Mormon History
Spaulding & Rigdon BOM Authorship - 1879
The Salt Lake Daily Tribune – April 11, 1879
FACT VERSUS FAITH.
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The Book of Mormon and the Spaulding Romance.
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Documentary Details Demonstrating Their Identity.
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Fanaticism Fighting a Fatal Fact for Fifty Years.
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"Such a Resemblance Without Plagiarism
Would be a Greater Miracle than all the Rest."
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(From the Pittsburg Telegraph,
March 27, 1879)
To the
Editor of the Telegraph:
The most direct and important testimony which has yet been given, bearing upon
this question, is the letter of the widow of Rev. Solomon Spaulding, which was
published in the Boston Recorder, in its issue of April 19, 1839, only
nine years after the appearance of the Book of Mormon. It has been repeatedly
reprinted, but there are many of the present generation who have not seen it,
and who will peruse it with deep interest. Especially will this be the case in
this city and vicinity, which may be regarded as the birthplace of this great
imposture. The prefatory note from Rev. John Storrs, at that time (1839) pastor
of the Congregational Church in Holliston, Mass., fully explains the occasion
for writing this letter, and the appended testimonies of Rev. Messrs. Ely and
Austin, of Monson, Mass., emphatically sustain the reliability of Mrs. Davison.
Here follows the text of the
original Davison-Storrs
article from the Boston Recorder of April
19, 1839.
The above has been carefully compared with a
transcript taken from the files of the Boston Recorder, to secure an
accurate copy of so important a document. A typographical error occurred in the
Recorder, in Which "Mormon preacher" was printed "woman preacher." The
correction has been made
on the authority of Rev. D. R. Austin, who acted as amanuensis for Mrs.
Davison.
P.
PITTSBURGH,
March 23.
ANOTHER WITNESS OF "THE DIVINE AUTHENTICITY
OF THE BOOK OF MORMON."
Here follows John N.
Miller's Statement, reprinted
from Howe's Mormonism Unvailed
pp. 282-83.
JOE SMITH'S
LITERARY PIRACY.
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The letter we publish from Mrs. Matilda
Davison, widow of Rev. Solomon Spaulding, on the origin of the Book of Mormon,
is of a character to arrest the attention of every thoughtful Mormon, It first
appeared in the Boston Recorder, forty years ago, and was written, in
answer to inquiries from Rev. D. R. Austin, of Monson, Massachusetts, in which
village Mrs. Davison was then living. Believers in modern miracle are required
to give credence to the story that Joseph Smith, an unlettered youth, of
irregular, desultory habits, was visited by some supernatural agency (the angel
Moroni) and informed of the existence of a package of golden plates, concealed
in the earth, on which were inscribed legends of the ten lost tribes of Israel,
and their extinction on this continent by internecine warfare. Acting upon this
divine revelation, the youth dug up the plates, in the village of Manchester,
Ontario county, New York, along with two stones (the urim and thummim) which
stones possessed the miraculous power of enabling the finder to read the mystic
characters and translate them into biblical English.
The story is too marvelous for belief by any person not blinded by superstition.
The Book of Mormon exists, and is accepted as a divine record by the followers
of Joseph Smith, and having an existence it must necessarily have had some
origin.
The lady above named tells us in a direct and candid manner how the book came to
be written. Her husband, a retired clergyman, in feeble health, wrote it to
amuse his leisure hours. In Conneaut, Ashtabula county, Ohio, where he lived, he
became intertested in a number of mounds and other remains of an ancient (and
probably extinct) race, and being endowed with a lively imagination, he
conceived the idea of writing an imaginary history of this race of ancient
mound-builders. As he elaborated chapter after chapter of this strange
narrative, he would gather his neighbors together of an evening and read to them
the product of his fanciful brain. It seems they became interested in the wild
romance, and this led the author to believe that profit might be derived from
its publication. Removing then to Pittsburg, Mr. Spaulding submitted his
manuscript to a Mr. Patterson, a newspaper editor and general publisher. In his
hands the manuscript remained for some time; Sidney Rigdon, who had some
connection with the printing office, having free access to it. "Rigdon had been
the Boanerges of the new faith,"
says Stenhouse, "and had given it the first important aid it had received."
He had been a Campbellite preacher in Ohio, possessed great force as an
expounder of doctrine and exercised considerable influence over his
congregation. Becoming converted to the faith of Joseph Smith, he took to the
Latter-day religion so zealously that he is said to have carried over all his
followers to the new faith. The Prophet Joseph found in this ardent disciple a
man just suited to his uses. a fierce zealot, a fervid orator and a conscience
pliable to every touch of interest. The Spaulding romance, which porported to be
copied from an ancient manuscript, exhumed from the remains of an extinct race,
he seemed to have adapted to his own use, and while it lay unheaded in the
printing office, he procured a copy to be made of its contents. "Thus," says
Mrs. Davison, "an historical romance, with the addition f a few pious
expressions, and extracts from the sacred Scriptures, has been construed into a
new Bible, and palmed off upon a company of deluded fanatics as divine."
The [character] of the writer is attested by two respectable clergymen, her
neighbors, and the statement she makes is corroborated by a witness who was
familiar with Spaulding's writings, and who recognized many passages in the Book
of Mormon as copied verbatim from that author.
