"It is only the densely ignorant, the totally depraved and clergymen of different denominations afflicted with anti-Mormon rabies who still use the Spaulding story to account for the origin of the Book of Mormon.">[
In setting forth my convictions and the reasons for them, I have undertaken nothing entirely new, but have only assigned myself the task of establishing as an historical fact what is now an abandoned and almost forgotten theory. This will be done by marshaling in its support a more complete array of the old evidences than has been heretofore made and the addition of new circumstantial evidence not heretofore used in this connection.
It will be shown that Solomon Spaulding was much interested in American antiquities; that he wrote a novel entitled the "Manuscript Found," in which he attempted to account for the existence of the American Indian by giving him an Israelitish origin; that the first incomplete outline of this story, with many features peculiar to itself and the Book of Mormon, is now in the library of Oberlin College, and that while the story as rewritten was in the hands of a prospective publisher, it was stolen from the office under circumstances which caused Sidney Rigdon, of early Mormon fame, to be suspected as the thief; that later Rigdon, on two occasions, exhibited a similar manuscript which in one instance he declared had been written by Spaulding and left with a printer for publication. It will be shown further that Rigdon had opportunity to steal the manuscript and that he foreknew the forthcoming and the contents of the Book of Mormon; that through Parley P. Pratt, later one of the first Mormon apostles, a plain and certain connection is traced between Sidney Rigdon and Joseph Smith, and that they were friends between 1827 and 1830. To all this will be added very conclusive evidence of the identity of the distinguished features of Spaulding's "Manuscript Found" and the Book of Mormon. These facts, coupled with Smith's admitted intellectual incapacity for producing the book unaided, will close the argument upon this branch of the question, and it is hoped will convince all not in the meshes of Mormonism that the Book of Mormon is a plagiarism. To those Mormons whose minds are untainted by mysticism, who have the intelligence to weigh evidence and the courage to proclaim convictions opposed to accepted church theories—to such Mormons, though not convinced that the evidence here reviewed amounts to a demonstration, it must be that this essay will yet furnish even to them a more believable and more probable theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon than the one which involves a belief in undemonstrable miracles as well as matters entirely outside of all other experience of sane humans. Certainly the theory here advanced requires for its belief the acceptance of less of improbable assumption than does any other explanation offered. With this statement of what it is expected to accomplish we may proceed to review the evidence in detail.
SOLOMON SPAULDING AND HIS FIRST MANUSCRIPT.
Solomon Spaulding was born in 1761 at Ashford, Conn., graduated from Dartmouth in 1785, graduated in theology in 1787, and became an obscure preacher. The fact that Spaulding had become an infidel,[5] that in rewriting the first outline of his story he adopted, as he said, "the old Scripture style" to make it seem more ancient,[6] and the further fact that he told at least four persons at different times that his story would some day be accepted as veritable history[7]—all of these, combined with the peculiar product, tend to show that one motive for the writing of this supposed novel may have been the author's desire to burlesque the Bible and furnish a practical demonstration of the gullibility of the masses.
[Footnote 5: See Addendum to Spaulding Manuscript at Oberlin College and Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," 288.]
[Footnote 6: Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," 288.]
[Footnote 7: Howe's "Mormonism Unveiled," 283, 4, 6, 7.]
While at Dartmouth College, Spaulding had as a classmate the subsequently famous imposter and criminal, Stephen Burroughs,[8] which fact furnishes interesting material for reflection as to how far the subsequent ill fame of Burroughs, coupled with personal acquaintance, may have operated in Spaulding as a fruitful suggestion inducing this labor as a means of securing fortune through fraud. If Spaulding did not see the possibility of a new and profitable religion in his "Manuscript Found," then he was more short-sighted than was a nephew of his named King. This nephew told one Hale, a schoolteacher, of his belief that he could start a new religion out of this novel and make money thereby, at the same time briefly outlining a plan very similar to the one long afterward adopted by Smith, Rigdon and Company. If we can place any confidence in the report of an interview between a Mormon "elder" and a nephew of Solomon Spaulding, then it would appear that in the opinion of the latter's brother Solomon Spaulding was not a man who would be, by conscientious scruples, deterred from practicing such a fraud, if believed profitable.[10] Be that as it may, Spaulding did hope by the sale of his literary production to make sufficient money to enable him to pay his debts.[11]
[Footnote 8: "Memoirs of Stephen Burroughs," p. 26, ed. of 1811, shows Burroughs to have entered Dartmouth in 1781, which must have been Spaulding's date of entry, he having graduated in 1785.]