So intolerable at last became the persecution about Manchester that Joseph decided to move with his wife to the home of her parents in Harmony, Susquehannah county, Pennsylvania. Susquehannah county is one of the northern counties of Pennsylvania, and joins Broome county, in the state of New York; and Harmony is a distance of from one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles from Manchester, New York. The young Prophet was in very straitened circumstances when he resolved upon removing to Pennsylvania; but about that time a Mr. Martin Harris, a respectable and well-to-do farmer of Palmyra, New York, called upon the Smith family and gave Joseph fifty dollars to enable him to make the proposed journey. A team and wagon was fitted out, and in company with his wife the Prophet started for Pennsylvania. Enroute he was twice stopped by officers of the law, who, under the power of a search warrant, ransacked his wagon in search of the plates, but in each case they were disappointed, as they did not find them, though the prophet had them concealed among his effects.
Arriving in Pennsylvania in the month of December, the Prophet began an examination of the characters engraven upon the plates and copied a considerable number of them. Some of them he translated by means of the Urim and Thummim. In this desultory work he spent the time until the month of February, 1828, when Martin Harris, the gentleman who had befriended him on the eve of his departure from Manchester, arrived at his home in Harmony. This man had become interested in the Prophet and his work and believed him to be in possession of the plates.
Some of the characters which Joseph had copied from the plates, Martin Harris determined to submit to Professor Charles Anthon, "a gentleman of the highest reputation, both in America and Europe, and well known for his valuable and correct edition of the classics."[[2]] For this purpose Harris made the journey from Harmony, Pennsylvania, to the city of New York. Some of the Nephite characters given into the custody of Mr. Harris were translated while others were not. Following is a facsimile of some of the characters handed to Professor Anthon in fulfilment of the words of Isaiah:
"The vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed: and the book is delivered to one that is not learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith I am not learned." (Isaiah 29:11, 12.)
[[3]]
Whether or not these are the characters to which a translation was appended by the Prophet, cannot now be determined.
With the printer's copy of the manuscript of the Book of Mormon, now in the hands of the descendants of Joseph Smith, is also a transcript of characters consisting of seven lines, the first three of which are very similar to those copied from The Prophet. They were also handed, it is claimed, to Doctor Mitchell and Professor Anthon by Martin Harris. Whether this seven-line transcript was the translated or untranslated part of the characters handed to these learned men for their inspection may not now be determined; but I present them herewith in order that as many of the Nephite characters as have been transcribed from the plates may be before the reader:
The latter transcript is taken from a pamphlet by the late Elder Edward Stevenson, of the First Council of Seventy, entitled Reminiscences of Joseph the Prophet, and the Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon. Of this transcript Elder Stevenson says: