LMS recounts how mobs wanted to destroy the mummies and papyri.
Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1845, 241, The Joseph Smith Papers website, accessed August 12, 2021
Their first movement was to sue Joseph for debt, and with this pretence, they siezed upon every piece of property belonging to any of the family. Joseph then had in his possession four Egyptian Mum[m]ies, with the ancient records that accompanied them. These the mob swore they would take from the meeting House; and burn every one of them. Accordingly they levied <obtained> an execution upon them, for an unjust debt of 50 dollars. but by various stratagems one we succeeded in keeping them out of their hands, and they were not permitted to destroy the only evidence, which was accessible to the world, of the truth of the Book of Mormon