Updated February 8, 2026

Who was Sally Chase?

Sally Chase was a young woman living near the Smith family in New York, who served as a village “glass-looker” or seer using a green glass stone.¹

How old was Sally Chase?

Sally Chase was born around 1804 and was approximately the same age as Joseph Smith Jr.²

Where did Sally Chase live?

She lived with her family on Canandaigua Road near the Palmyra-Manchester township line, ‘just over the hill from the Smiths’ after their 1819 move to Stafford Road.³

What was Sally Chase’s religious affiliation?

The Chases were active Methodists.⁴

Was Sally Chase a village seer?

In her 1845 history, Lucy Mack Smith stated that Sally “found a green glass, through which she could see many very wonderful things.”⁵

Neighbor Benjamin Saunders recalled,

“I have seen Sally (Sarah) Chase peep or look in her seer Stone a many a time. She would look for anything… My oldest Brother had some Cattle stray away. She claimed she could see them but they were found right in the opposite direction from where she said they were.”

Lorenzo Saunders consulted her when he lost a piece of farm equipment. Caroline Rockwell Smith stated that “people would go for her to find lost and hidden or stolen things.” John Stafford recalled that neighbors would have “Sally Chase… look through [a] stone she had & find money.”⁶

The B. H. Roberts Foundation sells “Church History Cards” and includes the following card:

Did Joseph Smith function in a similar way?

LDS apologist Brant Gardner explains that

“these accounts portray the way Sally Chase functioned in the community. When things were lost, you went to the seer who consulted her seer stone and described how to find the lost item.”

He adds that “Joseph Smith, long before golden plates complicated his position as a local seer, appears to have functioned just as Sally Chase did.” According to Gardner, Sally Chase’s clients sought her out to locate lost property, and “Joseph Smith had at least one client who did the same,” indicating that Joseph participated in the same village-seer economy prior to his prophetic claims.⁷

What kind of stones did Sally Chase use?

Sally Chase used two different stones. Her personal stone was a small green (or bluish-green) glass that was translucent and fitted into a paddle-like holder.⁸ She also used a larger white/gray stone that had been found in her father’s well while digging with Joseph Smith.⁹

How did Sally Chase use her stones?

Sally used different methods depending on which stone she was using. With her small green stone, she would hold it up to the light.¹⁰ With the larger well stone, she would place it in a hat and hold the hat to her face, claiming things would be brought to her view.¹¹

What was Sally Chase’s relationship with Joseph Smith?

Ashurst-McGee notes that Sally Chase “provided Joseph Junior with his first experience of supernatural vision and also provided him a role model of the village seer.”¹² According to neighbor Sarah F. Anderick, Joseph Smith “often came to inquire of her where to dig for treasures,” indicating he consulted her in her capacity as a village seer.¹³

Did Joseph Smith find his first seer stone by looking into Sally’s stone?

According to Wilford Woodruff, Brigham Young in 1859 stated that

“the seer stone which Joseph Smith first obtained He got in an Iron kettle 15 feet under ground. He saw it while looking in another seers stone which a person had. He went right to the spot & dug & found it.”¹⁴

William D. Purple, a scribe for Joseph Smith’s 1826 court case in New York, recalled,

“He said when he was a lad, he heard of a neighboring girl some three miles from him, who could look into a glass and see anything however hidden from others; that he was seized with a strong desire to see her and her glass; that after much effort he induced his parents to let him visit her. He did so, and was permitted to look in the glass, which was placed in a hat to exclude the light. He was greatly surprised to see but one thing, which was a small stone, a great way off. It became luminous, and dazzled his eyes, and after a short time it became as intense as the mid-day sun. He said that the stone was under the roots of a tree or shrub as large as his arm … He borrowed an old ax and a hoe, and repaired to the tree. With some labor and exertion he found the stone.”

Purple also reported that Joseph “often had an opportunity to look in the glass, and with the same result” before eventually obtaining his own stone.¹⁵

Joseph Smith Sr. corroborated this account during his 1830 interview with Fayette Lapham, saying his son saw the location of this stone by looking at someone else’s stone.¹⁶

Who do scholars say this neighbor is?

Both Mark Ashurst-McGee and D. Michael Quinn identify this neighboring girl as Sally Chase.¹⁷

When did Joseph Smith look into Sally Chase’s stone?

