Salem, 1836 — The Treasure Trip and D&C 111
In 1836 Joseph Smith travelled to Salem, Massachusetts, and a revelation came out of the trip that is now Doctrine and Covenants 111. Critics call it the proof that Joseph never left treasure hunting behind. It is the strongest card in that hand, and it still does not win.
The Claim
Ten years after the First Vision and six years after the Church was organized, Joseph went to Salem chasing a report of money hidden in the cellar of a house. He found nothing. He then produced a revelation about it, and that revelation is in the Doctrine and Covenants today. So what is the charge? That a prophet still following treasure tips in 1836 was NEVER redirected at all, and that a revelation attached to a failed money hunt came from somewhere other than God.
Concede What Is Real
Start by giving up the ground that cannot be held. The sources do connect the trip to a report from a man named Burgess about money hidden in a Salem cellar. A promissory note made out to a Jonathan Burgess in Salem survives, which is at least a tentative link to the Burgess of the story. Joseph’s own letter to Emma on 19 August 1836 mentions looking for a specific house. That is in the Joseph Smith Papers.
Do not pretend otherwise. Anyone who has read the documents will know, and what does the denial buy? Nothing. It costs more than the fact does.
Then Supply the Context
1. The account everyone quotes is late, hostile, and overstated
Where does the repeated version of this story come from? Ebenezer Robinson, writing in 1889. That is fifty-three years after the trip. Robinson was not on it. He wrote as editor of The Return, a paper published for the Whitmerite Church of Christ, a rival body. And his claim is not that treasure was one errand among several. His claim is that it was the SINGLE objective of the trip.
That claim is contradicted by the contemporaneous documents. Oliver Cowdery’s letter to his brother Warren and Joseph’s letters to Emma describe meeting creditors in New York, preaching, Church business, and visiting historic sites. So how good is the source carrying the whole charge? A fifty-three-year-old recollection from a rival church, contradicted by letters written during the trip itself. That is the weakest document in the file.
2. The trip had an obvious non-treasure purpose
By the summer of 1836 the Kirtland Temple had been built and Missouri lands purchased. The Church was deep in debt. Church leaders went east to deal with creditors. Salem was one stop on that journey, not its reason.
3. Section 111 does not bless a treasure hunt. It rebukes one and redefines the word.
This is the part critics never quote, and it is sitting in the first two verses.
Doctrine and Covenants 111:1–2
“I, the Lord your God, am not displeased with your coming this journey, notwithstanding your follies. I have much treasure in this city for you, for the benefit of Zion, and many people in this city, whom I will gather out in due time for the benefit of Zion.”
Read what the text does. Verse 1 names the folly out loud. Is that an endorsement of the errand? It is the opposite, with the failure stated in the same sentence. Then verse 2 relocates the noun. What is the treasure in Salem? People, gathered in due time for the benefit of Zion. Verse 4 says there is more than one kind of treasure in that city.
Does a revelation that says “notwithstanding your follies” and then redefines treasure as souls authorize a money hunt? It redirects one. That is the same pattern the Church History Topics page describes for 1827, where the gift is pointed away from earthly treasure and toward spiritual work.
4. The redefinition came true, and it is documented
In July 1841 at a Philadelphia conference, Hyrum Smith and William Law gave Erastus Snow and Benjamin Winchester a copy of the 1836 revelation with instructions for Salem, saying they believed the due time of the Lord had come. Snow reached Salem in September 1841 with Winchester.
The Salem branch
- Spring 1842 — Snow had organized a branch of sixty-two members
- Within a year — about ninety members in Salem
If the section is read as prophecy, that reading fits the text and the outcome. The treasure-in-a-cellar reading is the one the text itself overrides in verse 2.
5. The best point on that side is actually the best point on this one
Critics press hardest on the fact that nothing was found. So what does a fraudulent church do with a revelation memorializing a failed treasure trip? It buries the thing, never prints it, and certainly never canonizes it as binding scripture for its members.
Instead the revelation was preserved, canonized, printed in every copy of the Doctrine and Covenants, and taught in seminary manuals. The survival of Section 111 in the canon is evidence against the thesis it is being used to support. You cannot simultaneously argue that the Church hides its embarrassments and that its scripture contains this one.
6. Prophetic infallibility was never the claim
The charge assumes a standard the Church has NEVER taught. Doctrine and Covenants 1:24–28 says the revelations were given to servants in their weakness, that they might come to understanding, and that when they erred it might be made known. Joseph himself said a prophet is a prophet only when acting as such.
Scripture agrees, repeatedly. Jonah ran. Peter had to be withstood to his face at Antioch (Galatians 2:11). Nathan told David to go build the temple, and God overruled him that same night (2 Samuel 7:3–5).
So how does a prophet who follows up a bad tip, finds nothing, and is told plainly that his errand involved folly compare to the prophets in the Bible? He is behaving exactly like them. The revelation redirected the errand and gave him the real assignment, and five years later that assignment produced a congregation.
The Verdict
Salem is the strongest item in the treasure-seeking brief, and it should be handled directly rather than dodged. Yes, a Burgess report about a cellar was part of why they went, and yes, nothing was ever found there.
But the account claiming treasure was the sole purpose is a hostile reminiscence written fifty-three years later by a man who was not there, for a rival church, and it is contradicted by letters written during the trip. The revelation that came out of it names the folly, redefines the treasure as people, and was fulfilled in that sense five years later by a branch of sixty-two that grew to about ninety. And a church covering up its origins does not canonize the record of a failed treasure hunt and print it in every copy of its scripture for nearly two centuries.
The critic’s reading requires Section 111 to be an endorsement. But what does verse 1 call the errand? Folly. And verse 2 changes the subject entirely. That is the text.