Another of the old books my father gave me is this book on “The Secret History of the Mormons” written by C.L. Stevens, and published in London in 1911. As you can see from the cover, it is a very 
sensationalized account of the Mormon church. The Publisher, C. Author Pearson, produced a variety of books on magic tricks, and true crime books like “Confessions of a Poacher”, “The Man they Could Not Hang”, and “Startling Crimes & Notorious Criminals”.
This book on the Mormons contains the typical anti-Mormon stories from that time, with lots a stuff on Polygamy, Blood atonement (and castration!), the Mountain Meadows Massacre, and the like.
What makes my copy of the book different is that it is highly annotated by the previous owner , with highlights and even commentary in the borders, as seen below
Every page is like this, with lines and marks in the margins. I liked the political commentary hand written on this page, which talks of the supposed murder of Mormon Joseph Morris by the Danites. The handwriting says “The birth and growth of the U.S. is founded upon violence and is reflected in present day U.S.A.” I gather from this comment that the owner of this book was maybe from the UK. The book is full of these kind of statements.
One item that was new to me was the claim that the Mormons, as they were preparing to leave for Utah, used counterfeit money to pay for their provisions. From page 30 of the book
It is typical of the Mormons of those days that they paid for much of the stores and outfits which they got from gentile outsiders in counterfeit bank notes, printed in Nauvoo from plates prepared there, and on a press set up by Young’s orders.
Counterfeit dollars were also struck in large quantities. At one mill £300 was paid for wheat in one week, all in bad money. Long afterwords, when taxed with this, the Mormon leader freely acknowledged it, and not only that, but gloried in it.
“What would you do?” he said “We were being driven from our homes by mob law, leaving hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of our property in the possession of our enemies. I considered all means were justified that enabled us to get our own back from those who were persecuting us. Did not the children of Israel spoil the Egyptians under similar circumstances?” Thus Brigham Young!
So have any of you heard of the Mormons producing counterfeit notes, or coins? And have any of you heard that quote from Brigham Young?
Wheat & Tares 
Sounds like something the always practical Brigham Young would say. And, frankly, it’s hard not to agree with him. When a particular tribe or group is chased out of town or rounded up and sent off to concentration camps, the seizure of their property by officials and by opportunistic neighbors is always part of the story.
When Japanese-Americans were sent off to US concentration camps, locals pillaged their property. Same for Jews in Germany and states occupied by the Nazis. How hypocritical of those who looted the early Saints of their real estate and buildings (or paid far below market value using the real threat of violence) to complain that they might have been paid in bogus bills in some earlier minor transaction. +1 for the underdog victims, who don’t generally get a chance to fight back.
This is no the first time I hear the claim that Mormons were involved in money counterfeiting. It seems to be a popular anti-mormon accusation. However, it seems that there isn’t much truth behind these claims.
see: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Criticism_of_Mormonism/Books/One_Nation_Under_Gods/Use_of_sources/Counterfeiting_apostles_and_Joseph
Just in a quick search, there was definitely counterfeiting happening in Nauvoo. A 1887 church magazine refers to it as the activity of a group of apostates bringing “much reproach upon the city of Nauvoo, since these things were traced to within her borders, and that fact went far towards undoing her reputation abroad.” https://books.google.com/books?id=8YE4AQAAMAAJ&lpg=PA362&ots=k6TCsKEwJw&dq=nauvoo%20counterfeit%20money&pg=PA362#v=onepage&q=nauvoo%20counterfeit%20money&f=false
An August 11, 1864 New York Times article reports that U.S. citizens had long been “embarassed” about the prevalence of counterfeit notes in major cities and banks, so a major investigation took place and an extensive counterfeiting ring was exposed with presses in “St. Louis, Indianapolis, and Nauvoo.” This is after the Mormons left, but notable that Nauvoo was still a hub.
FairMormon’s defense seems to be that there’s no evidence Joseph Smith was involved or that church leaders approved of the practice.
It is hard to blame people for paying for supplies with counterfeit bills when they were being chased out of town, but it seems unlikely that people preparing to flee Nauvoo would be investing in expensive counterfeiting equipment that they would be unable to bring with them. It seems more likely that the presses and plates had been bought before Joseph Smith was killed and the Mormons were worried about being chased out. Preparing to defraud your neighbors isn’t moral even if you later find out that your neighbors were also evil.
In the 1860s (and likely before) almost one third of the U.S. currency in circulation was counterfeit. The Secret Service was founded in 1865 with the primary mission of suppressing counterfeiting, long before they had a presidential protection mission. Counterfeiting was pretty common in those days; while it doesn’t make it right, it also shouldn’t be a terrible shock that early Saints were involved in, shall we say, “creative economics”. Perhaps this is connected to early Mormons’ propensity to distrust governmental institutions, which also manifest itself in some other historical screw-ups (MMM, post-manifesto polygamy, etc.). Strains of that historical distrust of government survive today in certain quarters of Mormonism (FLDS, the Bundys, doomsday preppers, etc.).
You could say that counterfeiting money was the MLM of its day.
Sensational history is expected to get the facts mixed up or wrong. When I read this I thought they might be referring to the Kirtland Bank episode. The LDS leaders established an unchartered bank, which was illegal (and it was named an anti-banking society) and it did issue many notes that functioned as currency and were not backed up with gold. They bought plates and printing machinery to produce the notes. When enemies of the church collected a bunch of the notes and attempted to redeem them, I think they were told the bank notes were backed up by treasure in heaven. When the notes lost value all those holding them lost money. Many people became angry with church leaders who escaped Kirtland to escape vigilante violence or at best they would have been prosecuted and served time in prison.
We should not make excuses for actual events in history where our leaders were dishonest. The culture of deceitfulness also caused our leaders to be dishonest with the telling of our history which plays a large part of the faith crisis we see so many experience at this time. The restoration of the gospel was supposed to teach people to live better lives than the common scoundrels of that time .Like, how does it sound if we say President Nelson is no worse (or better) that President Trump?
1) I wondered if this was falsely attritbuted to Brigham young but really refers to the Kirkland era
2) counterfeiting was culturally tied to seer stone use, treasure hunting, and religious revivals.