By Jerald Tanner

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As we have indicated in the previous article, the evidence derived from physical testing seems to be pointed to the conclusion that the Salamander letter, attributed to Book of Mormon witness Martin Harris, is genuine. Since I have spent years proving that early Mormonism is linked to magic and money-digging, this news should have brought me a great deal of satisfaction. Instead, however, I find myself facing a real dilemma. While the tests and the opinions of noted Mormon scholars seem to indicate that I should relax and enjoy the victory, I still have serious reservations about the document’s authenticity. In fact, I find it very hard to believe that the Martin Harris I have learned about from numerous historical sources could have written the letter.

In the beginning I had full confidence in the validity of the letter. Everything seemed to be checking out, and when I was writing the story for the March issue of Salt Lake City Messenger, I was very excited that we were going to be the ones who would break the story to the world. Unfortunately, however, I made a discovery that really disturbed me. Although there was a temptation to just forget what I had seen, I decided that it would be dishonest to not report the discovery. Consequently, the fourth page of the March issue of the Messenger contains this statement:

Since we . . . have written a book entitled, Mormonism, Magic and Masonry, we were delighted to get the report that Martin Harris had written a letter relating to the subject. As we learned of the contents, we felt that it would provide additional evidence to support our thesis. Some time later, we were told of another letter, written by W. W. Phelps, which seemed to prove the authenticity of the letter attributed to Harris. This letter is printed in Howe’s book, pages 273-274. In the letter, Phelps tells of Martin Harris’ statements concerning the Book of Mormon. There are some remarkable parallels between the two letters. Both letters refer to the Urim and Thummim as “silver spectacles.” Both accounts tell of Martin Harris taking a copy of the Book of Mormon characters to “Utica, Albany and New York,” and both talk of the Book of Mormon language as “shorthand Egyptian.” Since Phelps’ letter is dated Jan. 15, 1831 (less than three months after the letter which was reported to have been written by Harris), it seemed safe to conclude that Phelps used the Harris letter in preparing his own. In all fairness, however, we made another discovery which we felt we must report. Just two pages after Phelps letter, we found a statement written by E. D. Howe which is strangely similar to the “Harris” letter. The reader will remember that the letter said, “the spirit transfigured himself from a white salamander in the bottom of the hole.” E. D. Howe’s statements read as follows: “. . . looked into the hole, where he saw a toad, which immediately transformed itself into a spirit, . . .” Notice that both accounts use the words “the hole” as well as “spirit,” and the words “transfigured himself” resemble “transformed itself.” Howe’s statement appears to be his own summary of the Willard Chase affidavit which we have already cited: “He saw in the box something like a toad, which soon assumed the appearance of a man, . . .”

That Howe’s statement (Mormonism Unvailed, page 276) is so much like the one in the “Harris” letter is a little disturbing. Even more disconcerting, however, is the fact that it appears just two pages from a letter by W. W. Phelps which also bears remarkable parallels. This, of course, might all be a coincidence, and if it can be established that the letter was actually penned before Howe’s book was published in 1834, it will probably be accepted as a genuine letter.

About five months after we broke the story about the Salamander letter and printed extracts from it, the Los Angeles Times printed a story on the subject. In this article John Dart commented:

However, unusual caution about the letter’s genuineness has been expressed by Jerald and Sandra Tanner, longtime evangelical critics of the Mormon church. The Tanners wrote in their Salt Lake City Messenger newsletter last march that the purported Harris letter contains too many similarities to statements published in an 1834 book by E. D. Howe.

After the Los Angeles Times ran its story, the Deseret News printed an article which contained the following:

. . . outspoken Mormon Church critics Jerald and Sandra Tanner suspect the document is a forgery, they told the Deseret News.

Jerald Tanner has not seen the actual letter but says similarities between it and other documents make its veracity doubtful.

Tanner said he studied a typescript of the document and wanted to believe it. But when he compared it to the 1834 book “Mormonism Unveiled” by E. D. Howe, he found highly similar stories about Smith viewing a toad that turned itself into a man or a spirit. . . . Tanner feels the document is an extremely important find. “It deserves a lot of attention,” he said. “If it’s authentic, its extremely important in linking Mormonism to the occult. If it’s a forgery, then it’s important because there’s a document forger out there.” (Deseret News, September 1, 1984)

In his article in the Los Angeles Times, John Dart commented: “The Tanners’ suggestion of forgery has surprised some Mormons, who note that the parallels in wording also could be taken as evidence for authenticity.” While I agree with the statement that parallels “could be taken as evidence” for the authenticity of the Salamander letter, it is the close proximity of important parallels in Howe’s book that causes concern. It is, in fact, very disconcerting to find only two pages in the Howe book separating highly significant parallels.

