Thomas Marsh Guided by Spirit of Prophecy to Find the Book of Mormon

Before Thomas Baldwin Marsh had even heard of the restored Church, the Spirit of God directed his steps toward discovering the Book of Mormon. Marsh was in Boston engaged in a type foundry business, and he believed the Spirit of God dictated to him to make a journey west. He started in company with Benjamin Hall, who was also led by the Spirit. He went to Lima, Livingston County, New York, where he stayed some three months, and then prepared to return home. However, on his return journey, he stopped at Lyonstown to call on a family whose names he did not remember. The next morning, as he was leaving, the lady of the house asked if he had heard of the Golden Book found by a youth named Joseph Smith. He informed her he had never heard anything about it and became very anxious to know concerning the matter. Upon inquiring, she told him he could learn more about it from Martin Harris in Palmyra. Marsh returned westward and found Martin Harris at the printing office in Palmyra, where the first sixteen pages of the Book of Mormon had just been struck off. He obtained a proof sheet from the printer, and when Martin Harris learned of his intentions, he took Marsh to the house of Joseph Smith Sr., where Joseph Smith Jr. resided. There Marsh found Oliver Cowdery, who gave him all the information concerning the book he desired. After staying there two days, he started for Charleston, Massachusetts, 'highly pleased with the information I had obtained concerning the new found book.' This divine guidance through seemingly chance encounters led Thomas Marsh directly to the Book of Mormon and the restored Church.

In his autobiography, Marsh recounts that while living in Boston, he felt he possessed a measure of the spirit of prophecy, which led him to predict to his Methodist class leader that a new church would arise possessing truth in its purity. Despite the leader's suggestion that Marsh intended to lead this new sect, Marsh maintained he had no such personal ambition. His wife, Elizabeth, secretly obtained a certificate of membership for them both, though Marsh refused to use it, promising only to find her a suitable class to join. Marsh further specifies that the woman in Lyonstown who directed him to Martin Harris was one whose name he did not recollect.