|
== Summary ==
[[Image:Martinharrisat87.jpg|thumb|right|Martin Harris circa 1870, age 87.]]'''Martin Harris''' ([[May 18]], [[1783]]–[[July 10]], [[1875]]) underwrote the first printing of ''The [[Book of Mormon]]'' and also served as one of [[Three Witnesses]] who testified that they had been shown the [[Golden Plates]] from which the Book of Mormon had been transcribed.
Low resolution book cover, [[Captive Hearts, Captive Minds]], [[1994]]
==Early lifeLicensing ==
{{Non-free book cover}}
Martin Harris was born in Eastown, New York and married his first cousin, [[Lucy Harris]], in March 1808. Until 1831, he lived in [[Palmyra, New York]], where was a respected and prosperous farmer but one who changed his religion at least five times before he became a Mormon.<ref>Harris had been a Quaker, a Universalist, a Restorationist, a Baptist, a Presbyterian, and perhaps a Methodist. Ronald W. Walker, "Martin Harris: Mormonism's Early Convert," ''Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought'' 19 (Winter 1986):30-33).</ref>
Some have speculated that Harris had a magical world view. A biographer wrote that his "imagination was excitable and fecund." He once imagined that a sputtering candle was the work of the devil. He told a friend that he had met Jesus in the shape of a deer and walked and talked with him for two or three miles.<ref>John A. Clark letter, August 31, 1840 in ''EMD'', 2: 271.</ref> The local Presbyterian minister called him "a visionary fanatic."<ref>Walker, 34-35.</ref> A friend, who praised Harris as "universally esteemed as an honest man," also declared that Harris's mind "was overbalanced by 'marvellousness'" and that his belief in earthly visitations of angels and ghosts gave him the local reputation of being crazy.<ref>Pomroy Tucker Reminiscence, 1858 in ''Early Mormon Documents'' 3: 71.</ref> Another friend said, "Martin was a man that would do just as he agreed with you. But, he was a great man for seeing spooks."<ref>Lorenzo Saunders Interview, November 12, 1884, ''Early Mormon Documents'' 2: 149.</ref>
==Book of Mormon witness==
In 1828, [[Joseph Smith, Jr.]], another resident of Palmyra, said he had obtained a record of the ancient inhabitants of the Americas engraved on [[Golden Plates]] and that he had been directed by the [[angel Moroni]] to translate the work. Harris assisted Smith both financially and by serving as his scribe. Through the use of the [[Urim and Thummim]] and a [[Seer stones in Mormonism|seer stone]], Smith saw a translation of the writing on the plates and dictated the words to Harris, who wrote them down.
Because Harris wanted some assurance of the authenticity of the work, Smith transcribed characters from the plates to a piece of paper now known as the [[Anthon transcript]]. Harris took the transcript to New York City, where he met with [[Charles Anthon]], a professor of linguistics at [[Columbia College of Columbia University|Columbia College]]. Although Harris and Anthon later told conflicting versions of their encounter, the episode apparently satisfied Harris's doubts.<ref>See ''EMD'' 4: 377-86.</ref> Nevertheless, Harris's wife continued to oppose his collaboration with Smith. After translating the first [[Lost 116 pages|116 pages]] of the manuscript, Harris asked Smith for permission to take the manuscript back to his wife in order to convince her of its authenticity. Smith reluctantly agreed. After Harris had shown the pages to Lucy and some others, the manuscript disappeared.<ref>Doctrine and Covenants, {{sourcetext|source=The Doctrine and Covenants|book=3}})</ref> The loss temporarily halted the translation of the plates, and when Smith began again, he used other scribes, primarily [[Oliver Cowdery]]. Nevertheless, Harris continued to support Smith financially, and as the translation neared completion, Smith revealed that three men would be called as "special witnesses" to the Golden Plates. Harris, along with Cowdery and [[David Whitmer]], was one of these [[Three Witnesses]]. His attestation above the joint testimony was printed with the book, and it has been included in nearly every subsequent edition.
