Martin Harris Sees His Father in Vision at the Foot of a Ladder — Confirmed That Baptism for the Dead Is True

Martin Harris — the Book of Mormon scribe who financed its printing and one of the Three Witnesses who saw the angel and the plates — spent more than three decades separated from the main body of the Saints, yet he never denied his testimony. In February 1870, Elder Edward Stevenson, returning to Utah from a mission in the Eastern States, stopped at Kirtland, Ohio, hoping to find the aged witness. He saw Harris coming out of the Kirtland Temple carrying a copy of the first edition of the Book of Mormon under his arm. Martin told him "it was his duty to continue to lift up his voice as he had been commanded to do in defence of the Book that he held in his hand," and confessed that he was daily bearing testimony to the many visitors who came to the Temple. The once prosperous farmer was now eighty-eight, living on the charity of the Hollister household a few rods from the temple he had helped dedicate.

Stevenson admonished him to gather to Zion and receive his endowments, and letters passed between the two men through the spring of 1870. Martin wrote in reply: "When I read your letter I had a witness for the first time that I must gather with the Saints to Utah." Stevenson raised a subscription fund of nearly two hundred dollars to bring him west, President Brigham Young personally contributing twenty-five dollars, and in August 1870 Stevenson brought the aged witness by rail to Salt Lake City.

When Martin Harris arrived in Salt Lake City in 1870, he was taught about baptism for the dead — a principle new to him, revealed long after his parting from the Church. He was skeptical, but said that if it was correct, the Lord would manifest it to him by His Spirit. Edward Stevenson recorded what happened: "Martin, soon after his arrival in Salt Lake City, came to my house and said the spirit of the Lord had made it manifest to him, not only for himself personally, but also that he should be baptized for his dead, for he had seen his father seeking his aid. He saw his father at the foot of a ladder, striving to get up to him, and he went down to him taking him by the hand and helped him up." The vision confirmed to Harris the truth of proxy baptism for the dead. He was immediately baptized for himself and then for several of his deceased ancestors.

The reunion carried the weight of apostolic witness: five apostles were present at his confirmation — John Taylor, Wilford Woodruff, Orson Pratt, George A. Smith, and Joseph F. Smith. According to archival records in the Historical Department Journal and Endowment House registers, the specific ordinances included proxy baptisms for his father, Nathan Harris, and his brother, Solomon Harris. Within days of returning to the body of the Saints, the man who had stood in the presence of an angel and never ceased testifying of the plates was shown, by vision, that the great latter-day work of redeeming the dead was true — his father at the foot of a ladder, and his son reaching down to raise him up.

Fuller account of this event (as retold in Edward Stevenson, 'One of the Three Witnesses: Incidents in the Life of Martin Harris,' Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star 48, no. 23 (June 7, 1886): 367-368.):

Martin, soon after his arrival in Salt Lake City, came to my house and said the spirit of the Lord had made it manifest to him, not only for himself personally, but also that he should be baptized for his dead, for he had seen his father seeking his aid. He saw his father at the foot of a ladder, striving to get up to him, and he went down to him taking him by the hand and helped him up. This was a new principle to him, but he was satisfied that it was of the Lord. He was baptized for himself and then for his dead, and he felt that he had done a great work.