Herbert S. Salisbury recounted his grandmother Katharine’s description of the day Joseph Smith first brought the gold plates home — September 22, 1827 — after his fourth visit to the Hill Cumorah and his flight from the men who attacked him on the way back. Katharine, then fourteen, was at home with the family when Joseph arrived:
Katharine’s grandson, Herbert Salisbury, remembered his grandmother relating: When he [Joseph] came in the house … he was completely out of breath. She [Katharine] took the plates from him and laid them on the table temporarily, and helped revive him until he got breathing properly, and also examined his hand, and treated it for the bruises on his knuckles.
The account harmonizes with Katharine’s own 1895 testimony at the RLDS General Conference, in which she described Joseph having been pursued and struck by three different men along his route home with the record, throwing himself on a bed and fainting upon his arrival, with his thumb out of joint and his arm “very lame.”