In addition to these parallels, I find many other things in the Howe book that could have provided structural material for the Salamander letter. It is interesting to note that a manuscript written by Joseph Knight also has some remarkable similarities. This manuscript, which is stored in the Church Archives, was first published by Dean Jessee in the Autumn 1976 issue of Brigham Young University Studies. One thing I noticed in the Knight account that could have had an influence on the Salamander letter is the use of the words “says he” and “says I.” On page 37, as published in BYU Studies, we find the following:

“Says he, . . . Says he, . . . Says I, . . . Says I, . . . Says he.”

In the “Harris” letter we read:

“. . . says he . . . says he . . . says I . . . Says I . . .”

The following is a comparison of portions of the Salamander letter with quotations from three different publications which are well known to students of Mormon history. The first source used is E. D. Howe’s book Mormonism Unvailed (abbreviated as Howe). The second is Francis Kirkham’s A New Witness For Christ in America (NWFC). Kirkham cites an article from the Rochester Gem, September 5, 1829. The third is the Joseph Knight account which appears in Brigham Young University Studies (BYUS), Autumn 1976. Parallel No. 9 is from the BYU Studies article, but it is a footnote Dean Jessee had taken from Lucy Smith’s book.

The Salamander Letter	Possible Sources
1. Joseph can see anything he wishes by looking at a stone Joseph often sees Spirits	1. This light of the stone, he pretended, enabled him to see any thing he wished. Accordingly he discovered ghosts, infernal spirits (Howe, 259)
2. kettles of coin money	2. kettles filled with gold and silver (Howe, 237)
3. the elder Smith . . . says . . . it was Spirits who brought up rock	3. Joseph, Sen. told me . . . the large stones . . . we call them rocks, . . . are, in fact, most of them chests of money raised by the heat of the sun (Howe, 233)
4. the enchantment	4. the enchantment (Howe, 267)
5. the old spirit come to me 3 times in the same dream & says dig up the gold	5. after a third visit from the same spirit in a dream he proceeded to the spot (NWFC, vol. 1, p. 151)
6. but when I take it up the next morning the spirit transfigured himself from a white salamander in the bottom of the hole	6. after the plates were taken from their hiding place by Jo, he, . . . looked into the hole, where he saw a toad, which immediately transformed itself into a spirit (Howe, 275-76)
7. & struck me 3 times	7. and struck him . . . the spirit struck him again, and knocked him three or four rods (Howe, 242)
8. to cover over the hole	8. thot he would cover the place over (BYUS, 31)
9. the spirit said do not lay it down	9. he had been commanded not to lay the plates down (BYUS, 31, fn. 5)
10. Joseph says when can I have it	10. Joseph says, “when can I have it?” (BYUS, 31)
11. the spirit says 1 year from today if you will obey me	11. you have not obeyed your orders . . . come one year from this day (Howe, 242)
12. bring your brother	12. bring with you your oldest brother (Howe, 242)
13. Joseph says he is dead	13. he said that he was dead (Howe, 243)
14. Joseph goes to get the gold Bible but the spirit says . . . you cannot have it	14. he went to the place and the personage appeard and told him he could not have it now (BYUS, 31)
15. the spirit says . . . look to the stone Joseph looks but cannot see who to bring the spirit says . . . look to the stone	15. Lawrence . . . asked him to look in his stone, . . . he looked, and said there was nothing; he told him to look again (Howe, 243)
16. Joseph looks & sees his wife	16. he looked in his glass and found it was Emma (BYUS, 31)
17. I give Joseph fifty dollars to move him down to Pa	17. He obtained fifty Dollars in money and hired a man to move him and his wife to Pensylvany (BYUS, 34)
18. I take them to Utica Albany & New York in the last place Dr. Mitchell give me an introduction to Professor Anthon says he they are shorthand Egyptian the same what was used in ancient times	18. taken by Mr. Harris to Utica, Albany and New York; at New York, they were shown to Dr. Mitchell and he referred to professor Anthon who . . . declared them to be ancient shorthand Egyptian (Howe, 273)
19. Joseph found some giant silver spectacles with the plates	19. Joseph Smith, through a pair of silver spectacles, found with the plates (Howe, 273)
20. he puts them in an old hat & in the darkness reads the words & in this way it’s all translated	20. he put the urim and thummim into his hat and Darkened his Eyes then he would take a sentence and it would apper . . . Thus was the hol [whole] translated (BYUS, 35)

[Click here for image of the above chart.]

It is possible that Peter Ingersoll’s affidavit could have had an influence on the story about Joseph Smith telling Harris the “spirits are grieved” because Harris kept a “coin” which belonged to them. In Ingersoll’s story, however, it is Joseph Smith who tricked a “gate tender” into handing him some money that did not rightfully belong to him (see Mormonism Unvailed, page 235).