In part due to their continued disagreement over the legitimacy of Joseph Smith and the Golden Plates, and because of the loss of his farm, which he had mortgaged to publish the Book of Mormon, Harris and his wife separated. (Undoubtedly Lucy was as Joseph described her, a woman of "irrascible temper," but Harris also might have abused her and considered committing adultery with a neighboring "Mrs. Haggart."<ref>Joseph Smith History, 1853, in ''EMD'' 1: 367; "Lucy Harris statement," in ''EMD'', 2: 34-36. In March 1830, a revelation from Smith warned Harris not to "covet thy neighbor's wife." ''D&C'' 19: 25.</ref>)
==Mormon Elder==
Harris became an early member of the [[Church of Christ (Mormonism)|Church of Christ]], which Smith organized on April 6, 1830. On June 3, 1831, at a conference at the headquarters of the in [[Kirtland, Ohio]], Harris was ordained to the newly restored [[Latter Day Saint]] High Priesthood and served as a missionary in the Midwest, Pennsylvania, and New York.
On February 17, 1834, Harris was ordained a member of Kirtland High Council, which was then the chief judicial and legislative council of the church. In response to the conflicts between Mormons and non-Mormons in Missouri, Harris joined what is now known as [[Zion's Camp]] and marched fruitlessly from Kirtland to [[Clay County, Missouri]]. Afterwards, Harris — along with Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer — ordained a "traveling High Council" of twelve men that eventually became the [[Quorum of the Twelve]] Apostles.
Lucy Harris died in the summer of 1836, and on [[November 1]], [[1836]], Harris married Caroline Young, the 22-year-old daughter of [[Brigham Young|Brigham Young's]] brother, John. Although he was twenty-one years older than his new wife, Harris and Caroline had seven children together.
In 1837, dissension arose in Kirtland over the failure of the church's [[Kirtland Safety Society]] bank. Harris called it a "fraud" and was among the dissenters who broke with Smith and attempted to reorganize the church. Led by [[Warren Parrish]], the reformers excommunicated Smith and [[Sidney Rigdon]], who relocated to [[Far West, Missouri]]. Parrish's church in Kirtland took control of the [[Kirtland Temple|temple]] and became known as The Church of Christ. In its 1838 articles of incorporation, Harris was named one of the church's three trustees. By 1839, Parrish and other church leaders had rejected the Book of Mormon and consequently broke with Harris, who continued to testify to its truth. By 1840, Harris returned to communion with Smith's church, which had subsequently relocated to [[Nauvoo, Illinois]].
==Strangite, Whitmerite, Bishopite, Williamite, Shaker==
Nevertheless, Harris remained in Kirtland, and after Smith's assassination in 1844, Harris accepted [[James J. Strang]] as Mormonism's new prophet, a prophet with his own set of supernatural [[Voree Plates| plates]] and witnesses to authenticate them.<ref>In August 1846, Harris traveled on a mission to England for the [[Strangite]] church.</ref> By 1847, Harris had broken with Strang and accepted the leadership claims of fellow Book of Mormon witness, [[David Whitmer]]. Mormon apostle [[William E. McLellin]] organized a Whitmerite congregation in Kirtland, and Harris became a member. By 1851, Harris accepted another Latter Day Saint factional leader, [[Gladden Bishop]], as prophet and joined Bishop's Kirtland-based organization. In 1855, Harris joined with the last surviving brother of Joseph Smith Jr., [[William Smith (Mormonism)|William Smith]] and declared that William was Joseph's true successor. By the 1860s, all of these organizations had either dissolved or dissipated. Harris was also briefly intrigued by the "Roll and Book," a supernatural scripture delivered to the [[Shakers]].<ref>[http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:uJfQDiG6XsQJ:www.lightplanet.com/mormons/response/bom/Witnesses_Roper.htm+%22Martin+Harris%22+Shaker&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=15 A pro-Mormon defense of Harris's behavior in regard to the Shakers]. Harris never actually joined the Shakers; they advocated celibacy, and Harris was married.</ref>
==Rebaptism into the LDS faith==
In old age, Harris was destitute and without a congregation in Kirtland. Eventually, in his poverty, Harris accepted the charity of members of Brigham Young's [[The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints|church]], who raised $200 to help him move to the [[Utah]] Territory in 1870. Harris was rebaptized into the Church shortly after his arrival and lived the last four and a half years of his life with relatives in [[Cache Valley]]. He died on June 10, 1875 in [[Clarkston, Utah]] and was buried there.
