This excerpt isolates the most tactile detail of Katharine Smith Salisbury’s witness — that she felt, through the cloth wrapping, the individual leaves of the plates and heard them sound. The full passage as preserved by her grandson Herbert reads:
However, Katherine’s experience moved beyond those who hefted the plates in the box. She said that through the package of cloth she rippled her fingers up the edge of the plates and felt that they were separate metal plates and heard the tinkle of sound that they made.
This account is unique to Katharine among the Smith family witnesses: where Emma Smith described running her thumb over the edges of the plates and hearing them rustle “with a metallic sound,” and where the formal Three and Eight Witnesses signed declarations of seeing and hefting, only Katharine reported hearing the plates ring as separate metal sheets through the cloth that covered them. Her witness was understood by her family — and emphasized in their 1954 publications — to move beyond mere lifting to physical touch and sound.