Because of opposition by former treasure-seeking colleagues who believed they owned a share of the golden plates, Smith prepared to leave the Palmyra area for his wife's home town of Harmony, Pennsylvania (now Oakland).
[13] Thus, in late October 1827, they moved to Harmony, with the glass box purportedly holding the plates hidden during the trip in a barrel of beans.
[25] He said Anthon initially authenticated the characters and their translation, but then retracted his opinion after learning that Smith claimed to have received the plates from an angel.
[39] Hoping to appease her, and to quell his own doubts, Harris convinced a reluctant Smith to allow him to take the 116 manuscript pages with him on a visit back home in Palmyra.
[49] As part of the penalty for losing the manuscript, Smith said the angel took away the Urim and Thummim,[51] returning it once again on September 22, 1828, the autumn equinox and the anniversary of the day he first received the plates.
[55] According to Emma, Smith no longer used the Urim and Thummim in the writing process after the loss of the 116 manuscript pages; rather, he began using exclusively his dark seer stone.
[88] On June 11, 1829, to secure his copyright,[note 6] Smith deposited a copy of the title page with the local federal district court.
[94] During the remainder of June 1829, Smith continued the work of translation in Fayette by dictating a replacement section for the 116 pages previously lost by Harris.
[100] Thus, Smith took the three of them to the woods near the Whitmer home and they had a shared vision in which they all claimed to see (with their "spiritual eyes", Harris reportedly said[90]) an angel holding the golden plates and turning its leaves.
Grandin published in The Wayne Sentinel a copy of the Book of Mormon title page Smith had given him earlier, and offered it to his readers as a "curiosity", stating that "[m]ost people entertain an idea that the whole matter is the result of a gross imposition, and a grosser superstition".
[112] While Smith was attempting to arrange for publication during July and August 1829, several area newspapers ran harshly critical articles on the Book of Mormon, and reprinted the title page published on June 26, 1829, in The Wayne Sentinel.
[117] In July and August, the Biblical-sounding language style of the Book of Mormon's title page was satirized by a series of articles in a Rochester paper.
[118] In October, Smith moved to Harmony, Pennsylvania to rejoin his wife Emma, leaving Oliver Cowdery in charge of supervising the publication in Palmyra.
[121] In order to pay his $1500 share of the costs for printing the Book of Mormon, Smith attempted unsuccessfully to raise at least $500 from his old friend Josiah Stowell.
"[132][note 12] Harris renewed his commitment to pay the printing costs, and on March 26, 1830, Grandin made copies of the Book of Mormon available for purchase at the bookshop on the ground floor of his shop.
[133][note 13] In June 1830, Smith dictated a revelation in which Moses narrates a vision in which he sees "worlds without number" and speaks with God about the purpose of creation and the relation of humankind to deity.
In the expanded narrative, Enoch has a theophany in which he discovers that God is capable of sorrow, and that human sin and suffering cause him to grieve.
[150] Similarly, several of the other Twelve Witnesses to the Book of Mormon were described by people of the Palmyra area as "apostles"[151] or "elders"[152] in this new faith, and beginning in August 1829 some of them were given missions to preach the gospel.
[160] The majority of witnesses say this organizational event took place in the log home of Joseph Smith Sr. in the Manchester area,[161] followed by a meeting the next Sunday in Fayette, New York.
[168] In addition to the members in the Palmyra-Manchester area and in Fayette, Smith soon found followers in Colesville, New York, a town near Harmony on the Susquehanna River.
[174] Much later, while speaking about the early history of the church, Smith said he had heard "[t]he voice of Michael on the banks of the Susquehanna, detecting the devil when he appeared as an angel of light".
In late June 1830, Smith, Emma, Cowdery, and John and David Whitmer visited Colesville and baptized Joseph Knight Sr., many of his family, and several others in the area.
His two-day trial took place in late June, ending on July 1, 1830,[178] and he was defended by two attorneys hired by Joseph Knight,[note 16] who got him acquitted.
[175][note 17] Back at his home in Harmony, Pennsylvania, Smith dictated a revelation indicating that he and Cowdery should begin acting more as full-time clergy.
[190] Given the resentment in Harmony, and the continued open hostility in Colesville,[189] Smith moved in September 1830 to Fayette, where the Whitmer family had once again offered him residence.
[189] In Fayette, Smith found that Hiram Page, one of the Eight Witnesses, had been dictating revelations using his own seer stone, and that Oliver Cowdery, the Whitmer family, and most church members[191] had been accepting them as the word of God.
[192] Page's revelations had to do with the establishment of Zion,[193] including the location of the "New Jerusalem" city predicted in the Book of Mormon (Ether, ch.
[note 18] Page's revelations, and their general acceptance as scripture by the Fayette branch, weighed upon Smith as he prepared for the church's second conference, scheduled for September 26, 1830.
[194] The revelation contained grand eschatological themes, and stated that the "elect" would be "gathered in unto one place, upon the face of this land" in anticipation of the Tribulation.
[207] The project of translating the "sealed" mysteries of God was soon postponed, however,[208] as a revelation in late December 1830 indicated that the church headquarters was to move from Fayette to Kirtland to await Oliver Cowdery's return there from his mission to the "Lamanites".