Alvah Beaman: Neighborly Witness to the Gold Plates Who Became a Friend of the Smith Family

Alvah Moses Beaman (also spelled Beman, 1775–1837) was a farmer in Livingston County, New York who became one of the early informal witnesses to the existence and reality of the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated.

Beaman befriended the Smith family in the Palmyra area during the years when Joseph Smith was receiving and protecting the plates (1827–1830). His daughter later recalled: 'Father [Alvah Beaman] became acquainted with Father Joseph Smith, the father of the Prophet; he frequently would go to Palmyra to see Father Smith and his family.'

Beaman's name appears in lists of unofficial witnesses who saw or handled physical evidence connected to the coming forth of the Book of Mormon — people like Emma Smith, Lucy Mack Smith, Katharine Smith, and Mary Whitmer — who interacted with the plates or the objects connected to the translation without being formal members of the Three or Eight.

Beaman later joined the Church and traveled with the Saints to Kirtland, Ohio. There he assisted in the construction of the Kirtland Temple. He remained connected to the Church in its earliest and most vulnerable years, providing a neighborhood anchor of support for the Smith family during the turbulent period of the plates' protection.

His account and the friendship of his family with the Smiths adds a valuable layer of independent witness to the physical reality of the plates and the integrity of the Smith family during the foundational period of the Restoration.