In 1761, Solomon Spaulding was born in Ashford, Conn., and was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1785. Later in life he lived in New'Salem and Conneaut, Ohio. There he wrote a manuscript which he called "The Manuscript Found." He read it to numerous of his relatives and friends. Its leading characters bore such names as Mormon, Moroni, Lamanite and Nephi. It divided the population of this continent into two classes, the righteous and the idolatrous, and told an imaginary story of the discovery of their history as recorded on a manuscript that was centuries ago concealed in the earth. It was full of wars and rumors of wars and presented a record of the preaching of Christianity in America during the first century after Christ. Mr. Spaulding being a minister and familiar with Bible history, made his romance correspond closely to the biblical records as their sequel. In 1812 he moved to Pittsburgh. Robert Patterson had a printing establish- ment here ; his foreman was Silas Engles. Spaulding desired Patterson to publish his work, but was unable to guarantee the expenses if the book should prove a failure. Patterson testified that he saw said manuscript and told Engles to print it if Spaulding furnished security for expenses He farther testified that Spaulding was unable to do so and that he supposed that Engles returned the manuscript to its author. As a matter of fact, Spaulding moved to Amity, Washington County, Pennsylvania, in 1814 and died there in 1816. Joseph Miller, of Amity, was an intimate friend of Spaulding; he heard him read much of his manuscript and testified (see Pittsburgh Tele- graph in 1879) to Spaulding's telling him that while he was writing a preface for the book the manuscript was spirited away, that a Sidney Rigdon was suspected of taking it. Miller also said that when he read the Book of Mormon he at once recognized Spaulding's story. Redick McKee, of Washington County, bears the same testimony and says that Rigdon was employed in Patterson's office. Some of Rigdon's friends deny that he was employed there, but Mrs. R. J. Eichbaum, who died in Pittsburg in 1882, was clerk in the Pittsburgh postoffice from 181 1 to 1816, her father being postmaster. She gave testimony to the intimacy between Rigdon and Lamdin, their coming to the office together, and Engles' telling her that "Rig- don was always hanging about the printing office." It is also a matter of fact that Lamdin became Patterson's business partner in 1818. Spaulding's widow testified that Rigdon was connected with the office in some way. It seems evident that Rigdon was about the office, to say the least. Six years later he returned to Pittsburgh as the pastor of the Baptist church. Patterson had died in 1814; Lamdin died in 1825; Engles in 1827. Rigdon's pastorate was while both were yet alive and he was inti- mate with both.

Rev. John Winter, M. D., known to many in western Pennsylvania, testified that he was in Rigdon's study in Pittsburg in the winter of 1822-3, that Rigdon took from his desk a large manuscript and said in substance : "A Presbyterian minister, Mr. Spaulding, whose health failed, brought this to the printer to see if it would pay to publish it. It is a romance of the Bible." Rev. A. J. Bonsall, pastor of the Baptist church in Rochester, Pa., tells me that Dr. Winter, who was his stepfather, often referred to this incident, saying that the manuscript purported to be a history of the American Indian, and that Rigdon said he got it from the printers. Mrs. Mary W. Irvine, of Sharon, Pa., Dr. Winter's daughter, says : "I have frequently heard my father speak of Rigdon's having Spaulding's manuscript, that he said he got it from the printer to read as a curiosity. As such he showed it to my father and then seemed to have no intention of using it as he evidently afterward did. Father always said that Rigdon helped Smith in his scheme by revising and transforming this manuscript into the Mormon Bible."
As late as 1879 a Mrs. Amos Dunlap, of Warren, Ohio, wrote of having visited the Rigdons when she was young and of his taking a manuscript from his trunk and becom- ing greatly absorbed in it. His wife threatened to burn it, but he said, "No, indeed, you will not ; this will be a great thing some day.”

In 1820 the Widow Spaulding married Mr. Davidson, of Hartwick, Otsego County, New York; in May, 1839, the Boston Recorder published a statement from her made to and recorded by Rev. D. R. Austin, of Monson, Mass., to the effect that a Mormon preacher took a copy of the Mormon Bible to New Salem, Ohio, where her husband had lived and written much of his manuscript, and read from it at a public meeting. She said that many of the older people immediately recognized it as her husband's romance and that his brother, John Spaulding, arose then and there and protested against such a use of his late brother's writings. Rigdon wrote to the Boston Recorder an emphatic and coarse denial of this fact and said that he had never heard of such a man as Spaulding.

The reader may judge, after what has been said, whether he ever had. In August, 1880, Scribner's Monthly published some testimony from Solomon Spaulding's daughter, Mrs. M. S. McKinstry, of Washington, D. C. She certifies to the same facts and bears testimony to the parallelism between the Book of Mormon and her father's romance. Mrs. President Garfield's father, Mr. Z. Rudolph, knew Rigdon well and says that "during the winter previous to the appearance of the Mormon Bible Rigdon spent weeks away from home, gone no one knew where; when he returned he seemed very much preoccupied, talked in a dreamy, imaginative way, and puzzled his listeners. His joining the Mormons so quickly made his neighbors sure that he was in the secret of the authorship of the Book of Mormon." The book was printed in the office of the Wayne Sentinel, Palmyra, N. Y. The editor was Pomeroy Tucker. In 1867 he printed a book, "Origin and Progress of Mormonism." In it he says that during the summer of 1827 (the "Leaves of Gold" were found in September, 1827) a stranger made several mysterious visits at Smith's home. He was after- ward recognized as Rigdon, who afterward preached the first Mormon sermon in Palmyra. This statement is corroborated by Mrs. Dr. Horace Eaton, who lived in Palmyra for more than thirty years.

Not to weary patience, let me say that testimony has been secured from many others. As early as 1835 Mr. E. D. Howe, of Painesville, Ohio, printed the full testimony of eight reliable witnesses, such persons as John Spaulding and wife, Martha; Henry Lake, a former business associate of Solomon Spaulding; Oliver Smith, Aaron Wright, and Nahum Howard, all of Conneaut, Ohio, all of whom certified that the Book of Mormon and Spaulding's romance were in substance identical. Finally, Rigdon's brother-in-law, Rev. Adam Bently, and Alexander Campbell both testify ("The Millennial Harbinger/' 1844) that as much as two years before the Mormon Bible made its appearance Rigdon told them that "such a book was coming out, the manuscript of which had been found engraved on gold plates." In spite of this Rigdon claimed that he first heard of the Book of Mormon from Parley P. Pratt in August, 1830. In the light of this evidence, the Book of Mormon did not “come fourth” from any devine authority, rather it is a fortold counterfeit with Satan’s fingerprints.