Why Was Joseph Smith Accused of Being a “Disorderly Person” in 1826?

In 1825, at age 19, Joseph Smith was hired by a man named Josiah Stowell, who lived in South Bainbridge, near the New York-Pennsylvania border. Stowell believed there was an old Spanish silver mine with treasure buried nearby and had hired Joseph and his father to assist him in finding it. According to Joseph’s mother, Lucy Mack Smith, Stowell had heard that Joseph “was in possession of certain means, by which he could discern things that could not be seen by the natural eye.”¹ Stowell wanted Joseph to try to use those means (a seer stone) to attempt to locate the Spanish mine and treasure. After about a month working with this crew, Joseph persuaded Stowell to give up the attempt, but continued to work as a hired hand on Stowell’s farm (Joseph Smith—History 1:56).²

In March 1826, Peter Bridgeman, Stowell’s nephew, believed Joseph was scamming his uncle. Bridgeman thus brought legal charges against Joseph alleging that he was a “disorderly person,” a broad legal category in the in 1820s which included persons “pretending … to discover where lost goods may be found.”³ Until recently, determining the details and outcome of this legal action has been difficult, due to the fact that local New York courts at this level were not courts of record, and so no original court transcript was created, and existing historical sources convey inconsistent and contradictory information.⁴ Some critics have taken advantage of this lack of clear source materials and have claimed that Joseph was in fact found guilty and convicted of being a disorderly person.

Careful analysis of recently recovered sources by legal historian Gordon A. Madsen, however, indicates that there was no issuance of a guilty verdict in this case.⁵ According to Madsen, the evidence indicates “that in 1826 Joseph Smith was indeed charged and tried for being a disorderly person and that he was acquitted. Whatever the gist of that charge, he was found guilty of no crime.”⁶ At least four key pieces of factual evidence and judicial procedure support this conclusion.

First, the bills submitted for payment for the services rendered by Judge Albert Neely, who presided over the trial, and of Constable Philip De Zeng, who served the warrant for Joseph’s arrest, have been found. If Joseph Smith had been found guilty, according to Madsen, these bills would have included requests from the judge and the constable for additional payment for issuing a warrant committing Joseph to confinement and for having him officially transported there, respectively.⁷ The lack of these items on the bills is prima facie evidence that Joseph was in fact not sentenced to serve time (up to 60 days) in “the bridewell, or house of correction,” as the applicable New York law clearly required of all persons found guilty of a disorderly person charge.⁸

Second, the two major accounts of the trial both agree that Josiah Stowell testified in Joseph’s favor. According to one source, Stowell testified “that he positively knew” that Joseph could find “valuable treasures through the medium of … [his seer] stone.”⁹ Another source says that the judge asked Stowell, “you believe the prisoner can see by the aid of the stone fifty feet below the surface of the earth, as plainly as you can see what is on my table?” Stowell responded, “do I believe it? No, it is not a matter of belief. I positively know it to be true.”¹⁰ Years later, Stowell’s son wrote a letter denying that Joseph ever “pretended to play the slight of hand,” which is another way of saying he was not a “juggler” or disorderly person.¹¹ In the same letter, Stowell himself confirmed that he knew Joseph to be a seer.¹²

New York law defined a disorderly person to be one who, among many other things, lived “idle without employment,” went begging, cheating, deceiving, or “pretending” to read palms, tell fortunes, or “to discover were lost goods may be found.”¹³ These terms do not describe Joseph Smith. The purpose of the statute was to keep out of town derelicts or vagabonds, not those who actually worked, were not vagrants, or really could see and find objects exercising the gift of seership, as plenty of people in those days did, and as Stowell soberly testified really was the case with Joseph.¹⁴

Third, the same applicable law required any such convicted person to be “removed by order of two justices of the peace.” However, the justices’ billing records show only one justice in this case.

And fourth, available legal case precedents in 19th century required that the undesirable actions of the person affect the public at large.¹⁵ As Madsen points out, no one besides Stowell parted with any money, and “he emphatically denied that he had been deceived or defrauded.” Thus, since Joseph’s actions only impacted Stowell, and not the larger public, “only Josiah Stowell had any legal basis to complain, and he was not complaining.”¹⁶ Thus, there was no legal grounds to charge Joseph as a disorderly person, and Justice Neely readily and correctly released him.