The Palmyra Reflector printed a series of articles which Francis W. Kirkham included in A New Witness For Christ in America, vol. 1. On page 290 of this book, we read as follows:

“This rogue of a spirit who had baffled all the united efforts of the money-diggers, . . . intended it would seem to play our prophet a similar trick . . . the father. . . probably fearing some trick of the spirit, having known him for many years: . . . ”

This could have suggested the following statement in the Salamander letter: “ . . . the spirit says I tricked you again . . . ” On page 289 of the same book, the following is cited from the Palmyra Reflector: “ . . .the elder Smith declared that his son Joe had seen the spirit, . . . ” This reminds me of the following statement in the Salamander letter: “ . . . the elder Smith . . . says Joseph . . . sees Spirits . . . ” The words “the elder Smith” seem to be a little too formal for Martin Harris. In an interview published in Tiffany’s Monthly, Harris never used this term. He referred to “old Mr. Stowel,” “Old Mr. Beman” and “old Mr. Smith’s.”

The series of Palmyra Reflector articles cited in A New Witness For Christ in America present the idea that Joseph Smith’s story evolved from the visitation of a spirit connected with the money-diggers to communion with angels. We find this statement on page 291:

It is well known that Joe Smith never pretended to have any communion with angels, until a long period after the pretended finding of his book, and that the juggling of himself or father went no further than the pretended faculty of seeing wonders in a “peep stone,” and the occasional interview with the spirit, supposed to have the custody of hidden treasures: . . .

This exact thesis is presented in the Salamander letter. The word “angel” is not found once in the entire letter, whereas the words “spirit” or “spirits” appear twelve times. Furthermore, these spirits are clearly revealed as guardians of the treasures. While I feel that there may be something to the idea that “the spirit” evolved into an “angel,” I find it hard to believe that Martin Harris would still be telling the older version of the story in 1830. The early newspapers certainly do not support such a conclusion.

The Salamander

After reading the letter attributed to Martin Harris, I became very interested in the reason why it was a “salamander” that was transformed into a “spirit.” I found that salamanders are connected to magic and money-digging. The word salamander is defined in one dictionary as “a spirit supposed to live in fire; an elemental spirit in Paracelsus’ theory of elementals.” (For more information on this subject see The Money-Digging Letters, page 13.)

I spent a great deal of time trying to find the word salamander in literature connected with Mormonism. I was not successful, however, until I examined an unpublished manuscript by A. C. Lambert which is found in the Western Americana Department of the University of Utah Library. In this work of over 400 pages, Dr. Lambert claimed that people in Joseph Smith’s time were aware of the four elemental spirits. He then stated that “salamanders were to be placated and made helpful or were to be defeated and put under control” (page 76).

If this statement had appeared in some other work, I might have considered it as evidence for the Salamander letter. As it is, however, it makes me even more suspicious of the letter’s authenticity. This manuscript happened to be written concerning Martin Harris and is entitled, “A Study that Gives Some Special Attention to Martin Harris.” It is the very type of manuscript that someone making up a letter concerning Harris would want to read for background material. Although this is an unpublished manuscript, Sharon Pugsley made its existence known to scholars the very year it was written (see Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, vol. 8, no. 2, 1973, page 100).

Something Missing

When we published the March 1984 Messenger, I had only seen extracts from the Salamander letter. Later I obtained a typescript of the text of the letter, and this only increased my concern about its validity. On August 22, 1984, I printed my preliminary report on the letter under the title The Money-Digging Letters. The following appeared on page 7 of this report:

We have already mentioned the interview with martin Harris which is published in Tiffany’s Monthly, . . . This article is used by both Mormon and anti-Mormon writers. In this interview, Harris says that Smith “found them [the gold plates] by looking in the stone” (page 169). The Salamander letter quotes Smith as saying, “I found it 4 years ago with my stone.” While there are a few other parallels with this interview, the dissimilarities seem to be much more significant. For example, the Salamander letter has very little to say about the gold plates of the Book of Mormon, whereas in the interview in Tiffany’s Monthly, Harris goes into great detail about the plates. He speaks of their size, thickness, weight and how they were buried. He gives a similar description of the Urim and Thummim. The Salamander letter give no description of these “silver spectacles.”

The interview in Tiffany’s Monthly also raises a very serious question about the lack of religious material in the Salamander letter. In the interview, Harris quoted at least five portions of the Bible. He used the words revelation, Moses, Scripture and Christ at least once. He used the word prayed twice, and mentioned the devil four times. The word angel or angels appears five times. God is mentioned seven times, and the word Lord appears ten times. In the Salamander letter all of these words are absent. In fact, there is nothing we can find concerning religion. Spirits are mentioned many times in the letter, but they are never linked to money-digging. They are the guardians of the treasures.

This total lack of religious material seems to be out of character for Martin Harris. A person might try to maintain that Harris was more interested in religion in 1859, but the evidence shows that he was always that way. E. D. Howe described him as follows:

He was naturally of a very visionary turn of mind on the subject of religion, . . . He frequently declares that he has conversed with Jesus Christ, Angel and the Devil. . . .

