when did joseph smith get the gold plates
Golden plates Smith said he found the plates on September 22, 1823, at a Hill, near his home in Manchester, New York, after the angel Moroni directed him to a buried stone box. Smith said the angel at first prevented him from taking the plates but instructed him to return to the same location in a year. In September 1827, on his fourth annual attempt to retrieve the plates, Smith returned home with a heavy object wrapped in a frock, which he then put in a box. Though he allowed others to heft the box, he said that the angel had forbidden him to show the plates to anyone until they had been translated from their original "reformed Egyptian" language. Smith dictated the text of the Book of Mormon over the next several years, claiming that it was a translation of the plates. He did so by using a seer stone, which he placed in the bottom of a hat and then placed the hat over his face to view the words written within the stone.[5] Smith published the translation in 1830 as the Book of Mormon.
Mormon pioneers According to church belief, God inspired Brigham Young, Joseph Smith's successor as President of the Church, to call for the Saints (as church members call themselves) to organize and head West, beyond the western frontier of the United States (into what was then Mexico, though the U.S. Army had already captured New Mexico and California in late 1846). During the winter of 1846-47, Latter-day Saint leaders in Winter Quarters and Iowa laid plans for the migration of the large number of Saints, their equipment, and their livestock. It was here that Brigham Young first met Thomas L. Kane, a non-Mormon from Philadelphia with deep personal connections to the Polk administration. Kane obtained permission for the Mormons to winter on Indian territory, and the site was originally called Kanesville. Brigham Young continued to trust Kane throughout his own lifetime, particularly as an intermediary with the often hostile Federal government. This major undertaking was a significant test of leadership capability and the existing administrative network of the recently restructured Church. For his role in the migration, Brigham Young is sometimes referred to as the "American Moses."