C. with the aim of obtaining some financial renumeration for the Mormon losses in Missouri. Although sympathetic to his cause, President Martin Van Buren pledged no support and the Mormons deemed the trip a failure.11 Further attempts by Missouri officials to extradite Smith as well as a constant threat of invasion from anti-Mormons from Missouri caused the Mormons to form a militia group, the Nauvoo Legion. The Legion fueled growing distrust from the non-Mormon residents of west-central Illinois.

Competing with this Missouri problem was Smith's need to further define the Mormon religion. "The Book of Abraham" was published in March 1842 and expanded the Mormon canon. This new work was available in the Smith-edited Times and Seasons newspaper.12 Although the Mormons had engaged in publishing in both Kirtland and in Missouri, in Nauvoo they began to spread the Mormon message more fully and effectively. By early 1843, the message appealed to the individual convert and came to be better defined. The Mormons hoped that by better defining their own religion and purpose, their message could become more accessible and produce more converts. The Nauvoo publication, the Wasp, changed its name to the Nauvoo Neighbor in March 1843.13 A month later, Smith began to break ties with the millennialist movement by denouncing Millerism and William Miller.14 Although these new developments helped to solidify Mormonism to its followers, the growing anti-Mormon sentiment was rumbling in the distance.