Martin is an exceedingly fast talker. He frequently gathers a crowd around him in barrooms and in the streets.—Here he appears to be in his element, answering and explaining all manner of dark and abstruse theological questions, from Genesis to Revelations; declaring that every thing has been revealed to him by the “power of God.” During these flights of fancy, he frequently prophecies of the coming of Christ, the destruction of the world, and the damnation of certain individuals. (Mormonism Unvailed, 1834, pages 13-15)

The article we have cited which was published in the Gem in 1829 claimed that Harris mentioned the “Almighty” in relationship to the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. An article which appeared in the Pain[e]ville Telegraph in 1831 contained this information: “Martin Harris . . . told all about the gold plates, Angels, Spirits, and Jo Smith.—He had seen and handled them all, by the power of God . . . Every idea that he advanced, he knew to be absolutely true, as he said, by the spirit and power of God” (Pain[e]ville Telegraph, March 15, 1831, as cited in A New Witness for Christ in America, vol. 2, page 97.

Since printing this statement in The Money-Digging Letters, I have examined a number of other historical sources relating to Martin Harris. These references, from early newspapers up until the time of his death, point to the unmistakable conclusion that Harris could hardly open his mouth without talking about religion. That he could write a letter of over 600 words without mentioning the subject seems highly unlikely. This is especially true since the Salamander letter deals with the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and gives ample opportunities to bring up the subject. While it is true that Martin Harris believed in money-digging and the superstitions connected with it, it seems very hard to believe that he would write a perspective convert like Phelps and leave out all the divine elements of the Book of Mormon.

It is claimed that the Salamander letter is the only letter in existence which is written in Martin Harris’s own hand. (There is a letter which bears his signature, but the handwriting resembles that of his son. We will have more to say about this later.) There are two other letters attributed to Harris which were published in the Latter-Day Saints’ Millennial Star on January 1, 1877. One of the letters claims to have been dictated by Martin Harris, but the other one might have been written in his own hand. The original copies of these letters have not been located, but there seems to be no reason to question their authenticity. While there could have been some editorial tampering, the letters undoubtedly came from Harris. They were published over a hundred years ago and bear internal evidence of having originated from the mind of Martin Harris. For instance, they conform very well with Howe’s early assessment of Harris: “Here he appears to be in his element, answering and explaining all manner of dark and abstruse theological questions, from Genesis to Revelations; declaring that everything has been revealed to him by the ‘power of God.’”

In the first letter, Harris boasted: “I defy any man to show me any passage of Scripture that I am not posted on or familiar with.” The second letter is filled with quotations from the scriptures. We have previously quoted the March 15, 1831, issue of the Painesville Telegraph as saying: “Every idea that he advanced, he knew to be absolutely true, as he said, by the spirit and power of God.”

In the second letter which appears in the Millennial Star, Martin Harris stated: “The Lord has shown me these things by his spirit . . .” Harris went on to claim that, “The Lord showed me there was no true Church upon the face of the earth, . . .”

The reader will find a photograph of these letters below. Notice that they are filled with Scriptures and material dealing with religion.

Latter-Day Saints’ Millennial Star, January 7, 1877, page 5.

I find it very difficult to believe that the two letters published in the Millennial Star came from the same mind that produced the Salamander letter.

There is another letter attributed to Martin Harris (apparently not in his own hand) which is in the Church Archives. It was sent to Brigham Young along with a printed proclamation purporting to be a revelation from Moses, Elias, Elijah and John. In this letter we find the following:

Respected Friend Brigham Young enclosed I Send you a Proclamation as you will discover by reading it given by Moses, Elias, Elijah, and John — You no doubt will recollect of a favor asked of me — of the lone of Some money upon the ground of relationship and in the name of God. I now make an appeal to you in the name of god and Command you in the name of god = to Publish = the Revelation I send you in = your deseret news . . . that the = world and Commandment of the Proclamation may go to all the world this done you will Serve the cause of god . . . (Letter attributed to Martin Harris, August 13, 1855, Brigham Young Collection, MSD, BX 39, fd 17, handwritten copy)

While there is no way to know for certain that this letter was written by Martin Harris, the attempt to command Brigham Young “in the name of God” seems consistent with what is known about Harris’s character. In any case, the reader will notice that the letter uses the word “God” four times and mentions Biblical names.

With the exception of the Salamander letter, historical sources (both Mormon and anti-Mormon) reveal that Martin Harris could not keep silent on the subject of religion. Besides the early newspapers which mention Harris’s zealous attempt to tie Mormonism to God and the bible, we have a number of people who spoke with him throughout the years he was associated with Mormonism. They all tell the same story.

