Joseph F. Smith recalls David Whitmer saying the witnesses signed their name to the printed testimony.
Joseph F. Smith, Letter to Samuel Russell, March 19, 1901, MS 5103, Church History Library
I remember Mr. George Sweich on the occasion of our visit there and I have very pleasant recollections of R. B. VanCleave who married the granddaughter of Father Whitmer sometime after our visit; and while there, in the presence of Brother Pratt and a dozen others, I had the temerity to call the attention of Father Whitmer to the fact that the manuscript in his possession was but the copy of the original, and proved it to him by this circumstance: I asked him if he and the other witnesses each signed their own name to their testimony, and he unhesitatingly replied, "Yes, we each signed our own name." Then I said, calling his attention to the names of the witnesses as inscribed in the manuscript, "How is it that all these names are written by one man?" He eagerly grasped the manuscript containing the testimony and glanced over the names. "Well," he said, "I don't know how this is, Oliver must have copied them." Still he persisted it was the original manuscript, and not wishing to have an argument with him over the matter I let it drop.