Young Joseph Smith Uses His Seer Stone in a Hat to Dig for Treasure on Josiah Stowell's Farm

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Painted outdoor scene on a chilly farm with patches of snow, bare trees, and a log cabin in the distance. In the foreground, Joseph Smith kneels in a brown coat with his face buried in the crown of a hat held in both hands. To his left, three men in period work clothes dig a deep pit with picks and shovels — one works inside the hole, the others swing tools above. A windlass with a coiled rope and bucket stands beside the pit, and picks and rope lie scattered on the ground.

A painted dramatization of Joseph Smith's well-documented treasure-digging years in upstate New York and northern Pennsylvania (c. 1822–1827). Smith was hired by Josiah Stowell to locate buried Spanish treasure by placing his brown seer stone into his hat, pressing his face into the hat to exclude light, and reporting what he 'saw.' In 1826 Smith was convicted in Bainbridge, New York, on the charge of being a 'disorderly person' for this practice. He later used the same stone-in-hat method to dictate the Book of Mormon.

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