One of the most interesting accounts was given by an Episcopalian minister by the name of John A. Clark. In a book published in 1842, he claimed that he had an important conversation with Martin Harris in 1827—three years before the Salamander letter was supposed to have been written. Clark believed that the Smith family “were principally known as money-diggers” and that Joseph Smith claimed “second sight, a power to look into depths of the earth, and discover where its precious treasures were hid,” but he did not seem to remember Harris telling anything about a spirit which “transfigured himself from a white salamander.” Instead, he claimed that Harris told him it was an angel of God who directed Joseph Smith to the plates:

It was early in the autumn of 1827 that Martin Harris called at my house in Palmyra, one morning about sunrise. His whole appearance indicated more than usual excitement, . . .

According to Martin Harris, . . . Jo, while he lay upon his bed, had a remarkable dream. An angel of God seemed to approach him, clad in celestial splendor. This divine messenger assured him, that he, Joseph Smith, was chosen of the Lord to be a prophet of the Most High God, and to bring to light hidden things, . . . (Gleanings By The Way, pages 222 and 225)

Mark Hofmann, who sold the Salamander letter to Steven Christensen, suggested that the lack of religious material in the letter may stem from Phelps being involved in money-digging. This would account for Harris emphasizing this aspect of the story and suppressing the divine element. While it is possible that Harris would stress the things that were appealing to a money-digger, it still seems somewhat strange that he would leave out all mention of God or angels. Phelps’s own letter, written less than three months after the one attributed to Harris, seems to show that he was receptive to religious material. It mentioned “God,” “the Holy Ghost,” “the millennium” and “divine things.” The Phelps letter, in fact, says that, “Mr. Harris, . . . declares upon his soul’s salvation that the book is true, and was interpreted . . . through a pair of silver spectacles, . . .” While the words “silver spectacles” appear in the Salamander letter, nothing about Harris’s “soul’s salvation” is found there.

The 1873 Letter

It is disturbing to note that the Salamander letter, which seems to remove all religious elements out of the Book of Mormon story, comes right on the heels of the discovery of another letter reported to have been written by Martin Harris in 1873. This letter is supposed to be in the handwriting of Martin Harris’s son, although it appears to bear the signature of Harris himself. It is a strong affirmation of the testimony concerning the angel appearing to show the gold plates:

. . . as I was praying unto the Lord that I might behold the ancient record, lo there appeared to view a holy Angel, . . . the angel did take up the plates and turn them over so as we could plainly see the engravings thereon, and lo there came a voice from heaven saying “I am the Lord,” and that the plates were translated by God and not by men, and also that we should bear record of it to all the world. . . . (Ensign, December 1983, pages 44-45)

The Salamander letter almost appears to be a rebuttal to the powerful testimony in the 1873 letter. When it comes to Harris’s view of the gold plates it merely states: “ . . . Joseph takes me together with Oliver Cowdery & David Whitmer to have a view of the plates our names are appended to the book of Mormon . . . ”

I have made a comparison of the religious content of the two letters and found the following: the 1873 letter uses the word Lord three times. The words Angel and holy appear twice, and the words God, Christ, heaven, vision, Gospel and praying all appear once. In the Salamander letter all of these words are missing, and since it is almost three times as long as the 1873 letter the discrepancy becomes even more important.

In The Money-Digging Letters, page 19, I wrote:

The style of the Salamander letter seems to differ from that of the 1873 letter. Although Harris was in his late forties at the time the Salamander letter was supposed to have been written, it appears to have been penned by someone who did not have a very good education. The 1873 letter, on the other hand, is very well written. One very obvious difference is that it used the word and three times as often as the Salamander letter.

After sorting the words in the two letters alphabetically on our computer, I found that the figure should be 2.6 instead of 3. The Salamander letter uses and 2.9 times per hundred words, whereas it appears 7.5 times per hundred words in the 1873 letter. I also made this observation in The Money-Digging Letters:

The Salamander letter is composed mostly of short sentences (an average of 12 words in each sentence), whereas the 1873 letter has an average of 73 words per sentence.

If the original punctuation of the 1873 letter is not followed, it is possible to divide it into more sentences. While this would reduce the number of words per sentence, the new sentences would all have to start with the word and. The other letters attributed to Harris which I have examined do not seem to use the word and to start sentences. It is also interesting to note that the sentences in these letters are about twice as long as those in the Salamander letter. I really do not profess to know how significant the length of sentences and the number of times and is used are for determining authorship. It would seem that both could be affected by the contents of the letter. I do feel, however, that the two letters bear little resemblance to each other. The differences have led me to question whether both could be genuine. Although the 1873 letter seems to fit more comfortable with the picture I have obtained of Martin Harris from many other sources, I must admit that I am not absolutely convinced that it is authentic.