Joseph likely first looked into Sally’s stone in late 1819 or early 1820, after his family moved closer to the Chase property. William Purple recalled from Joseph’s 1826 court testimony that Joseph visited a neighboring girl who could look into a glass. The Smiths lived over 2½ miles from the Chases before their move (probably summer 1819) and within ½ mile after, suggesting the visit occurred before April 1820. Fayette Lapham reported that Joseph Smith Senior said Joseph was “about fourteen years of age” when he had this experience, placing it between December 1819 and December 1820.¹⁸

What do LDS apologists say?

Stan Spencer writes in the Interpreter that “Sally Chase was probably the one who taught Joseph Smith how to use a seer stone.”¹⁹ FAIR, an LDS apologetics organization, concedes that “on the balance of historical evidence” the neighbor’s seer stone “probably [belonged] to Palmyra seer Sally Chase”:

“Joseph first used a neighbor’s seer stone (probably that belonging to Palmyra seer Sally Chase, on the balance of historical evidence, though there are other possibilities) to discover the location of a brown, baby’s foot-shaped stone. The vision of this stone likely occurred in about 1819–1820, and he obtained his first seer stone in about 1821–1822.”²⁰

LDS historian and BYU professor Steven C. Harper concurs:

“There is no reason to reject the basic assertion that Joseph searched for buried treasure using a marvelous stone, even though the claim is made by some of his antagonists. Joseph did not dispute that claim, and people who loved, trusted, and followed him confirmed that he had such a stone. A man who hired Joseph reported that Joseph’s search for a seer stone was inspired by an earlier experience of seeing it through a stone that belonged to a neighbor girl.”²¹

LDS YouTuber Jacob Hansen argues that the “the Details Are Unreliable,” dismissing the accounts as “legend development, not reliable reporting.” He later insists that his remarks are “about the entire relationship with Chase[,] not about anything specific.”²²

Did Joseph Smith find his second seer stone on the Chase property?

Joseph Smith’s second seer stone was discovered while digging a well on the Chase family property around 1822. According to Willard Chase’s 1833 account,

“In the year 1822, I was engaged in digging a well. I employed Alvin and Joseph Smith to assist me… After digging about twenty feet below the surface of the earth, we discovered a singularly appearing stone, which excited my curiosity.”²³

The discovery sparked a dispute over ownership. Chase recalled that Joseph Smith

“asked me for it, and desired to place it in the sun, in order to discover its composition. I told him to take it with him, but wished him to return it, which he did.”²⁴

However, according to Chase, when he later requested its permanent return, Joseph’s father “told me I should not have it, for Joseph made use of it in looking for lost articles, and that he intended to keep it.”²⁵

Did Joseph Smith use the second stone (from the Chase property) to find the Gold Plates?

Martin Harris, who served as Joseph’s first scribe for the Book of Mormon translation, stated:

“Joseph had a stone which was dug from the well of Mason Chase, twenty-four feet from the surface. In this stone he could see many things to my certain knowledge. It was by means of this stone he first discovered these plates.”²⁶

Harris further explained that

“Joseph … described the manner of his finding the plates. He found them by looking in the stone found in the well of Mason Chase. The family had likewise told me the same thing.”²⁷

Willard Chase, who claimed ownership of the stone found on his property during a well-digging operation in 1822, stated that in 1826 Joseph “observed that if it had not been for that stone, (which he acknowledged belonged to me,) he would not have obtained the book.”²⁸

The angel Moroni provided the initial information about the plates’ existence and general location on Hill Cumorah, while the seer stone showed Joseph the precise spot where they were buried. Neighbor Henry Harris’s 1833 account explains:

“I had a conversation with him, and asked him where he found them and how he come to know where they were. He said he had a revelation from God that told him they were hid in a certain hill and he looked in his stone and saw them in the place of deposit.”²⁹

Did Sally Chase attempt to find the Gold Plates?

After Joseph Smith reported recovering the Gold Plates in September 1827, Sally Chase became involved in efforts to locate them using her seer stone.³⁰ Her brother Willard Chase organized a group that tried to find where Joseph had hidden the plates.³¹

Joseph Knight recalled that a “great rodsman” came to the Smith home with divining rods, which “pointed down to the hearth.”³² Lucy Mack Smith adds that Sally Chase also tried to find the plates by looking into her stone. Following Sally’s directions, several men tore up the floor of Joseph Sr.’s cooper shop. They found a buried box and “split it to pieces,” hoping to find the plates inside.³³

Ashurst-McGee suggests that “Chase may have based his claim to the plates in part on the fact that Joseph had discovered them with the white stone, which Chase considered his own property.”³⁴

Did Joseph Smith use the two stones to translate the Book of Mormon?

