“[Martin Harris was] an industrious, hard-working farmer, shrewd in his business calculations, frugal in his habits, and what was termed a prosperous man in the world.” — Palmyra Courier
Martin Harris, born in 1783 in New York, was a farmer in Palmyra. He married Lucy Harris, his first cousin, in 1808 and served in the War of 1812 with the New York militia.2 Harris met Joseph in 1824 and even gave Joseph $50 to help him move from Palmyra to Harmony.3
Serving as an initial scribe for translating the Book of Mormon, Martin described the process involving a curtain or a seer stone in a hat.6. Because of pressure from his wife, Martin persuaded Joseph Smith to let him take the first 116 pages of the translation home. These pages were lost and Martin stopped acting as Joseph's scribe.7 However, he was later one of the Three Witnesses, and he reported seeing an angel and the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated.8 Martin later mortgaged his farm to finance the printing of the Book of Mormon.9
