not, no. Cowdery also told Smith that he had seen the golden plates in a vision before the two ever met. Before Cowdery served as one of the Three Witnesses, he had already experienced two other important visions. Cowdery said that he and Smith had received the Aaronic priesthood from John the Baptist in May 1829, after which they had baptized each other in the Susquehanna River. Cowdery said that he and Smith later that year had gone into the forest and prayed "until a glorious light encircled us, and as we arose on account of the light, three persons stood before us dressed in white, their faces beaming with glory." Smith and Cowdery reported that one of the three persons stated he was the Apostle Peter and named the others James and John. The three laid their hands upon the heads of Cowdery and Smith and ordained them to the Melchizedek priesthood. By 1838, Cowdery and Smith had a number of disagreements, including doctrinal differences about the role of faith and works, the Kirtland Safety Society, and what Cowdery called Smith's "dirty, nasty, filthy affair" with Fanny Alger. Smith's growing reliance on Sidney Rigdon as his first counselor and differences over the management of finances during the gathering of the Latter Day Saints in Jackson County and Kirtland as well as nine documented grievances, ultimately led to Cowdery's excommunication in April. Cowdery also refused a high council decision that he not sell lands on which he hoped to make a profit. After Cowdery's excommunication on April 12, 1838, he taught school, practiced law, and became involved in Ohio political affairs. He joined the Methodist church in Tiffin, Ohio, and, according to a lay leader of that church, publicly declared that he was "ashamed of his connection with Mormonism." Later, Cowdery reaffirmed his role in the establishment of Mormonism, though he lost editorship of a newspaper as a result. In 1848, after Smith's assassination, Cowdery reaffirmed his witness to the golden plates and asked to be readmitted to the church. He never held another high office in the church, in part because he died sixteen months after his re-baptism. Martin Harris Martin Harris was a respected farmer in the Palmyra area who had changed his religion at least five times before he became a Mormon. A biographer wrote that his "imagination was excitable and fecund." One letter says that Harris