William Sayre notes how Joseph had a reputation for being poor.
William S. Sayre to James T. Cobb, 31 August 1878 in Dan Vogel, ed. Early Mormon Documents, 5 vols. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 4:145
He Said Smith was poor & was living in a house which had only one room <in which he could keep [for?]> & Smith had a sheet put up in one corner & went behind it from observation when he was writing the bible. He Said Smith kept the bible hid or covered up & put it in a hat & had the Stone which <he> found in Pal=mira & look[e]d through it Sc then wrote what he read in the bible. He Said <he> would not let him see the bible but let him feel of it when it was covered up. Smith read to him a good deal of the bible & he repeated to those in the Stage verse after verse of what Smith had read to him; & I afterwards remem^bered Some of the names <& language> when I read the Mormon bible.