If I accept the statement that Martin Harris was a man “of small literary acquirements” when he was over forty years of age, then I find it very hard to believe that he would have improved his style to the point where he could have written the 1873 letter. One explanation for this, however, might be that Martin Harris’s son imposed his own style into the letter. For that matter, he could have composed the entire letter, and as long as his father signed it, it would be considered the work of Martin Harris, Sen. The most important thing, then, is the signature. In The Money-Digging Letters I observed:

One signature that is rather remarkable is the one found on the 1873 letter. Although Martin Harris was supposed to have been “eighty-nine years old” when he wrote it (The Ensign, November 1982, page 97), it looks almost the same as the one on the 1829 contract with Grandin (see The Ensign, December 1983, pages 41 and 45). It is certainly not what one would expect from a man who was just four month from is ninetieth birthday.

I would expect Harris’s signature to be somewhat shaky by the time he was supposed to have signed the 1873 letter. I have been told by a scholar who has seen the original that it does show evidence of an unsteady hand. If this is the case, the photograph published in the Ensign does not seem to reveal it. In any case, after I published The Money-Digging Letters, I received a photocopy of an application for a U.S. Military pension which Martin Harris signed on April 21, 1871. Since it was signed 21 months before the 1873 letter was supposed to have been written, I would expect it to be as good as or even better than the one appearing on the letter. Instead, it seems to bear evidence of deterioration. Below is a comparison of Harris’s signatures as they appeared in 1829, 1871 and 1873.

While the 1871 signature does raise some questions about the signature on the 1873 letter, caution must be used. It could be that when Harris signed the document in 1871 he was having an exceptionally bad day. Although I am suspicious of the signature on the 1873 letter, I cannot say for certain that it did not come from Martin Harris’s pen. It is interesting to note, however, that in the letter dated January 1871, which was published in the Millennial Star, Harris commented: “I reply by a borrowed hand, as my sight has failed me too much to write myself.” If Harris was having such a severe problem when he was 87, I would think that it would even be worse by the time he was 89. This could not only affect the appearance of the signature but also its orientation to the writing which had already been dictated. A close examination of the photograph in the Ensign shows that the signature is placed perfectly between the lines on the paper and that it is parallel to the other writing.

I do not know whether any physical tests have been made on this letter. The Church’s press release dated October 5, 1982, only told that, “Preliminary studies, comparing the handwritings in the letter with known examples of handwritings of both Martin Harris and his son, substantiate the letter’s authenticity.”

As to the pedigree of the letter, the Church’s press release said that Brent F. Ashworth “declined to identify the collectors from whom” he obtained it. We have since learned that it passed through the hands of Mark Hofmann—Hofmann, of course, is the same man who sold the Salamander letter to Steven Christensen. Martin Harris’s 1873 letter was addressed to Walter Conrad. Mr. Ashworth was apparently unsuccessful in tracing the letter back to the Conrad family. In the press release, we read as follows:

He said the Martin Harris letter was previously owned by at least three collectors. The first of these, he said, kept the letter in a collection of postmarked covers from early Utah and apparently didn’t realize its import.

It would appear, then, that the first person known to have had the letter was a collector. This, of course, provides no real evidences for the document’s authenticity. (It could be of some value, of course, if the collector furnished evidence that it was in his collection for a number of years.) In my opinion, the fact that a document has been in the hands of a collector does not really give it a pedigree. A forged document could be funneled through an unsuspecting collector to help convince someone else of its authenticity. The important thing, then, is where the document was before it arrived in the hands of the collector. Although many authentic documents have no pedigree, I would still feel better about the 1873 letter if it could be traced back beyond a collector.

The 1873 letter is worth a great deal of money because it fills a real vacuum for believers in the Book of Mormon. While Harris often claimed that an angel showed him the gold plates of the Book of Mormon (see his two letters published in the Millennial Star), he seems to have had little to say about the details of the vision. According to a number of sources, when Harris was questioned about the matter, he said he “never saw the plates with his natural eyes only in vision . . .” (see Mormonism— Shadow or Reality? page 96-C; Gleanings By The Way, pages 256-257).

In the A Comprehensive History of the Church, vol. 1, page 142, Mormon historian B. H. Roberts concluded that “So far as any direct personal statement is concerned, Martin Harris is silent as to the manner in which the plates were shown to him, . . .”

The following appeared in the Church’s press release which announced the discovery of the 1873 letter:

Through the years several interviews with Martin Harris have been published, reaffirming his testimony . . . But this letter is the first statement to be discovered since then that carries his signature.

Mormon officials were elated with this remarkable discovery. The managing director of the church Historical Department called it “one of the most significant discoveries regarding [the] coming forth of the Book of Mormon, . . .” (Deseret News, Church Section, October 9, 1982). The rejoicing was short-lived, however. Scarcely a year had elapsed when rumors began to surface that another letter by Martin Harris had been discovered. Instead of confirming the divine origin of the Book of Mormon, the Salamander letter turned out to provide devastating evidence against it by linking it to money-digging and the occult.