==Testimony to the Book of Mormon==
Although he was estranged from the church of Joseph Smith, Jr. for most of his life, Harris continued to testify to the truth of the Book of Mormon. Sometimes he said that his vision of the plates was through "spiritual eyes" in an "open vision," sometimes that he saw them as plainly and "surely as the sun is shining on us" but that he handled them only through a cloth or when they were in a box.
Nevertheless, in March 1838, disillusioned church members said that Harris had publicly denied that either he or the other Witnesses to the ''Book of Mormon'' had ever seen or handled the golden plates—although he had not been present when Whitmer and Cowdery first claimed to have viewed them—and they claimed that Harris's recantation, made during a period of crisis in early Mormonism, induced five influential members, including three Apostles, to leave the Church.<ref>Stephen Burnett to Luke S. Johnson, 15 April 1838, in Joseph Smith's Letterbook, ''Early Mormon Documents'' 2: 290-92.</ref> Even near the end of his long life, Harris once said that he had seen the plates in "a state of entrancement."<ref>Metcalf in ''EMD'', 2: 347.</ref>Nevertheless, in 1853, Harris told one David Dille that he had held the forty- to sixty-pound plates on his knee for "an hour-and-a-half" and handled the plates with his hands, "plate after plate."<ref>Martin Harris interview with David B. Dille, 15 September 1853 in ''EMD'' 2: 296-97.</ref> Even later, Harris affirmed that he had seen the plates and the angel with his natural eyes: "Gentlemen," holding out his hand, "do you see that hand? Are you sure you see it? Or are your eyes playing you a trick or something? No. Well, as sure as you see my hand so sure did I see the Angel and the plates." <ref>Martin Harris interview with Robert Barter, c. 1870 in ''EMD'', 2: 390.</ref> The following year Harris affirmed that "No man heard me in any way deny the truth of the Book of Mormon [or] the administration of the angel that showed me the plates."<ref>Letter of Martin Harris, Sr., to Hanna B. Emerson, January 1871, Smithfield, Utah Territory, ''Saints' Herald'' 22 (15 October 1875):630, in ''EMD'' 2: 338. See also Richard Lloyd Anderson, ''Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses'' (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1981), 118.</ref>
==Mentions in Popular Culture==
Harris was lampooned as a credulous rich fool in the [[South Park]] episode "[[All About Mormons]]".
==References==
<references/>
* {{cite book
| author = Black, Susan Easton
| title = Who's Who in the Doctrine & Covenants
| year = 1997
| id = ISBN 1-57008-292-8
}}
* {{cite journal
| author=Marquardt, H. Michael
| title = Martin Harris: The Kirtland Years, 1831-1870
| journal = [[Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought]]
| volume=35
| issue = 3
| year = Fall 2002
}}
* {{cite journal
| author=Stevenson, Edward
| title=One of the Three Witnesses: Incidents in the Life of Martin Harris
| journal=The Latter Day Saints' Millenial Star
| volume=44
| year=1882
| pages=78–79, 86–87
| url=http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cgi-bin/docviewer.exe?CISOROOT=/MillennialStar3&CISOPTR=17556&CISOSHOW=10511
}}
==External links==
*[http://www.lds.org/placestovisit/___location/0,10634,1784-1-1-1,00.html LDS Clarkston Pageant—Martin Harris: The Man Who Knew]
*[http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/conferences/99_apr/oaks_martin.htm The Witness: Martin Harris, by Elder Dallin H. Oaks]
[[Category:1783 births|Harris, Martin]]
[[Category:1875 deaths|Harris, Martin]]
[[Category:Book of Mormon witnesses|Harris, Martin]]
|
