Stolen or Burned
What happened to the 116 pages? There are two theories – stolen or burned and at this point one suspect, universally maligned for a hundred and ninety years.
Stolen
Joseph Smith said the manuscript was stolen. His preface to the 1830 Book of Mormon reads, “To the Reader—… I would inform you that I translated, by the gift and power of God, and caused to be written, one hundred and sixteen pages, the which I took from the Book of Lehi, which was an account abridged from the plates of Lehi, by the hand of Mormon; which said account, some person or persons have stolen and kept from me, notwithstanding my utmost exertions to recover it again” (Joseph Smith, preface, 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon). This is evidence to support that Joseph Smith was hoping to find the lost 116 pages before he commenced translating the small plates which was the last portion of the Book of Mormon to be translated. In June 1829, probably after the rest of the Book of Mormon was translated, Joseph and Oliver Cowdery commenced work on First Nephi.
Martin Harris was not convinced that “some person or persons” stole the manuscript. He was convinced the culprit was his wife. Contemporary Reverend John Clark recorded that Martin was “indignant at his wife beyond measure [and] he raved most violently” (Clark, Gleanings by the Way, 247–48).
Lucy Mack Smith penned, “There is no doubt but Mrs. Harris took it from the drawer, with the view of retaining it, until another translation should be given, then, to alter the original translation, for the purpose of showing a discrepancy. . . . She intended to keep the manuscript until the book was published. And then put these one hundred and sixteen pages into the hands of someone who would publish them, and show how they varied from those published in the Book of Mormon” (Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith, 131).
John A. Clark wrote, “[Lucy Harris] seize[d] the manuscript and put it into the hands of one of her neighbours for safer keeping. When the manuscript was discovered to be missing, suspicion immediately fastened upon Mrs. Harris. She, however, refused to give any information in relation to the matter, but simply replied: ‘If this be a divine communication, the same being who revealed it to you can easily replace it.’” Following Clarks’ line of reasoning, the conclusion is that Lucy Harris formulated a plan to expose what she called a “gross deception” being acted out upon her husband. But she had to deal with persons standing behind the scene and moving the machinery that were too wily thus to be caught. She apparently rationalized or took “for granted” that Joseph would “attempt to reproduce the part she had concealed. When he did so, she believed that it would be impossible for him to repeat verbatim the same words” (Clark, Gleanings by the Way, 247–48).
An obscure newspaper entry titled “XVI. Translation Begun and Interrupted: Palmyra and the Mormons” found in the Cornell University reads, “Harris took the papers home preparatory to returning them to Smith. When his wife, who looked upon the entire enterprise only with the greatest contempt and disgust, confiscated the precious documents. Consternation reigned at the Smith house when told of their horrible fate and, though Mrs. Harris later said she had burned the offending papers, it was always feared that she was keeping them for a possible subsequent use. A solution to the difficulty was found by continuing the translation at the 117th page.”
Arthur B. Deming wrote in 1888, Lucy Harris stole the manuscript and passed it off to “a certain Dr. Seymour.”
While serving as a judge in Indiana, Stephen Harding said, “I have the authority of Martin Harris himself, who stated that some 150 pages, more or less, of the original manuscript of the Book of Mormon had been stolen, lost, or destroyed by some evil minded person”
Burned
Orsamus Turner in 1852 wrote, “The wife of Harris was a rank infidel and heretic, touching the whole thing, and decidedly opposed to her husband’s participation in it. With sacriligious [sic] hands, she seized over an hundred of the manuscript pages of the new revelation, and burned or secreted them” (Orsamus Turner, History of the Pioneer Settlement of Phelps and Gorham’s Purchase, and Morris’ Reserve (Rochester: William Alling, 1852), 215).
In an 1884 interview with former Palmyra resident Lorenzo Saunders by E. L. Kelley, Saunders affirmed that Lucy confessed to being a party to the incendiary demise of the manuscript. He stated, “I know what course she took, and when she burned up those papers. I heard her say she burned the papers, she was pretty high on combativeness. . . . She says she burned them up. And there was no mistake, but she did. They never was found; never come to light. I lived till I was 43 years old right there; and she never denied of burning the papers, he [Martin] brought them home to proselyte her and she burned them” (Lorenzo Saunders, interviewed by E. L. Kelly, November 12, 1884, p. 3, Township of Reading, Hillsdale County, Michigan, Special Collections, Merrill-Cazier Library).
Thomas Cook in 1930 claimed that Lucy Harris threw the manuscript into a fire and that there was no attempt made to alter any word of the manuscript. He wrote, “At one time while engaged in a heated argument with her husband [Lucy] grabbed up a bundle of his manuscripts and threw them into the fire” (Thomas L. Cook, Palmyra and Vicinity (Palmyra, N.Y.: Press of the Palmyra Courier-Journal, 1930), 206).
On December 11, 1997, Larry C. Porter interviewed Hugh Nibley in Provo, Utah. Nibley told Porter that Rebecca Neibaur Nibley, daughter of Alexander Neibaur, was very close to Carolyn Young Harris, the second wife of Martin Harris. Nibley said Carolyn told Rebecca that Lucy Harris “was so mad that she took the 116 pages and threw them in the fire.” In terms of the connection between the parties described, Rebecca Neibaur Nibley was the wife of Bishop Charles W. Nibley. Rebecca was the grandmother of Hugh Nibley. Hugh Nibley’s mother, Agnes Sloan Nibley, heard this story from Rebecca, and Agnes then told her son Hugh.
Lucy Harris
Whether the manuscript was stolen or burned, for 190 years there has been only one suspect—Lucy Harris. Lucy has been maligned all over the world in LDS congregations.