Excerpt from the History of the Church, vol. 5 page 372: ¹

“I have translated a portion of [the plates] and find they contain the history of the person with whom they were found. He was a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the ruler of heaven and earth.”

From the LDS August 1981 Ensign article titled ‘Kinderhook Plates Brought to Joseph Smith Appear to Be a Nineteenth-Century Hoax.’: ²

‘A recent electronic and chemical analysis of a metal plate (one of six original plates) brought in 1843 to the Prophet Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, Illinois, appears to solve a previously unanswered question in Church history, helping to further evidence that the plate is what its producers later said it was—a nineteenth-century attempt to lure Joseph Smith into making a translation of ancient-looking characters that had been etched into the plates.’