I only read the Wikipedia entry, and it indicated a lot of inconsistency in Harris' behavior and story. For example, the expert that Harris asked to verify the writing samples from the golden plates (Charles Anthon, professor of linguistics from Columbia College) claimed to have told Harris that he was being swindled. Harris claimed that professor Anthon initially authenticated the writing sample. But how could any expert authenticate writing samples from an unknown culture? From that incident alone, I would conclude that Harris was trying to give a hoax more credibility by misquoting an expert.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Harris_(Latter_Day_Saints)
The nice thing about Wikipedia is that anybody can suggest corrections to the content. I don't know the exact procedure, but I think that would tend to make Wikipedia more balanced than many sources. I know people like to criticize Wikipedia, but I like it.
What is truly amazing to me about Mormonism is how it has developed into a normal healthy religion today. As an atheist, I don't believe in the Golden Tablets, but look at Mormonism today. Nobody can criticize the culture of Mormonism; the criticisms can only be directed at beliefs that seem silly to outsiders such as the Golden Tablets. If Mormonism started 1000 years ago instead of 200 years ago, then these beliefs would seem ancient and less silly.
“….claimed to have told Harris that he was being swindled. Harris claimed that professor Anthon initially authenticated the writing sample….
Was Harris helping with a hoax or was Anthon trying to save his reputation?
Much of the anti stuff you might read about the Smith family or any of the others like Martin Harris were written many years later and is a lot of hearsay which would not hold up in court.
The very first anti Mormon pamphlet was written by Doctor Philastus Hurlbut who had been excommunicated for adultery not once but twice. He was not a doctor at all that was his first name, his mother had high ambitions for him. He ran around Palmary getting quotes from anyone who would say anything bad about the Smiths that he could. He wrote Mormonism Unvailed, which had to published by a man named E.D. Howe because Hurlbut had such a bad reputation. Much of what he collected has been discounted like the Smiths were lazy.
“All who became intimate with them during this period, unite in representing the general character of old Joseph and wife, the parents of the pretended Prophet, as lazy, indolent, ignorant and superstitious—having a firm belief in ghosts and witches; the telling of fortunes; pretending to believe that the earth was filled with hidden treasures, buried there by Kid or the Spaniards.”
I’m going to give you a little lesson in reading anti-mormon propaganda. The following is from by C. Clark Julius, MPS The Philalethes - August 1987.
http://www.lds-mormon.com/jsmith.shtml
“He had been born twenty-one years earlier in Sharon, Vermont. His father, also named Joseph, and his mother, Lucy, had started their marriage auspiciously with Lucy's ample dowry of one thousand dollars. But the dowry was quickly spent and the farm was overgrown with weeds…”
How does this writer know the Smith Farm ‘was overgrown with weeds’ mmm? He’s perpetuating the lazy notion from the Hurlbut quotes over a hundred years ago.
Yes they suffered some business loses and they were poor but they were hard working. They lost that farm in Vermont because of an unusually cold summer caused by a volcano going off in Indonesia. “On 4 June 1816, frosts were reported in Connecticut, and by the following day, most of New England was gripped by the cold front. On 6 June 1816, snow fell in Albany, New York” (wik) So no one’s crops grew and lot’s of people lost their farms.
Again from Julius “Joseph's father moved his family to a farm near Palmyra, New York, in the western part of the state. There he fared little better than in Vermont. The Smith family often went hungry during the winter months. As soon as they were able to work, the Smith children had to help support their family. Consequently, Joseph obtained little schooling.”
How does he know they went hungry? Never heard that one before. Yes like all kids in those days the Smith children were taught to work.
Here’s a line from Hurlbut again;
“They were particularly famous for visionary projects, spent much of their time in digging for money which they pretended was hid in the earth; and to this day, large excavations may be seen in the earth, not far from their residence, where they used to spend their time in digging for hidden treasures.”
Now here’s the truth; When they moved to Palmyra they had to cleared their land of
“…. many tons of rock and cut down about six thousand trees, a large percentage of which were one hundred feet or more in height and from four to six feet in diameter. (dug out the stumps also) Then they fenced their property, which required cutting at least six or seven thousand ten-foot rails. They did an enormous amount of work before they were able even to begin actual daily farming…Furthermore, in order to pay for their farm, the Smiths were obliged to hire themselves out as day laborers. Throughout the surrounding area, they dug and rocked up wells and cisterns, mowed, harvested, made cider and barrels and chairs and brooms and baskets, taught school, dug for salt, worked as carpenters and domestics, built stone walls and fireplaces, flailed grain, cut and sold cordwood, carted, washed clothes, sold garden produce, painted chairs and oil-cloth coverings, butchered, dug coal, and hauled stone. And, along the way, they produced between one thousand and seven thousand pounds of maple sugar annually. "Laziness" and "indolence" are difficult to detect in the Smith family” Mormonfair
Yes the Smiths did a lot of digging and I bet they joked a lot about digging for treasure as they did it.
Little is known about Martin Harris’s early life except that he inherited 150 arcs which sounds like his family did well. He was in the War of 1812 as a first sergeant. He was a hard worker and had 320 acres at one time. He helped build the Erie Canal and was elected to many positions. I read through the wik article, what you have is hearsay, some body said that some one said that Martin said. There are no writings of Harris ever saying anything crazy unless you think claiming to see an angel is crazy.