In 1837 an illiterate youth named James Colin Brewster said that at age ten, he, like Joseph Smith, had been in direct communication with the angel Moroni. Brewster began “translating” non-existent records that he said were the lost books of Esdras, and had published numerous extracts from his work, as well as supposed translations of ancient inscriptions, all before he was twenty-one years of age. Many former Mormons, seeing similarities between Joseph Smith and this young man (who was also a visionary and money-digger), actually joined the church that Brewster founded in 1848.
For more information, see The Mormon Mirage 3rd Edition: A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church Today (Zondervan, 2009). Also available as an audiobook and as an expanded-text E-book for Nook, Kindle and other reading devices.
