Hurlbut was a robber murderer adulterer and was excommunicated. He then swore to wash his hands in Joseph Smith’s blood. He was also locked out of another Christian church for same reasons. He was jailed for the threats etc. He fled the country. Not a credible guy. Yet the modern church historians are giving credence to the affidavits he gathered against Joseph! They are what compose Mormonism Unveiled by ED Howe who hated Joseph and left Christianity for spiritualism/satanism. Hurlbut sold his collections to Howe since no one would believe it coming from him, he being so incredible.

Incredible! This is where the stories of him being a treasure seeker, looking for treasure in a hat, lying to people about locations of buried treasure, being a drunkard, being lazy, supposedly saying there really are no gold plates, randomly attacking people, drawing magic circles and practicing necromancy, and all manner of ridiculous stories. Some people who he interviewed had regular and good things to say about Joseph he ignored those people and instead went to all the crazies to gather their stories.

The accounts to this day about Joseph finding a seer Stone in someone’s field is from one of these affidavits and is total bogus.

And Joseph did not use a rock and a hat to translate the holy Book of Mormon! That was never the account until the 60s when these super liberal historians started taking evil men’s accounts seriously.