THE HISTORY OF THE MANUSCRIPT.
Time and again, at recurring intervals of unequal length, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is assailed with a rehash of the notorious "Spaulding story," which from frequent repetition has become as familiar in the mouths of many of the Saints as household words. True, the story in its details is not always identical, it is altered, re-arranged, or "cooked" to suit the necessities of the story teller, but in its essential particulars it remains the same. Its burden is that a certain "reverend" gentleman of Conneaut, Ohio, named Solomon Spaulding, in the early part of the present century, wrote a historical romance which he entitled the "Manuscript Found," that in some unexplained and unexplainable way, but generally imagined to have been through Sidney Rigdon, the youthful Joseph Smith obtained access to this manuscript and from its scanty pages elaborated the Book of Mormon, which he afterwards palmed upon the world as a divine revelation.
This is the substance of the "Spaulding story." It is a frantic effort to prove the Book of Mormon a forgery and a fraud, for it is very evident that if the Book of Mormon is not of God then the whole superstructure of "Mormonism" is of necessity a gross imposture, the cruelest of religious deception that for many centuries has misled humanity. All other theories advanced to prove this record false having long since failed, the "Spaulding story" is the last and only resort of those who oppose the divine mission of Joseph Smith, and though many a time refuted and proved an impossibility, yet, it is that or nothing; and the malignant hatred of the wicked not permitting the Book of Mormon to stand on its own intrinsic merits, or be judged by its own internal evidences, this story has to be again and again revamped as the last hope of a hopeless cause which perceives in the triumph of "Mormonism" the seal of its own destruction. To consider this story, its origination and history, its claims on the credulity of mankind, and the weight of evidence for and against it, will be topic of the following pages.
Attention has been drawn and interest created anew in Mr. Spaulding and his unpublished romance by the appearance in the public prints of articles and affidavits by members of his family, in which the story of the "Manuscript Found" is given, and efforts made to connect it with the Book of Mormon. Among the most important of these papers is an affidavit of Mrs. McKinstry the daughter of Mr. Spaulding, which gives a history of the manuscript from the time it was written until it passed out of the hands of the family. We will first draw attention to the various points made by Mrs. McKinstry from her actual knowledge, leaving out those reflections, suppositions and vain imaginings in which she indulges when she wanders from the path of her actual knowledge; but lest it should be asserted that we have not fairly represented her statements, we insert the affidavit in full as an appendix to this little volume.
According to Mrs. McKinstry's affidavit she resided with her father, Mr. Solomon Spaulding, at Conneaut, Ohio, in 1812, she then being a child in her sixth year.
About this time her father was very much interested in the antiquities of this continent, and wrote a romance on the subject, which he called the "Manuscript Found," in which she believes the names of Mormon, Moroni, Nephi and Lamanite appear.
This was not the only work of Mr. Spaulding, he was a man of literary tastes and wrote a number of tales etc., which he was in the habit of reading to his family, to his little daughter, now Mrs. McKinstry, among the rest.
From Conneaut the family removed to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, where they had a friend named Patterson, a bookseller. To this gentleman, her mother states, the "Manuscript Found" was loaned and by him read, admired and returned to the author.
The stay of the family in Pittsburg was very brief, for they shortly removed to Amity, Pennsylvania, where Mr. Spaulding died in 1816. Immediately afterwards she and her widowed mother paid a visit to the latter's brother Mr. William H. Sabine, at Onondaga Valley, Onondaga Co., New York. A trunk containing all the writings of the deceased clergyman was taken with them and in this trunk was the "Manuscript Found." While here Mrs. McKinstry saw and handled the manuscript and describes it as closely written and about an inch thick.
Afterwards her mother went to reside with her father (Mrs. McKinstry's grandfather) at Pomfret, Connecticut, but she did not take the trunk of manuscript with her. In 1820 she again married and became the wife of a Mr. Davison, of Hardwicks, near Coopertown, New York. After her marriage she sent for her things left at her brother's, among the rest the old trunk of manuscript. These reached her in safety.