The following are short excerpts from the current draft of my paper-in-progress, “Joseph Smith’s Spiritual Heritage as a Catalyst for His Early Visions” (if you have a shorter, catchier title to suggest, I’m all ears.) Endnotes aren’t included; the formatting from Word is too much of a hassle to carry over.
Lucy Smith described her son Joseph as “a remarkably quiet, well disposed child,” “much less inclined to the perusal of books than any of the rest of the children, but far more given to meditation and deep study”. She remembered that he “always seemed to reflect more deeply than common persons of his age upon everything of a religious nature.” Joseph Sr. said in a blessing he gave his son in 1834, “Thou hast sought to know his [God’s] ways, and from thy childhood thou hast meditated much upon the great things of his law.” Pomeroy Tucker, a newspaper apprentice in Palmyra, later remembered Joseph’s father describing him as the “gen[i]us of the family”. Orsamus Turner, another Palmyra newspaper apprentice and an acquaintance of Joseph’s, described the young Smith as “inquisitive” and remembered that he attended meetings of a “juvenile debating club” where he participated in discussions to “solve some portentous questions of moral or political ethics.” Joseph’s curious, thoughtful personality aroused him to begin seeking answers to his questions early in life. Perhaps visionary experiences were even the inevitable byproduct of Joseph’s personality and his religious influence, offering answers to the young man’s questions and his family’s wants.
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Treasure-hunting was not an uncommon recreation for rural people of the time. During his teenage years, Joseph Smith and members of his family were involved in multiple treasure-hunts where Joseph attempted to use one of his seer-stones to see buried treasure. In the minds of several people, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon was directly connected with this treasure-digging culture that pervaded the region. In one sermon, Brigham Young referred to the golden plates as “that treasure” or “the treasure” five times, using the familiar folk vernacular. In January 1831, one antagonistic Palmyra newspaper directly associated the Moroni visits with “legends, or traditions respecting hidden treasures, with the SPIRIT, to whom ignorance has formerly given them in charge”. Joseph Smith’s personal involvement in treasure-hunting was reflected in the angel’s command during his initial visits that Joseph should never consider obtaining “the plates for the purpose of getting rich”, as he had in previous treasure-hunting quests. According to Oliver Cowdery, when Joseph first saw the “sacred treasure”, he forgot Moroni’s command and began to calculate how to “add to his store of wealth…without once thinking of the solemn instruction of the heavenly messenger, that all must be done with an express view of glorifying God”. When Moroni initially kept Joseph from taking the plates, Joseph began to think of the treasure-hunting rituals: “He had heard of the power of enchantment, and a thousand like stories, which held the hidden treasures of the earth”. During these early years, orthodox beliefs in angels melded with stories of folk treasure-spirits in the minds of Joseph Smith and others.
