Joe Smith, jr., the putative father of Mormonism and the Church of Latter-day Saints, was born in Sharon, Windsor County, Vermont, December 13, 1805. When he was seventeen years old he found a curious stone in the dirt thrown from a well. It was the shape of a child’s foot, of a whitish, glassy appearance, though opaque, and resembling quartz. He thought a great deal of the stone, and asserted the gift and power with it at his eyes of revealing things past and things to come. The discoveries soon became too dazzling for his eyes in daylight, and he had to shade his vision by looking at the stone in his hat. There are fools in all ages; and Joe had his believers, who often came to him to find out where lost or stolen property was. He always charged; and though there was no reality in his pretentions, he succeeded in keeping the eyes of certain dupes covered. He would tell them where there was a large chest of money buried, and get them to digging, and _he_ would stand by with his stone; but every time, just as they were almost to the treasure, the enchantment would be broken by some one speaking, or otherwise, and though he never found any money, they still believed. He made his dupes believe that while he was engaged in secret prayer in the wilderness an angel appeared and told him that all his sins had been forgiven, and proclaiming further that all the religious denominations were believing false doctrines; that none of them were acceptable of God as of his church and kingdom; and also promising him that the true doctrine and fullness of the gospel should at some future time be revealed to him. He was told that the American Indians were a remnant of the Israelites; that their prophetic records regarding the last days were buried at a certain spot; that this spot was made known him, and him only, and that if he kept faithful he should be the chosen prophet to translate them to the world. A short time afterward he had another astonishing vision; and he was commanded, upon a secretly-fixed day and hour, to go alone to a certain spot revealed to him by an _angel_, and there take out of the earth a metallic book of great antiquity, which was of immortal importance to the world, and which he said was a record of mystic letters of the long-lost tribes of Israel; that no human being besides himself could see it and live, and that the power to translate it to the nations of the earth was given to him only as the chosen servant of God.