Scribe, financier, witness
Martin Harris
1783–1875
1 topic · 5 dated events · 2 sources
Their part in each topic
The Book of Mormon: Origins, Translation, and Witnesses
Scribe, financier, witness
Wrote the lost 116 pages, carried the character transcript to Charles Anthon in New York, and mortgaged 151 acres of his Palmyra farm to Grandin to secure the $3,000 printing bill. He signed the Testimony of Three Witnesses and never publicly withdrew it, but he is also the witness who spoke of seeing the plates with a 'spiritual eye' and an 'eye of faith,' which is the single most quoted line on either side of the argument.
In the timeline
5 events across 1 topics, chronological. Only events this person was actually part of — present at, responsible for, or the subject of — not every event where the name comes up.
Martin Harris takes the transcript to Charles Anthonhinge
Harris travelled to New York City and met Charles Anthon of Columbia and, by some accounts, Samuel Latham Mitchill. Joseph Smith's history has Anthon certifying the translation as correct, then tearing up the certificate on hearing an angel was involved and saying 'I cannot read a sealed book.' Anthon's own 1834 letter to E. D. Howe called the whole story of his endorsement 'perfectly false' and described the paper as 'all kinds of crooked characters, disposed in columns.'
The 116 pages are losthinge
After repeated requests, Joseph let Martin Harris take home the manuscript he had scribed — later called 116 pages, the book of Lehi. It disappeared and has never been recovered. Lucy Mack Smith records Harris crying that he had lost his soul, and Joseph answering 'All is lost! all is lost!' Emma had just given birth to a son who died. Joseph reported that the interpreters were taken from him.
The Three Witnesseshinge
Following a revelation promising that 'it is by your faith that you shall obtain a view of them,' Joseph, Cowdery, Whitmer and Harris went into the woods near the Whitmer farm to pray. Harris withdrew and was joined by Joseph separately. All three afterward signed a statement that an angel showed them the plates and that they heard the voice of God declare the translation correct.
Grandin contracts to print; Harris mortgages the farm
Grandin had refused the job, as had Thurlow Weed of Rochester; he agreed once he learned another Rochester printer would take it and once Martin Harris put up security. The contract was for 5,000 copies at $3,000, and on 25 August Harris mortgaged about 151 acres, payable within eighteen months. John H. Gilbert then set nearly all the type on a hand press on the third storey of Exchange Row, sixteen pages to a form, thirty-seven forms between August 1829 and March 1830, supplying the punctuation the manuscript lacked.
The witnesses scatter
Oliver Cowdery was tried and excommunicated at Far West; David and John Whitmer and W. W. Phelps were disciplined; Martin Harris was excommunicated in Kirtland. Whitmer said God told him by his own voice in June 1838 to separate himself from the Latter Day Saints. Stephen Burnett's letter that year reports Harris publicly qualifying what he had seen.
Sources in their own name
Source records in the database whose author line names this person. Each links to the topic that uses it.
Testimony of the Three Witnesses and Testimony of the Eight Witnesses, June 1829
Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, Martin Harris, and eight others
The exact wording eleven men put their names to — and, equally, what those statements do not contain: no date, no place, no description of the event, and no surviving signed original.
Martin Harris, mortgage to Egbert B. Grandin, 25 August 1829
Martin Harris
The financial spine of the whole project: 151 acres pledged for $3,000, payable within eighteen months, and sold in April 1831 when the book did not sell.
Appears alongside
People who share the most dated events with Martin Harris.
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