Lucy Harris was born in Palmyra in 1792 into a Quaker family from Rhode Island. She married her first cousin, Martin Harris, at the young age of 16, and was partially deaf by 1827.1 Intrigued by Joseph Smith and his accounts of golden plates, Lucy once dreamt an angel showed her these plates, leading her to donate $28 to support Smith's work.2 Joseph then let her and her daughter heft the plates in a box, and they reported that the plates were very heavy.3 Over time, Lucy's initial belief in Smith's visions faded, replaced by skepticism and resentment towards Smith and her husband Martin. Martin, serving as Smith's scribe, convinced Smith to let him share 116 pages of the translation with Lucy. Unlike Martin, Lucy doubted the legitimacy of Smith's visions and the authenticity of the ancient texts he claimed to have received. It was Lucy's insistence that led Martin to borrow and subsequently lose these first 116 pages.4 This incident, along with their divergent beliefs about Smith's revelations, strained their relationship. The culmination of these tensions and differences in faith eventually led to the separation of Lucy and Martin Harris around 1830.5
