Luman Walter

Luman Walters
Born	ca. 1789
Died	June 2, 1860
Other names	'Laman Walter'

Luman Walters (c. 1789 – June 2, 1860) is known for his connection with the family of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement.

Luman Walters was born in Winchester, Litchfield County, Connecticut, to John Walter and Sarah Gleason around 1789. Sometime between 1798 and 1800, the Walter family relocated to Burke, Vermont, a town founded by Luman's uncle.

Walters was reportedly the "son of a rich man living on the Hudson". He had "received a scientific education" and studied in Paris. Alva Beaman's daughter recalled that "After he came home he lived like a misanthrope. He had come back an infidel, believing neither in man nor God."

At a debate in the 1880s, Clark Braden alleged that Walters had mastered the arts of animal magnetism and Mesmerism.

Walters returned to the United States by 1818 and began acting the part of a physician and occult expert. In that year, James Giddings, the deputy sheriff of Boscawen, New Hampshire, offered a reward for the arrest of a "transient person, calling himself Laman Walter, [who] has for several days past been imposing himself upon the credulity of the people in this vicinity by a pretended knowledge of magic, palmistry and conjuration". Walters was arrested for "juggling" that August in Hopkinton, New Hampshire, but escaped from jail.

In November 1819, Walters married Harriet Howard in Vermont. By 1822, Walters had apparently taken up residence in Gorham, Ontario County, New York.

In 1822 and 1823, Walters served as a seer for a treasure dig on the property of Abner Cole in Palmyra, Wayne County, New York. Joseph Smith, Sr., Alvin Smith, and Joseph Smith reportedly participated in this dig. Walters possessed a magical book and a seer stone, which he used to locate buried treasure.

...
Wikipedia