There's a well-known paper titled "Dartmouth Arminianism And Its Impact on Hyrum Smith And the Smith Family" published in 2006 by the John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, written by Richard K. Behrens.
In the pursuit of clarity, charity, and understanding, I did a detailed review, which you can see here:
https://interpreterpeerreviews.blogspot.com/2025/06/behrens-paper-on-dartmouth.html
In the spirit of charity I assume Behrens researched and wrote in good faith. In 2006 there were probably not as many online sources. Maybe detailed citations were not expected back then, although I used to require them from students and from myself...
The paper is replete with conclusions about how deeply Dartmouth affected Hyrum for the rest of his life, including science, architecture, and theology.
But unfortunately the paper is also replete with factual errors, compound assumptions and inferences, poor to nonexistent citations, and logical fallacies.
Conclusion: Unless and until additional evidence comes forth, the connection between Joseph Smith and Dartmouth is tenuous at best. The only connection is through his brother Hyrum, who attended Moor's school as a "Charity Scholar" for one quarter to learn "Arithmetic" while his classmates studied Virgil and Mathematics.
Hyrum apparently taught Joseph about the arithmetic he had learned at Moor's school. Joseph mentioned in his 1832 history that “I was mearly instructtid in reading and writing and the ground <rules> of Arithmatic which const[it]uted my whole literary acquirements.”
Beyond that, the connections with Dartmouth appear illusory at best.
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