Here is the imposture charged upon the inventors of the Mormon religion. Joseph
Smith, when starting out upon his prophetic career, besides having direct
communication with heavenly intelligences and resurrecting the ancient order of
priesthood, found it necessary to concoct a new Bible. Solomon Spaulding's
manuscript, with a little altering over, was found adapted to his purpose, and
in order to foist it upon the world as a divine revelation, he conjured up the
visit of the angel Moroni, the finding of the plates, urim and thummim and the
many other details necessary to complete the fraud. Stenhouse, in his analysis
of "the Gold Bible," says: "The statement of the modern prophet as to the origin
of the book cannot well be invalidated. What he says may be sheer falsehood, and
as such the world regards the statement, but of itself it furnishes no
opportunity for disproof." After this singular admission, the author proceeds to
expose the fraudulent character of the book by its internal evidences. In
parallel columns he produces some of the passages plagiarized from Holy Writ:
with the errors of translation preserved, in juxraposition with the original:
even a passage from Hamlet's soliloquy is shown, proceeding from the mouth of
Lehi, who lived 570 years before Christ, who, in addressing his sons, speaks of
"the cold and silent grave from whence no traveler returns." Shakespeare's
expression is:
The undiscovered country, from whose bourne
No traveler returns.
For the purpose of gaining endorsement of
science, Martin Harris submitted some copies made from the plates to Professor
Anthon, of New York. This learned philologist described the characters as a
singular medley of "Greek, Hebrew, and all sorts of letters, more or less
distorted, either through unskillfulness or design, and intermingled with sundry
delineations of half-moons, stars and other natural objects, the whole ending in
a rude representation of the Mexican zodiac." But in addition to this evidence,
we understand that a gentleman in this city is collecting very convincing
testimony from original sources which will completely invalidate "the statement
of the modern prophet as to the origin of the book." In Pittsburg the imposture
originated, and there are still surviving in that city a number of reputable
citizens who were acquainted with the actors in the forgery, and who have
furnished statements which render the chain of evidence complete.
We do not expect that any exposure of error would have any effect upon the blind
credulity of the more ignorant believers in the Latter-day dispensation, because
they have never been used to exercise the reason, and have no judgment to weigh
the value of testimony.
For Faith, fanativ Faith, once wedded fast
To some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last!
But it
will be useful to convict the present leaders of the Mormon Church of deliberate
fraud and imposture. These men well know that the Book of Mormon was
surreptitious in its origin, gotten up by Joseph Smith and his accomplices to
deceive the unwary; and they also know that if this truth should gain
recognition, and their so-called bible de discredited, the whole fabric of the
Latter-day dispensation falls to the ground. Hence they willfully and
perfidiously foster the lie, delusing their unreasoning followers that they may
live and fatten on the imposture. This accounts for their hostility to Gentile
schools, and explains the prohibition imposed upon the employment of
unregenerate teachers in Mormon schools. Delusion and imposture can only
flourish where mental darkness prevails, and the spread of intelligence in Zion
would bring speedy ruin to the entire prophetic business. And because we believe
that a full and complete exposure of Joseph Smith's trick of literary
legerdemain in turning Solomon Spaulding's "Manuscript Found" into the book of
Mormon would be interesting to inquirers of the present age, and would be
convincing to a number of the more reasonable Saints, we hope to see the results
of our fellow townsman's well directed researches put into print with the least
delay practicable.
Note 1: The March 27, 1879 Pittsburg Telegraph article was probably
written by Rev. Robert Patterson, Jr., ("P.") in cooperation with Mr. James T.
Cobb of Salt Lake City. James T. Cobb could have easily assisted Patterson in
obtaining the 1839 Boston Recorder article typescript, since Cobb had
several old friends and relatives then living in the Boston area. Cobb was
already in contact with Rev. David R. Austin, upon whose "authority" the
correctness of the 1839 Davison-Storrs article was verified. In fact, Austin
refers to this very article in his Apr. 4, 1879 letter to Cobb, wherein he says
he had just received "a paper from Pittsburgh, Pa, containing the account I
gave... April 1st - 1839... I send you the paper..." Austin's letter and the
forwarded news article probably reached Cobb a couple of days before the
Tribune of April 11th went to press. The contents of this letter from Rev.
Austin letter are also discussed in the Tribune of
April 12, 1879.
Note 2: The Tribune comments appended to the Pittsburg Telegraph
article were almost certainly supplied by James T. Cobb -- excepting, of course,
the two editorial sections, where the reporter speaks of the "gentleman in this
city" (James himself) who "is collecting very convincing testimony from original
sources." There is no indication given here as to the identity of the Tribune
staff writer who was funneling bits and pieces pf Cobb's research on early
Mormonism into the newspaper's columns. Perhaps it was
Wilhelm von Wymetal or some other journalist colleague.
Note 3: This Tribune article of Apr. 11th (along with portions of
articles published in that paper on
Dec 5, 1878;
Feb. 14, 1879 and
Apr. 12, 1879), well summarizes the basis for Cobb's intended (but never
completed) book on the origin of Mormonism. It is interesting to note that Cobb,
who apparently possessed considerable ability as a literary critic, did not read
and analyze the 1839 Davison-Storrs article critically. While that article (and
especially the the eye-witness statement it contains) is admittedly a
problematical piece of journalism, Cobb could have easily isolated considerable
reliable information supportive to his Spalding-Rigdon authorship thesis, had he
examined it utilizing historical-critical analytical methodology.