Strange Letter Attributed to Mormon Witness
By Jerald and Sandra Tanner
In the March issue of the Salt Lake City Messenger we announced the discovery of a very important letter which was supposed to have been written by Book of Mormon witness Martin Harris. The existence of this letter was confirmed on March 7, 1984, when a Mormon bishop by the name of Steven Christensen issued a “press release” in which he stated:
It is true that I am owner of a letter written by Martin Harris to William W. Phelps, dated October 23, 1830.
. . . Before I will release transcripts or photographs of the document to the public, I wish to first determine the document’s historicity as much as possible.
The original plan was for the letter to be published in Sunstone. Later, however, Christensen announced that he had three researchers working on a book and that the public would have to wait until it was finished. Unfortunately, one of the researchers (the only one working full time on the project) was released from Christensen’s employment, and some people began to fear that the letter would not be published. In our publication, The Money-Digging Letters, we indicated that we would print the letter in the Messenger if there was an attempt by the Church to suppress it. The latest report is that it may be published in a forthcoming issue of Brigham Young University Studies.
A Summary
While we will not print the letter in this issue of the Messenger, we have a typed copy on display at the Utah Lighthouse Bookstore, 1350 South West Temple, and we are including a summary of its contents in this article.
To begin with, Martin Harris stated that Joseph Smith first came “to my notice” in 1824. Harris was amazed that Joseph was able to do a great amount of work in a short period of time. When he asked about this, Joseph said he had special “assistance.” Harris asked Joseph Smith’s father about the matter and was told that “Joseph often sees Spirits here with great kettles of coin money.”
Harris then told of a dream which he himself had in which he conversed with spirits and they “let me count their money.” He awoke with a dollar in his hand, and when he consulted Joseph Smith, Smith told him that the spirits were “grieved” because he kept the dollar. Harris, therefore, threw the dollar back. Harris then told about Joseph Smith relating how “the old spirit come to me 3 times in the same dream & says dig up the gold [i.e., the gold plates of the Book of Mormon] but when I take it up the next morning the spirit transfigured himself from a white salamander in the bottom of the hole & struck me 3 times . . .” The spirit then took the plates away from him because he had disobeyed his orders. Later the spirit said that he must bring his brother Alvin. Smith informed the spirit that “he is dead shall I bring what remains . . .” Joseph tried again to obtain the plates, but the spirit would not let him have them because he did not bring his brother (his body?). The spirit told Joseph to look to the seer stone, but he was unable to see who to bring. The spirit mockingly said, “I tricked you again.” Joseph finally saw his wife in the “stone” and obtained the “gold bible.”
Harris gave Joseph “fifty dollars” so he could move to Pennsylvania. Later Joseph gave Harris a copy of the hieroglyphics which appeared on the gold plates to take to Professor Anthon. Anthon confirmed that they were “shorthand Egyptian” and wanted the “old book” so he could translate it. Harris then told how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by putting the “giant silver spectacles” in an “old hat” and reading the words which appeared in the darkness. Harris concluded his relation of the facts concerning the coming forth of the Book of Mormon by saying the Joseph showed him the gold plates and that he (Harris) had the Book of Mormon printed with “my own money.”
The letter attributed to Martin Harris is now referred to as the “Salamander letter” or the “White Salamander letter.” Although we do not have a photocopy of it at the present time, the typed copy we have has been compared with a photocopy and is supposed to be rather accurate. No claims are made, however, for the spelling or punctuation. Typed copies of a slightly different version of the Salamander letter were mailed anonymously to different scholars from New York City. We obtained a copy of this version and found that the salutation on the letter presented a problem. In The Money-Digging Letters, we wrote:
If this copy is accurate, we may have another problem. One would expect the salutation to read, “Dear Mr. Phelps.” Instead, the letter is addressed to, “Dear Bro. Phelps.” If Phelps had been a member of the Church, one would expect such a greeting. . . . While the Salamander letter is dated October 23, 1830, Phelps did not join the church until June of 1831.
A comparison with a photocopy of the original resolved this problem; the words, “Dear Bro. Phelps” are inaccurate. The salutation actually reads, “Dear Sir.”
Making Tests
We are happy to report that Steven Christensen has submitted the Salamander letter to some of the best experts in the country to determine its authenticity. Recently we received a tip from someone in the East which led to the discovery that the tests on the Salamander letter are being performed by Kenneth Rendell Incorporated of Newton, Massachusetts. This company is in the process of a rigorous examination of the document. The signature on the letter was compared with four other signatures attributed to Martin Harris.
