Was Joseph Smith a Money Digger? Why yes....And??

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.

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 21^st 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?