Anti-Mormon
writers and critics just love to cite the fact that old Joe Smith was a ‘Money
Digger’. Aside from being completely correct in their assertions; the problem
for them is that Joseph’s short term labours to try and locate buried Spanish
treasure, differs in no way from the modern day treasure hunter who scours a farmers field with his metal detector in the hope of picking up an old Saxon spearhead
or a hoard of Roman coins.
In
fact, the Prophets detractors often would have us believe that searching for
hidden treasure was somehow immoral or in contravention of social norms and yet
Joseph's modern day accusers knowingly overlook the fact that in the mid to late
1800’s, America was full of so called ‘Money Diggers’ as people in their
thousands poured into California from all over the world searching for...buried gold.
Perhaps
a word of explanation is required however to explain the circumstances that saw
Joseph engage in what amounted to a fruitless search for supposedly hidden
treasure. In 1825 there was a certain Mr Josiah Stoal who, having heard rumours
of gold deposited in an abandoned mine formerly worked by the Spanish, hired a
group of men to search for, and potentially extract the haul of treasure.
Having heard of Joseph's gift of Seership (as well as probably the rumours in the local and extended community regarding his discovery of the gold plates), Mr Stoal took the Prophet on as one of his employed team to search the remains of the mine for whatever valuable commodities might still be hidden there.
Having heard of Joseph's gift of Seership (as well as probably the rumours in the local and extended community regarding his discovery of the gold plates), Mr Stoal took the Prophet on as one of his employed team to search the remains of the mine for whatever valuable commodities might still be hidden there.
It
was a normal and regular occurrence throughout the early life of the Prophet to
take time out from working on his Fathers farm and engage in paid work in order
to supplement the family income; usually as a farm hand or a general labourer
where hard work and muscle were required. Incidentally, it was during this period of
employment with Mr Stoal that Joseph boarded with Issac Hale who would soon
after become the Prophets Father-in-law.
The
search for the legendary Spanish gold didn't last long and yielded no success,
and yet this relatively short incident in the life of the Prophet seems to have
been enough to have earned him the dubious reputation of being a money digger.
As
for the label ‘Money Digger’; that in itself is a spurious term, and is
intentionally used to paint a tarnished picture regarding the character of the Prophet,
in much the same way that the 21st century term ‘Gold Digger’ is applied to an individual to denote greedy, dishonest and underhand inclinations
rather than a literal description of a person who likes to dig for gold in his
spare time.
The
Prophet was well aware that his critics drew constant reference to his pursuit in helping search for treasure and often questioned him about it in the hope that he would somehow
incriminate himself. Knowing though that his employment with Mr Stoal was
perfectly proper and within the law, Joseph gives a typically candid response
as part of a question and answer exercise that he undertook in order to address
the most common questions that were frequently being be put to him:
Question –“Was not Joseph Smith a money
digger?”
Joseph’s Answer – "Yes, but it was never a very
profitable job for him, as he only got fourteen dollars a month for it." (Teachings
of the Prophet Joseph Smith)
So
next time someone asks if Joseph Smith was a money digger – yes at one point he
certainly was. Next question?