Joseph Smith used both seer stones during the Book of Mormon translation.

Willard Chase stated in 1830 that Hyrum Smith told him “Joseph made use of it [the white stone found in the Chase well] in translating his Bible.” An 1830 source informed by Martin Harris stated that Smith “would put his face into a hat in which he had a white stone, and pretend to read from it.”³⁵

Emma Smith explained that after losing the first 116 pages, Joseph “used a small stone, not exactly, black, but was rather a dark color.”³⁶ This darker stone corresponds to the stone Joseph was later reported to have first seen through another’s seer stone, identified by scholars as Sally Chase’s. David Whitmer, who witnessed the translation at his family’s home in Fayette, stated that with the brown, “chocolate-colored stone…all of the present Book of Mormon was translated.”³⁷

Conclusion

Joseph Smith reportedly discovered his first seer stone by looking through a neighbor’s stone. Multiple scholars identify this neighbor as Sally Chase. His early exposure to seer practice, his acquisition of stones, and his later reliance on them are closely tied to his relationship with Sally and her brother Willard, on whose property the second stone was found and whose family later disputed its ownership.

These same stones were then used to locate the Gold Plates and to translate the Book of Mormon. Sally and Willard actively attempted to recover the plates for themselves, apparently believing that earlier seer activity and property claims gave them standing.

Modern LDS apologists increasingly concede these basic points. They acknowledge that Joseph first used a neighbor’s seer stone, that the neighbor was probably Sally Chase, and that seer stones played a central role in the production of the Book of Mormon.

Further Reading

• Mark Ashurst-McGee, “A Pathway to Prophethood: Joseph Smith Junior as Rodsman, Village Seer, and Judeo-Christian Prophet” (M.A. thesis, Utah State University, 2000)
• D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormorism and the Magic World View, rev. and enl. ed. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), chap. 2
• Clay L. Chandler, “Scrying for the Lord: Magic, Mysticism, and the Origins of the Book of Mormon,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 36, no. 4 (2003): 45

