"It was wrapped in a thin muslin handkerchief, so thin that I could see the glistening metal" Lucy M. Smith

[kirtland r.m.]

More very important evidence of not only the Book of Mormon, but other Nephite relics, including the interpreters and breastplate. First, probably the third witness of the Book of Mormon(Joseph first, second, Emma Smith who went with Joseph to receive the plates from Moroni and would later be allowed to feel them as I have posted before) saw a little more than he was supposed to.
Josiah Stowell (or “Stoal”; see Joseph Smith-History 1:56-58).Was apparently “the first person other than Joseph to feel and heft the plates.” Later, though, Stowell actually “testified under oath that he saw the plates the day Joseph first brought them home. As Joseph passed them through the window, Stowell caught a glimpse of the plates as a portion of the linen was pulled back. Stowell gave the court the dimensions of the plates and explained that they consisted of gold leaves with characters written on each sheet.” Thus, Josiah Stowell can now be included with the other eyewitnesses to the Book of Mormon plates.
Stowell joined the Church in 1830 but did not go west with the Saints when they moved to Ohio in 1831. Josiah Stowell continued to express his belief in the Prophet and the Book of Mormon as indicated in a letter written by his son, Josiah Stowell Jr., to John S. Fullmer in February 1843. He also dictated a letter to the Prophet in Nauvoo on 19 December 1843 and told him of his desire "to come to Zion the next season"; however, conditions prevented his doing so. Josiah Stowell died in Smithboro, Tioga County, New York, on May 12, 1844. He is buried in the Smithboro Cemetery.
Larry C. Porter, "Stowell, Josiah," in Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint History, edited by Donald Q. Cannon, Richard O. Cowan, Arnold K. Garr (Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book Co., 2000).

This from Book Book of Mormon Central.
Nephi also stated that the Lord would show the plates to “as many witnesses as seemeth him good” (2 Nephi 27:14). Many Latter-day Saints are not aware that, consistent with this verse of scripture, there were other, “unofficial” witnesses to the plates. Most of these people had accidental or incidental experiences with the plates.

Significantly, Mary Whitmer, mother of four of the Eight Witnesses, had a divinely sanctioned encounter. She was shown the plates by the angel Moroni.10 Other women, such as the prophet’s mother Lucy, and his wife Emma, interacted with the plates, bore witness of their reality and testified to the truth of the Book of Mormon.11https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/ ... e9_ww1o935

Some individuals have suggested that the experiences the Three and Eight Witnesses had with the plates were merely imaginary.13 Others have supposed that Joseph Smith simply forged a fake set of plates.14 The accounts of the Nephite interpreters and breastplate, however, make these already tenuous theories even more difficult to sustain. This is because they present two more tangible, meticulously described, artifacts which were seen by individuals other than the official witnesses.

When the detailed descriptions of these additional relics are added to the reports from nearly two dozen individuals who had some sort of sensory encounter with the golden plates,15 mass hallucination becomes an untenable explanation.16 At the same time, theories which suppose Joseph simply forged a set of golden plates—an already unlikely feat17—also have to explain where he got the time, skills, and resources to craft a believable set of Nephite interpreters, as well as an impressive breastplate.18

According to numerous witnesses, the interpreters were set in silver rims which, as William Smith described, twisted about in a figure 8. This suggests that the interpreters and breastplate would both have required additional metallurgical talent to create. Moreover, Lucy Smith reportedly believed that the breastplate was made from precious metal (in one account, pure gold) and was expensive.https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/ ... reastplate

Here is more on Lucy Mack Smith, and what she saw.
A Witness of the Book of Mormon
Lucy Mack Smith was born July 8, 1775 at Gilsum, Cheshire County, New Hampshire, the youngest of Solomon Mack and Lydia Gates' eight children. Solomon was a soldier in the French and Revolutionary wars, and Lydia was a school teacher. The Mack's were poor, but Lydia educated her children and reared them in a traditional Protestant household. Solomon continually reinforced the importance of prayer in his children. When Lucy was 13-years-old her sisters, Lovisa and Lovina, contracted tuberculosis (then called consumption). She devoted herself to nursing them until their death's six years later. Lucy suffered severe depression after her sisters' passing. Lucy's brother Stephen invited her to live with him in Tunbridge, Vermont hoping the change would lighten her mood.

While in Tunbridge she met local farmer, Joseph Smith Sr. After a one year courtship, they married on January 24, 1796. Joseph and Lucy Smith would have ten children: Alvin, Hyrum, Joseph Jr., Samuel H., Ephraim, William, Don Carlos, Sophrona, Catherine and Lucy. Unfortunately, she would bury six of her seven sons. Alvin, Samuel and Ephraim died of illnesses, Don Carlos died as a result of mob violence and Hyrum and Joseph were shot to death at Carthage jail.

