Joseph Smith Jr. was born on December 23, 1805, as the fourth child of Joseph and Lucy Smith. He was born into an insecurity that in a lifetime of thirty-eight years he would never escape. By the time he was five the family had moved from Sharon, Vermont, to Randolph, then to Royalton, and finally to Lebanon, New Hampshire. At this time a depression was hanging over New England. Its economy had been all but destroyed by Jefferson's embargo against England and France, and later by the War of 1812. All that remained of the once lucrative trade with Canada was a t

Members of Smith's church, or "Latter-day Saints" as they were now known, were hard workers. Their communities prospered. The economy in Kirtland was at first communistic, like that of early Christians. When communism proved to be impractical the Church returned to free enterprise, with members paying ten percent of their incomes to it as tithes. Eventually a temple was built in Kirtland, the grandest building in the west. The Mormons' prosperity was consistent with Smith's theology; the Kingdom of God, he taught, was to prevail not only in heaven but also on Earth (Clark).

Soon after the publication of the Book of Mormon, Smith organized his first congregation of the Mormon Church, including his parents and brothers. He then traveled to the Susquehanna Valley with his wife, where her parents lived. They gained some converts there, but Smith was unwelcome among his former treasure-hunting associates. Isaac Hale, Smith's father in law, still thought him to be the same charlatan as when he had eloped with Emma, and before long Smith was once more put on trial for "disorderly conduct (Clark)." Joseph and Emma then left the valley.

hriving smuggling business around Lake Champlain (Brodie 7).

When Joseph was ten the family moved to Palmyra, a town in western New York. This was the fateful new home of Joseph Smith where he would experience the events that were to mold the rest of his life. In the spring of 1820, he was subject to the "first vision." Fourteen years old, he was supposedly troubled by the religious revivals in the area. Confused as to which religion was the right one to embrace, he retired to a grove near his home to pray:

There was, and still is, a great deal of controversy over the authenticity of the Book of Mormon as an ancient text. Among the many arguments that it is not authentic are: problems in the chronology of Smith's claimed visions, the differing details of them, historical, archeological, and anthropological discrepancies within the Book of Mormon itself, contradictions between the Book of Mormon and basic doctrines of the Church, Smith's questionable character, and the astonishing amount of biblical verse and other material quoted directly in Smith's "scripture." (Clark)

The two latter issues are the ones that earned him the doubts of many people at the time. Smith was known locally as a regular money-digger, searching the hillsides for treasures with the aid of "seeing stones" (one of which he is said to have used in translating a portion of the Book of Mormon). He had a reputation as a "likable ne'er-do-well who was notorious for tall tales and necromantic arts and who spent his leisure leading a band if idlers in digging for buried treasure (Brodie 16)." This was not a particularly unusual practice at the time, especially during economically hard times. But Smith had been arrested on more than one occasion, accused of being "a disorderly person and an imposter," and on the basis of the testimonies and Smith's own admissions of indulging in magic arts and organizing hunts for buried gold, the court ruled him guilty of disturbing the peace (Brodie 16).

Some topics in this essay:
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