The Three Witnesses See an Angel (Moroni) and the Gold Plates (June 1829, grove near the Whitmer home, Fayette/Waterloo, NY)

In June 1829, at a remote field/grove near the Whitmer home in Fayette (near Waterloo), New York, Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris knelt in prayer and sought a divine witness of the record from which the Book of Mormon had been translated. Multiple contemporary and later accounts state that an angel (described as Moroni) appeared "arrayed in glorious light," exhibited the gold plates to the three designated witnesses, and that a voice from heaven declared that the translation had been correctly made.

Oliver Cowdery wrote the earliest surviving personal description in November 1829 and also prepared the formal Testimony of the Three Witnesses that appears in every edition of the Book of Mormon. David Whitmer gave later interviews describing related encounters (including another meeting with a messenger on the road to Fayette) and recounted traveling with a stranger who was later identified by Oliver as a heavenly messenger carrying the plates. Martin Harris's later recollections (including an 1875 account) describe going apart to pray, then seeing the angel who displayed the plates and hearing the voice of God; one account records that when Martin first saw the angel he fell to the ground, then rose and watched the angel turn the leaves of the plates. Other sources note Martin Harris traveled from Palmyra (about twenty-five miles) to the Whitmer home to congratulate Joseph on completing the translation, and that after this vision Martin later mortgaged part of his farm to help publish the Book of Mormon. The combined recollections consistently report the same core occurrence: an angelic manifestation presenting the gold plates to the three witnesses and a heavenly declaration confirming the translation.