At any rate, the 1873 letter contains some interesting parallels with two documents printed in the A Comprehensive History of the Church, vol. 1, pages 142-143. The first is a statement by Edward Stevenson in which he claimed that Martin Harris gave important details concerning the vision of the gold plates at his (Stevenson’s) home. B. H. Roberts’ source for Stevenson’s statement is listed as Millennial Star, vol. 48, pages 367- 389. When this reference was checked, it became evident that it was only a reminiscence. It was not published until June 21, 1886—eleven years after Martin Harris’s death. Furthermore, Stevenson seemed to have been relying at least to some extent on James T. Wood’s memory: “. . . Brother James T. Woods, who is now present while I am writing this article, reminds me that himself and G. D. Keaton were present on that occasion, and asked him [Harris] to explain the manner in which the plates containing the characters of the Book of Mormon were exhibited to the witnesses.”

Since a number of similar statements by Book of Mormon witness David Whitmer had already been published, it is possible that some of Whitmer’s ideas were unconsciously attributed to Harris. However this may be, Stevenson said that Harris related that “the angel stood on the opposite side of the table . . .” The 1873 letter told of “a holy Angel, and before him a table, . . .” Stevenson’s account said “the angel . . . took the plates in his hand and turned them over.” The Harris letter also claimed that “the Angel did take up the plates and turn them over . . .” Both accounts use the words to all the world. Stevenson went on to say that Harris claimed “he lied not.” In the 1873 letter Harris said that “I lie not . . .”

While there are a number of interesting parallels between the two accounts, there is one significant difference. Stevenson claimed that Harris spoke of the “angel” who declared that the Book of Mormon was translated correctly, whereas the 1873 letter said it was “the Lord.” This is interesting because the other document used by Roberts in the A Comprehensive History, page 143, agrees with the 1873 letter in this matter. This is a report of an interview with David Whitmer which appears on the same page Stevenson’s account ends. In this report we find Whitmer (who seems to be borrowing heavily from the printed “Testimony of the Three Witnesses”) quoted as saying: “. . . I heard the voice of the Lord, . . . declaring that the records of the plates . . . were translated by the gift and power of God.” In the letter attributed to Harris, we read that, “there came a voice . . . saying ‘I am the Lord,’ and that the plated were translated by God . . .”

These parallels, of course, do not prove that the 1873 letter was created from the accounts used by B. H. Roberts. They only show that there was a source available which was printed after Harris’ death which someone could have used to write the letter.

Unscientific?

As I pointed out at the beginning of this article, some of the tests which the experts have completed on the Salamander letter seem to indicate that it is genuine. My study of the text, however, has led me to have serious doubts about its authenticity. In view of the tests, I have to ask myself whether I am being unscientific. Can the case I have built against the document possibly outweigh the findings of the experts? Everyone would probably agree that if the letter mentioned Joseph Smith watching television before he was visited by the spirit, it could not be accepted as authentic no matter what the scientific tests revealed. The evidence furnished by the text of the letter would override all physical tests. With the Salamander letter, however, I must admit that I do not have anything which is that convincing. My doubts are based solely on circumstantial evidence.

As I investigated the matter, the evidence seemed to grow, and I found it increasingly difficult to believe in the document’s authenticity. I originally entered into the research with a strong desire to prove that the letter came from the pen of Martin Harris. Unfortunately, however, the inconsistencies seemed to swallow up all my enthusiasm. Some of the evidence against the letter seemed to be similar to that which led me to the conclusion that a large portion of the History of the Church was not actually authored by Joseph Smith as the Church had always claimed. Mormon scholars later admitted that my conclusions about the matter were correct. Over 60% of the history had been compiled from many sources after Joseph Smith’s death, and references were changed from the third person to the first person to make it appear that Smith was the author (see Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? pages 127-135).

At any rate, I now find myself wondering how much I can rely on the scientific tests which are available. I am convinced that the average person could not come up with a forgery that would stand up against these tests. On the other hand, I wonder how difficult if would be for someone who is seriously involved with old documents to create a forgery that would pass the tests. In The Money-Digging Letters, I questioned whether handwriting analysis is an exact science and pointed out important cases where the experts have differed. In the same pamphlet I pointed out that we had talked with Bill Kruger, the man who had tested the paper the Salamander letter was written on. Mr. Kruger stated that there was nothing in the chemical composition of the paper which would preclude its having been manufactured around 1830. Mr. Kruger informed us, however, that it is possible for a very clever forger to manufacture paper at the present time which will pass through his tests without detection.

We also talked with Dr. Antonio Kantu, one of the world’s greatest experts on the detection of forgery by testing ink. Dr. Kantu had been approached about making tests on the Salamander letter, but due to a mix up in communications someone else ended up doing the work. In our conversation with Kantu, he said that he could examine the ink to determine if its chemical properties were like those of ink used at this early period, but he would not be able to say for certain that this was actually ink in use in 1830 or if it was added to the paper at that date. He indicated that by merely applying heat to a document, a forger could give the appearance of great age. He knew of no ink test that could be made on the Salamander letter that would be absolutely conclusive.

