CHAPTER VII. — THE SPAULDING MANUSCRIPT
The history of the Mormon Bible has been brought uninterruptedly to this point in order that the reader may be able to follow clearly each step that had led up to its publication. It is now necessary to give attention to two subjects intimately connected with the origin of this book, viz., the use made of what is known as the "Spaulding manuscript," in supplying the historical part of the work, and Sidney Rigdon's share in its production.
The most careful student of the career of Joseph Smith, Jr., and of his family and his associates, up to the year 1827, will fail to find any ground for the belief that he alone, or simply with their assistance, was capable of composing the Book of Mormon, crude in every sense as that work is. We must therefore accept, as do the Mormons, the statement that the text was divinely revealed to Smith, or must look for some directing hand behind the scene, which supplied the historical part and applied the theological. The "Spaulding manuscript" is believed to have furnished the basis of the historical part of the work.
Solomon Spaulding, born in Ashford, Connecticut, in 1761, was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1785, studied divinity, and for some years had charge of a church. His own family described him as a peculiar man, given to historical researches, and evidently of rather unstable disposition. He gave up preaching, conducted an academy at Cherry Valley, New York, and later moved to Conneaut, Ohio, where in 1812 he had an interest in an iron foundry. His attention was there attracted to the ancient mounds in that vicinity, and he set some of his men to work exploring one of them. "I vividly remember how excited he became," says his daughter, when he heard that they had exhumed some human bones, portions of gigantic skeletons, and various relics. From these discoveries he got the idea of writing a fanciful history of the ancient races of this country.
The title he chose for his book was "The Manuscript Found." He considered this work a great literary production, counted on being able to pay his debts from the proceeds of its sale, and was accustomed to read selections from the manuscript to his neighbors with evident pride. The impression that such a production would be likely to make on the author's neighbors in that frontier region and in those early days, when books were scarce and authors almost unknown, can with difficulty be realized now. Barrett Wendell, speaking of the days of Bryant's early work, says:—
"Ours was a new country...deeply and sensitively aware that it lacked a literature. Whoever produced writings which could be pronounced adorable was accordingly regarded by his fellow citizens as a public benefactor, a great public figure, a personage of whom the nation could be proud."* This feeling lends weight to the testimony of Mr. Spaulding's neighbors, who in later years gave outlines of his work.
* "Literary History of America."
In order to find a publisher Mr. Spaulding moved with his family to Pittsburg, Pennsylvania. A printer named Patterson spoke well of the manuscript to its author, but no one was found willing to publish it. The Spauldings afterward moved to Amity, Pennsylvania, where Mr. Spaulding died in 1816. His widow and only child went to live with Mrs. Spaulding's brother, W. H. Sabine, at Onondaga Valley, New York, taking their effects with them. These included an old trunk containing Mr. Spaulding's papers. "There were sermons and other papers," says his daughter, "and I saw a manuscript about an inch thick, closely written, tied up with some stories my father had written for me, one of which he called 'The Frogs of Windham.' On the outside of this manuscript were written the words 'Manuscript Found.' I did not read it, but looked through it, and had it in my hands many times, and saw the names I had heard at Conneaut, when my father read it to his friends." Mrs. Spaulding next went to her father's house in Connecticut, leaving her personal property at her brother's. She married a Mr. Davison in 1820, and the old trunk was sent to her at her new home in Hartwick, Otsego County, New York. The daughter was married to a Mr. McKinstry in 1828, and her mother afterward made her home with her at Monson, Massachusetts, most of the time until her death in 1844.
When the newly announced Mormon Bible began to be talked about in Ohio, there were immediate declarations in Spaulding's old neighborhood of a striking similarity between the Bible story and the story that Spaulding used to read to his acquaintances there, and these became positive assertions after the Mormons had held a meeting at Conneaut. The opinion was confidently expressed there that, if the manuscript could be found and published, it would put an end to the Mormon pretence.