Move To Harmony Township, Pennsylvania
Joseph Smith's intention was to keep the box reportedly containing the golden plates safe from his Palymra neighbors while he dictated a translation of the book's reputed contents, which he would then publish. To do so, however, he needed an investment of money, and at the time he was penniless. Therefore, Smith sent his mother to the home of Martin Harris, a local landowner said at the time to be worth about $8,000 to $10,000.
Harris had apparently been a close confidant of the Smith family since at least 1826, and he may have heard about Smith's attempts to obtain the plates from the angel even earlier from Smith, Sr. He was also a believer in Smith's powers with his seer stone. When Lucy visited Harris, he had heard about Smith's report to have found golden plates through the grapevine in Palmyra, and was interested in finding out more. Thus, at Lucy Smith's request, Harris went to the Smith home, heard the story from Smith, and hefted a glass box that Smith said contained the plates. Smith convinced Harris that he had the plates, and that the angel had told him to "quit the company of the money-diggers". Convinced, Harris immediately gave Smith $50, and committed to sponsor the translation of the plates.
The money provided by Harris was enough to pay all of Smith's debts in Palmyra, and for him to travel with Emma and all of their belongings to Harmony Township, Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, where they would be able to avoid the public commotion in Palmyra over the plates. Thus, in early October 1827, they moved to Harmony, with the glass box reportedly holding the plates hidden during the trip in a barrel of beans.
Read more about this topic: Early Life Of Joseph Smith
Famous quotes containing the words move, harmony and/or pennsylvania:
“By act of Congress, male officers are gentlemen, but by act of God, we are ladies. We don’t have to be little mini-men and try to be masculine and use obscene language to come across. I can take you and flip you on the floor and put your arms behind your back and you’ll never move again, without your ever knowing that I can do it.”
—Sherian Grace Cadoria (b. 1940)
“We Americans have the chance to become someday a nation in which all radical stocks and classes can exist in their own selfhoods, but meet on a basis of respect and equality and live together, socially, economically, and politically. We can become a dynamic equilibrium, a harmony of many different elements, in which the whole will be greater than all its parts and greater than any society the world has seen before. It can still happen.”
—Shirley Chisholm (b. 1924)
“The discovery of Pennsylvania’s coal and iron was the deathblow to Allaire. The works were moved to Pennsylvania so hurriedly that for years pianos and the larger pieces of furniture stood in the deserted houses.”
—For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)