The following is my first contribution to FAIR’s Translation Witness Accounts (TWA) Project spearheaded by Blair Hodges. Blair has the initial installment at his blog by listing all known firsthand accounts from Joseph Smith. Here I compiled as many accounts as I could find, but I seem to recall running across another one I can’t currently locate in my notes. Readers are welcome to point out other accounts that explicitly affirm or deny the use of curtain separating Joseph Smith from his scribes. I also want to hear about you make of these accounts.
My excerpts are mostly from Opening the Heavens which contains a compilation of 203 translation accounts done by Jack Welch. My footnotes are keyed to the number that Welch assigned. I have supplemented Welch’s accounts with several found in the 4th volume of Dan Vogel’s Early Mormon Documents series, in which case I use the page number the excerpt is found on.