I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Martin Harris, one of two of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon to die a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To my knowledge, no esteemed biography of Harris has been written, although H. Michael Marquardt has written a strong article of his years in Kirtland 1830-1870 in the Fall 2002 issue of Dialogue. Harris is an important man in Mormon history. Without his farm being mortgaged, publication of The Book of Mormon would have been delayed. But Harris, born in 1783, was also a gullible soul, an amiable, man prone to hyperbole and bumbling, a sort of “Chief Wiggum” of Mormon history; a man who would walk the straight and narrow like a drunk trying to maneuver a policeman’s chalk line.
However, let there be no dispute that Martin Harris believed in The Book of Mormon. Like the other witnesses, he never recanted his testimony. The one-time wealthy farmer remained prosperous until he mortgaged his farm and provided other funds to raise $5,000, a small fortune, to publish the Book of Mormon. To give one an idea of how much $5,000 was in 1831, one can note that $5,000 today was worth $114,000 in 1913. Not surprisingly, Harris’ wife, Lucy, was opposed to her husband paying the tab for the restored scripture. Mormon lore has it that Harris, the original transcriber, begged Smith for the first 116 pages of translated material, brought it home, and promptly lost it. In my youth, I was always told the “shrewish” Mrs. Harris was to blame. One Sunday school teacher told me she took the pages and burned them in the fireplace? (In the recent “Joseph Smith: Plates of Gold” film, a more mystical, divine explanation was offered — the missing pages disappeared from a locked drawer.) In any event, Harris has always played the bumbling, foolish, dimwitted “heavy” who deprived the world of “The Book of Lehi.”
Read Full Article »