Although we do not know whether a final verdict has been reached, the information which we have been able to obtain suggested that the verdict will probably be favorable to the document’s authenticity. Bill Kruger, the man who made the tests on the paper, told us that he could detect no evidence of forgery. We talked to Leslie Kress of Kenneth Rendell Incorporated about the test being conducted on the letter. Although she acknowledged the work was being done, she was not able to reveal to us the results of the various tests. We have heard from another source, however, that the sealing wax used on the letter has been tested. It is also possible that tests will be performed on the postmark. One test which had apparently not been completed at the time we talked to Leslie Kress was that on the ink. Some people, however, are now claiming that the Salamander letter has passed all the tests. Since Steven Christensen has not issued any statement about the matter, we do not know whether the report is true. In any case, at least one of the researchers is very optimistic that the results of the tests will be positive.
The Handwriting
On pages 15 and 19 of The Money-Digging Letters, we pointed out the following problem:
Handwriting experts are going to be confronted with a real problem with regard to this letter. As far as we know, there are no samples of Martin Harris’s handwriting except for his signature on a few documents. The Deseret News for September 1, 1984, claimed that “Christensen said that as far as is known know [now?] this is the only letter in Harris’ handwriting that has surfaced.” Steve Eaton wrote the following in the Salt Lake Tribune on September 2: “Because the only known samples of Harris’ handwriting are his signatures, researchers will be ‘handicapped’ as they attempt to authenticate the handwriting, Mr. Walker said.”
There are very few alphabetical characters represented in Martin Harris’s signature. We find the letter r three times. The letters a and i both appear twice, but the letters h, m, n, s, and t only appear once. In our alphabet there are 52 different written forms—26 small letters and 2 capital letters. Thus we only have about 15% of the different forms represented. We understand that while a signature is very useful to compare against another signature, the form of the letters used may differ somewhat from one’s normal writing because a signature is done almost automatically.
One of the researchers is now claiming that an early Book of Mormon bearing a short inscription by Martin Harris has been located. An inscription of this nature could throw some light on the issue. Scholars, however, should be careful about this matter. A forgery in a book would be much easier to perpetrate than a postmarked letter, and there is always a possibility that a second forgery would be created to provide support for the first. If the book was known to have had this writing in it for a number of years prior to the discovery of the Salamander letter, it could be very important in determining the authenticity of the letter.
One interesting thing that has been called to our attention by H. Michael Marquardt is that the signature which we always believed was the genuine Martin Harris signature was probably not written by Harris at all. This is the signature which appears under the printed testimony of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon in A Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When this signature is compared with a signature appearing on the Book of Mormon contract with E. B. Grandin, dated August 17, 1829, we find that there is no resemblance. The signatures which appear on other documents seem to agree with the one found on the contract. If we assume that these documents are authentic, then we have to conclude that the one which has been published by the Mormon Church for at least 50 years is not Martin Harris’s signature. The following is a photograph of the signature which appears in A Comprehensive History, vol. 1, page 139. Below this is the signature which appears on the Book of Mormon contract with E. B. Grandin. This was published by the Mormon Church in Ensign, December 1983, page 41.
Why a false signature was used by the Church is not known, but it is possible that no good example of Harris’s signature was readily available when the Comprehensive History was first published. Someone has suggested that it may really be the signature of Harris’s son, Martin Harris, Jr.
Caution Urged
When we first published extracts from the Salamander letter in the Messenger (March 1984), we made these comments about the importance of determining the authenticity of the letter:
At the outset we should state that we have some reservations concerning the authenticity of the letter, and at the present time we are not prepared to say that it was actually penned by Martin Harris. The serious implications of this whole matter, however, cry out for discussion. If the letter is authentic, it is one of the greatest evidences against the divine origin of the Book of Mormon. If, on the other hand, it is a forgery, it needs to be exposed as such so that millions of people will not be misled. . . .
Since Martin Harris was one of the three special witnesses to the gold plates of the Book of Mormon (see his testimony in the front of the book), he is held in high esteem by the Mormon people. Mormon writers have commended him for his honesty. Although many Mormon critics may disagree with this view, everyone agrees that Harris played such an important role in early Mormonism that anything coming from his pen is of great significance.
Because of some problems in the text of the Salamander letter we have been exceptionally cautious about endorsing it as authentic. The reader will find more information about these problems in The Money-Digging Letters and in the article “Dilemma of a Mormon Critic” which is published in this issue of the Messenger.
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