[New York] farmer [Joseph Smith] said he found the [plates] late in 18[27] while clearing his land of trees and stumps before plowing, having recently taken over an 80-acre (320,000 m2) parcel that had for years been left unallocated as "Internal Improvement Land". The [plates were] said to be near the crest of a small knoll rising above the wetlands, lying face down and tangled in the root system of a stunted poplar tree, estimated to be from less than 10 to about 40 years old. [Smith] noticed some markings and the farmer later said he thought they had found an "Indian [history]."
Unfortunately for provenance purposes, only family were said to be witnesses to the finding, although people who later saw the cut roots said that some were flattened, consistent with having held a stone. Also, there are many different versions describing when the stone was found (August or November, right after lunch or near the end of work for the evening), who discovered the stone, when the stone was taken to the nearby town of [Palmyra], and who made the first inscriptions that were sent to a regional newspaper. Soon after it was found, the stone was displayed at a local bank. There is no evidence [Smith] tried to make money from his find.
[Smith then labored to translate his find with various relatives and local farmers and discovered that the text described an expedition of Norwegian explorers who sailed beyond Greenland to examine further the legendary Vinland, now present day New York through the St. Lawrence River basin. These explorers encountered the natives of this land, who were descendents of Jewish settlers centuries previous, and who had left a record which the explorers transcribed onto the plates that Smith had found.]
My friend thought that sounded a little questionable, even after all my efforts to clean it up!