If I were certain that the tests could not be thwarted by an expert forger, I would feel compelled to accept the document as authentic. As it is, however, the circumstantial evidence makes it very difficult for me to accept the letter as having come from the pen of Martin Harris.

After I published my views concerning the letter, a few scholars began to have questions about its authenticity. I understand that one professor has put forth the idea that the letter was really written by Harris’s wife, Lucy. Since she was known to be an enemy of the Book of Mormon, it is proposed she wrote the letter in an effort to discredit Mormonism. This theory would allow one to accept the results of all the tests except the handwriting analysis and still maintain that the letter is fraudulent. I personally find this idea to be rather hard to accept. While one could conceivably maintain that Phelps received it as genuine and used quotations from it in the letter published by Howe, it does not explain the other parallels to Mormonism Unvailed. If the letter was really written by Lucy Harris in 1830, Phelps probably would have learned that it was a fraud when he talked to Joseph Smith and others connected with the work. These conversations occurred prior to his response to Howe’s letter on January 15, 1831. I am of the opinion that if the Salamander letter was actually written in 1830, it probably came from Martin Harris’s own pen. If Steven Christensen’s researchers can convince me that the letter was in existence before Howe wrote his book, I will have to accept it as a genuine letter.

In The Money-Digging Letters, pages 8 and 9, I wrote the following:

We feel that one of the most important tests of the letter’s authenticity is its history since it was written. If Mr. Hofmann will tell historians where he obtained the letter, then it may be possible to trace it back to its original source. If, for instance, it had been in the Phelps family for many years, this would add a great deal to a case for its authenticity. We would feel much better about the matter if it could even be traced back prior to 1976 when Knight’s account of the finding of the Book of Mormon plates was first published. Mr. Hofmann is usually very cautious about this information, claiming that it will hinder his work as a document collector if people know his sources. . . .

While we sympathize with Hofmann’s desire not to reveal the source of his discoveries, we feel that it is very important that historians know the source of these finds. Some kind of compromise need to be worked out.

On August 23, 1984, Sandra Tanner talked to Mark Hofmann concerning the authenticity of the Salamander letter. With regard to the question about revealing the source of the letter, Mr. Hofmann said that he had told the buyer (Steven Christensen) where he obtained it, but could not reveal this information to anyone else. According to Hofmann, we will have to wait until Christensen decides to release this information. I thought that this information might appear in the forthcoming article in BYU Studies. Unfortunately, however, I have been told that two other collectors involved in the transaction want to keep a low profile so they can acquire other documents, and therefore information concerning the document’s pedigree might not be given. I hope that this is an inaccurate report, but even if these collectors want to keep their identity secret, they could at least tell where the letter originally came from. If no information about the pedigree appears in BYU Studies, I will have to assume that it cannot be traced back beyond the hands of collectors. I do hope that scholars will not side-step this important issue. Too many of the documents which have recently come forth appear to be like Melchisedec, “Without father, without mother, without descent, . . .” (Hebrews 7:3).

In The Money-Digging Letters, I reported that Hofmann tried to sell the Salamander letter to the Mormon Church for a large amount of money. In the past Mr. Hofmann acted under the theory that the Church will buy up embarrassing documents to suppress them. This is very clear from his own account of how he handled the discovery of the Joseph Smith III Blessing. In a paper given at the Mormon History Association, Mr. Hofmann stated that he did not want “to come across like I was trying to blackmail the Church,” but he acknowledged that if the Church had wanted him to, he would have been “willing to promise not to breathe a word of its existence to anyone . . .” (Sunstone Review, August 1982, page 1). That the Salamander letter was offered to the Church before it was sold to Christensen was confirmed by Church spokesman Jerry Cahill (see Salt Lake Tribune, September 2, 1984).

The 1873 letter which was attributed to Harris was obviously worth a great deal of money to collectors who were interested in proving Mormonism. The Salamander letter, on the other hand, could have been sold to liberal Mormons, anti-Mormons or even to those who would want to buy it to keep it out of the hands of critics. It has been suggested that a letter written by Joseph Smith’s mother sold for $30,000 (see Sunstone Review, September 1982, page 16). I would think that the Salamander letter would bring at least that amount of money.

In conclusion I would like to say that my mind is still open concerning the Salamander letter. If anyone has any information about the letter (either pro or con) I would really like to hear about it. Those who want to know more about the matter should read my preliminary report, The Money-Digging Letters. It includes the interview Martin Harris had with Tiffany’s Monthly in 1859. This interview alone is worth the price of the pamphlet.

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Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; all things are become new.
(2 Corinthians 5:17)

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