References

1. John G. Turner, Joseph Smith: The Rise and Fall of an American Prophet (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2025), 23–24; Mark Ashurst-McGee, “A Pathway to Prophethood: Joseph Smith Junior as Rodsman, Village Seer, and Judeo-Christian Prophet” (MA thesis, Utah State University, 2000), 214. ↩︎
2. Turner, Joseph Smith, 23; Ashurst-McGee, “Pathway to Prophethood,” 218–19. Footnote 179: “Two family histories give 1800 as Sally’s birth date. However, in the 1860 census, taken when Sally should have been 59 or 60, she reported her age as 52… Splitting the difference, I place her birth around 1804.” ↩︎
3. Turner, Joseph Smith, 23; Ashurst-McGee, “Pathway to Prophethood,” 217, 223. ↩︎
4. Turner, Joseph Smith, 23. ↩︎
5. Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1845, p. 116, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed February 8, 2026, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1845/123. ↩︎
6. Ashurst-McGee, “Pathway to Prophethood,” 218–19. ↩︎
7. Brant A. Gardner, “Joseph the Seer—or Why Did He Translate with a Rock in His Hat,” FAIR Conference paper, 2009, PDF, https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/sites/default/files/archive-files/pdf/gardner/2016-03-16/brant_gardner_joseph_the_seer-or_why_did_he_translate_with_a_rock_in_his_hat_2009.pdf. ↩︎
8. Ashurst-McGee, “Pathway to Prophethood,” 219–20. Lorenzo Saunders stated he had seen her stone “a hundred times” and described it as “a little bit of a stone & it was green & she would hold it before light.” Benjamin Saunders described it as “a bluish stone about the Size of my thumb. She had it fit in to a paddle like fit in very nicely.” ↩︎
9. Ibid., 273–74. Sarah F. Anderick described this stone as “a gray smooth stone about the size and shape of an egg” that was found “while digging a well.” ↩︎
10. Ibid., 219–20. ↩︎
11. Ibid., 273–74. Anderick recalled that Sally “would place the stone in a hat and hold it to her face, and claimed things would be brought to her view.” ↩︎
12. Ibid., 218–21. ↩︎
13. Ashurst-McGee, “Pathway to Prophethood,” 273–74, citing Sarah F. Anderick statement. See Mrs. S. F. Anderick, affidavit, June 24, 1887, http://sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/CA/natruths.htm#010088-2d2:~:text=MRS.%20S.%20F.%20ANDERICK%27S%20STATEMENT. ↩︎
14. Wilford Woodruff, journal, January 1854–December 1859, Wilford Woodruff Journals and Papers, 1828–1898, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, UT, https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/ed47e448-2936-4a1d-a4d8-4b5f96a8d1ac/0/437. ↩︎
15. “Appendix: Reminiscence of William D. Purple, 28 April 1877 [State of New York v. JS–A],” The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed February 8, 2026, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/appendix-reminiscence-of-william-d-purple-28-april-1877-state-of-new-york-v-js-a/1. ↩︎
16. Fayette Lapham, “Interview with the Father of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, Forty Years Ago: His Account of the Finding of the Sacred Plates,” Historical Magazine, 2nd ser., 7 (May 1870): 306. Republished in Dan Vogel, ed., Early Mormon Documents, vol. 1 (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996). Available at Wikisource, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Historical_Magazine_(second_series)/Volume_7/May_1870/Interview_with_the_Father_of_Joseph_Smith. Ashurst-McGee notes that while Fayette Lapham’s account says the seer was a man, “the basic historical standards of source criticism favor the Purple account.” Ashurst-McGee, “Pathway to Prophethood,” 213–15. ↩︎
17. Ashurst-McGee, “Pathway to Prophethood,” 214. Ashurst-McGee cites D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, rev. and enl. ed. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 42. ↩︎
18. Ashurst-McGee, “Pathway to Prophethood,” 221–26. Ashurst-McGee concludes: “I tentatively date the first seer stone vision to 1819 or early 1820.” ↩︎
19. Stan Spencer, “Seers and Stones: The Translation of the Book of Mormon as Divine Visions of an Old-Time Seer,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 24 (2017): 54. https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/seers-and-stones-the-translation-of-the-book-of-mormon-as-divine-visions-of-an-old-time-seer ↩︎
20. “Joseph Smith/Seer Stones,” FAIRMormon Answers, accessed February 8, 2026, https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Joseph_Smith/Seer_stones. The article references Mark Ashurst-McGee’s master’s thesis as supporting scholarship. ↩︎
21. Steven C. Harper, “The Probation of a Teenage Seer: Joseph Smith’s Early Experiences with Moroni,” in The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon: A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, edited by Dennis L. Largey, Andrew H. Hedges, John Hilton III, and Kerry Hull (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015), 26. https://rsc.byu.edu/coming-forth-book-mormon/probation-teenage-seer-joseph-smiths-early-experiences-moroni. Steven C. Harper was a historian at the LDS Church History Department when this was written.
    ↩︎
22. Jacob Hansen (@ThoughtfulSaint), X, February 8, 2026, https://x.com/ThoughtfulSaint/status/2020393417805869339; follow-up post, February 8, 2026, https://x.com/ThoughtfulSaint/status/2020526712916992297. Screenshot 1: https://mrm.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image-5.png. Screenshot 2: https://mrm.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image-6.png. Screenshot 3: https://mrm.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/image-7.png. Hansen’s original post appear hastily crafted, seemingly with the assistance of ChatGPT. ↩︎
23. Ashurst-McGee, “Pathway to Prophethood,” 259, quoting Willard Chase, statement, Manchester, New York, 1833, quoted in E. D. Howe, Mormonism Unvailed (Painesville, Ohio: E. D. Howe, 1834), 240. ↩︎
24. Ibid., 240-241. ↩︎
25. Ibid., 241. ↩︎
26. Ibid., 297. ↩︎
27. Ibid., 298. ↩︎
28. Ibid., 271, 297. ↩︎
29. Ibid., 301. ↩︎
30. Turner, Joseph Smith, 38. ↩︎
31. Ibid., 38; Ashurst-McGee, “Pathway to Prophethood,” 272. ↩︎
32. Joseph Knight Sr., History, 3, MS 3470, Church History Library, quoted in Turner, Joseph Smith, 38-39. ↩︎
33. Turner, Joseph Smith, 39. ↩︎
34. Ashurst-McGee, “Pathway to Prophethood,” 272-73. ↩︎
35. Ibid., 323-324. ↩︎
36. Ibid., 326. ↩︎
37. Ibid. ↩︎