Lucy and Joseph Sr. operated a prosperous farm in Tunbridge for six years until crop failures forced them to sell. In 1802, the Smiths moved to Randolph and opened a mercantile store. Unfortunately, the store failed. Destitute, the Smiths moved to Palmyra, New York in 1816. It was their eighth move since they married. When Lucy arrived in the Palmyra area, she only had nine cents remaining - about enough in today's money to buy two Happy Meals. They soon earned enough money to buy 30 acres. While Joseph Sr. and sons cleared the land to start a new farm, Lucy painted oilcloth coverings to earn money.

Lucy was very spiritual and had great faith. She read the Bible to her children, and had a testimony of the power of prayer. This was reinforced by three miraculous healings Lucy had been part of, including Sophronia's bout with Typhus Fever in 1813, and her own Tuberculosis when she was 27-years-old. In 1819, Lucy and a few of her children started attending a local Presbyterian church until Joseph's first experience with the angel, Moroni in the mid 1820's.

In 1820, Lucy's son Joseph Jr. told her a story about God, The Father, and Jesus Christ appearing to him while he prayed in the woods. Lucy believed her son's story. From then on she'd be identified with her inspiring support of the Restoration. Lucy and Joseph Sr. were baptized when the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized April, 1830. Lucy became a mother figure for members of the church because of her kindness, generosity and firmness of faith. Members affectionately referred to her as Mother Smith.

Lucy wouldn't back down even when confronted. Once, Reverend Ruggles, a pastor of a Protestant church in Pontiac, Michigan, was introduced to Lucy and immediately began attacking Joseph Jr.

"And you are the mother of that poor, foolish, silly boy, Joe Smith, who pretended to translate the Book of Mormon," he asked?

"I am, sir, the mother of Joseph Smith; but why do you apply to him such epithets as those?"

"Because," said Reverend Ruggles, "that he should imagine he was going to break down all other churches with that simple 'Mormon' book."

"Did you ever read that book?" Lucy asked.

"No, it is beneath my notice," he retorted.

Lucy responded resolutely, "…that book contains the everlasting gospel … and was written for the salvation of your soul, by the gift and power of the Holy Ghost."

"Pooh," he scoffed, "nonsense—I am not afraid of any member of my church being led astray by such stuff; they have too much intelligence."

Lucy prophesied to him, "Now, Mr. Ruggles, mark my words—as true as God lives, before three years we will have more than one-third of your church; and sir, whether you believe it or not, we will take the very deacon, too!"

Two months later, Jared Carter was sent on a mission to Michigan. Jared converted seventy people from Reverend Ruggles church including the deacon, Samuel Bent, who remained an active member of the church.

Lucy Smith and her family followed the saints from New York, to Ohio, then to Missouri. There Lucy and Joseph Sr. suffered horrible persecution along with the other saints. They watched friends and family tarred & feathered, assaulted, and watched Joseph Jr. get marched off at gunpoint to Liberty Jail. Lucy and Joseph Sr. were falsely told that Joseph had been murdered. The shock was too much for the elder Smith and his health failed. In 1839, the Smiths fled Missouri to Illinois with the saints. Joseph Sr. died not long after on Sept. 14, 1840.

In Nauvoo, Illinois, Lucy lived with Joseph Jr. and his wife, Emma. In June 1844, Joseph was arrested for ordering the destruction of the printing press of a dissident newspaper. Joseph was being held in the Carthage, Illinois jail awaiting trial. His brother, Hyrum was visiting him when an armed mob stormed and shot the brothers to death.

When Lucy saw the bodies of Joseph and Hyrum she lamented that she was:

"swallowed up in the depths of my afflictions; and though my soul was filled with horror past imagination, yet I was dumb, until I arose again to contemplate the spectacle before me. Oh! at that moment how my mind flew through every scene of sorrow and distress which we had passed together, in which they had shown the innocence and sympathy which filled their guileless hearts. As I looked upon their peaceful, smiling countenances, I seemed almost to hear them say, 'Mother, weep not for us, we have overcome the world by love; we carried to them the gospel, that their souls might be saved; they slew us for our testimony, and thus placed us beyond their power; their ascendancy is for a moment, ours is an eternal triumph.'"

Adding insult to injury, her son Samuel died one month later due to an illness he contracted while escaping from the mob that murdered his brothers. William was now her only living son.

Lucy Smith continued to live with Joseph's widow Emma. Lucy intended to follow the saints to Utah with Brigham Young, but she was too old a frail. She died at home in Nauvoo in May 1856, at the age of 81.

After Joseph Jr. was given the plates by Moroni, he sometimes hid them at his parent's house. Lucy Mack Smith was asked if she ever saw the plates during this time. "I asked her [Lucy Smith] if she saw the plates. She said no, it was not for her to see them, but she hefted and handled them." It's hard to heft and handle something that doesn't exist.

While she didn't see the plates, she was shown the Urim and Thummim, the divine interpreters that been hidden with the gold plates which Joseph used to translate them. In her journal she wrote,

"On the morning of September 22, after Joseph had returned from the hill, he placed the article [the Nephite interpreters] of which he spoke into my hands, and, upon examination, I found that it consisted of two smooth three-cornered diamonds set in glass, and the glasses were set in silver bows, which were connected with each other in much the same way as old fashioned spectacles. . . . He [Joseph Smith] handed me the breastplate spoken of in his history. It was wrapped in a thin muslin handkerchief, so thin that I could feel its proportions without any difficulty. It was concave on one side and convex on the other, and extended from the neck downwards, as far as the center of the stomach of a man of extraordinary size. It had four straps of the same material, for the purpose of fastening it to the breast."



Sources:
William J. Hamblin, Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, p.517
LDS Biographical Encyclopedia, Andrew Jenson
History of the Church
Encyclopedia of Mormonism
Lucy Mack Smith, History of Joseph Smith
Jaynann Payne, “Lucy Mack Smith: Woman of Great Faith,” Ensign, Nov 1972,
http://www.moroni10.com/witnesses/Lucy_Mack_Smith.html

I have quite a lot more, I will post later.

[kirtland r.m.]

Here is the testimony of Emma Smith.
Question. What of the truth of Mormonism?

Answer. I know Mormonism to be the truth; and believe the Church to have been established by divine direction. I have complete faith in it. In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.

Question. Had he not a book or manuscript from which he read, or dictated to you?

Answer. He had neither manuscript nor book to read from.

Question. Could he not have had, and you not know it?

Answer. If he had had anything of the kind he could not have concealed it from me.

Question. Are you sure that he had the plates at the time you were writing for him?

Answer. The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen tablecloth, which I had given him to fold them in. I once felt of the plates, as they thus lay on the table, tracing their outline and shape. They seemed to be pliable like thick paper, and would rustle with a metallic sound when the edges were moved by the thumb, as one does sometimes thumb the edges of a book.

Question. Where did father and Oliver Cowdery write?

Answer. Oliver Cowdery and your father wrote in the room where I was at work.

Question. Could not father have dictated the Book of Mormon to you, Oliver Cowdery and the others who wrote for him, after having first written it, or having first read it out of some book?

Answer. Joseph Smith [and for the first time she used his name direct, having usually used the words, "your father" or "my husband"] could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter, let alone dictate a book like the Book of Mormon. And, though I was an active participant in the scenes that transpired, and was present during the translation of the plates, and had cognizance of things as they transpired, it is marvelous to me, "a marvel and a wonder," as much so as to anyone else.

Question. I should suppose that you would have uncovered the plates and examined them?

Answer. I did not attempt to handle the plates, other than I have told you, nor uncover them to look at them. I was satisfied that it was the work of God, and therefore did not feel it to be necessary to do so;

Major Bidamon here suggested: Did Mr. Smith forbid your examining the plates?

Answer. I do not think he did. I knew that he had them, and was not specially curious about them. I moved them from place to place on the table, as it was necessary in doing my work.

Question. Mother, what is your belief about the authenticity, or origin, of the Book of Mormon?

Answer. My belief is that the Book of Mormon is of divine authenticity - I have not the slightest doubt of it. I am satisfied that no man could have dictated the writing of the manuscripts unless he was inspired; for, when acting as his scribe, your father would dictate to me hour after hour; and when returning after meals, or after interruptions, he could at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having any portion of it read to him. This was a usual thing for him to do. It would have been improbable that a learned man could do this; and, for one so ignorant and unlearned as he was, it was simply impossible.
Emma Smith - Last Testimony of Emma Smith 1879 Q&A between Emma and Joseph Smith III, The Saints' Herald 26 (Oct 1879)
Letter of Lewis C. Bidamon to Emma Smith dated 11 January 1847, (Department of History, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Independence, Missouri.)
Lyndon W. Cook, The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.37
Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Vol.3