| 497 When President Fairchild of Oberlin College visited Honolulu last summer, he had the opportunity of examining this manuscript. In the Bibliotheca Sacra for January, 1885, he inserted a brief paragraph, expressing the opinion that this was not the original of the Book of Mormon. The Mormons came to the Hawaiian Islands in 1846, seeking proselytes, and have now on Oahu quite a settlement, with fifteen "missionaries." They are anxious to secure and publish the manuscript, as the best refutation of the claim that has been made that Reverend Solomon Spalding was the real author of the Book of Mormon. The statement of a few facts, however, will be convincing proof enough to any unprejudiced mind, both that this manuscript can not be the original of the Mormon bible, and that Reverend Solomon Spalding has no valid claim to have written any such book. It was through an article by Reverend D. R. Austin in the Boston Recorder for 1839, that the claim was made for Mrs. Matilda Davison, of Monson, that the Book of Mormon was written by her former husband, Reverend Solomon Spalding.
The facts in regard to Mr. Spalding are briefly these: He was born in Ashford, Connecticut, in 1761; graduated at Dartmouth, 1785; was pastor of a church in Connecticut, 1787, but left the ministry and went into business with his brother Josiah, in Cherry Valley, New York. In 1809 he removed to Conneaut, Ohio, and thence, in 1812, to Pittsburg [Pittsburgh], Pennsylvania, where he resided two years. Thence he removed to Amity, Pennsylvania, where he died in 18l6.
Conneaut and Painesville are in the northeastern corner of Ohio, not far from Kirtland, where, in 1831, Joe Smith established the Mormon Zion. He professed to have been told of the existence of the plates in 1823, but did not obtain them till 1827, nor was the translation finished till 1830. Then the first Mormon church was organized April 6, 1830, of six members. In October four elders set out on a mission to the Indians in the far West, and on their way, at Kirtland, Ohio, made one hundred thirty converts to the Mormon faith, the number being increased the next spring to one thousand. This was largely through the influence of Sidney Rigdon, formerly a Campbellite preacher, then residing at Kirtland, and an acquaintance of Parley P. Pratt, one of the four Mormon elders, who gave him a copy of the Mormon bible that had then just been printed. Early in 1831 Rigdon visited Joe Smith, and, in consequence of his representations, Smith removed to Kirtland.
Mr. Howe published, in 1834, from the office of the Painesville Telegraph, a book called Mormonism Unveiled, in refutation of the pretensions of Joe Smith. This book was prepared by Doctor D. P. Hurlbut, now or lately residing in Sturgis, Michigan. He had been at one time connected with the Mormons, but had left them and wrote this expose of their foolish and absurd notions. It was in this book that it was first claimed that Reverend Solomon Spalding was the real author of the Book of Mormon. The claim seems to have originated in the statement of Henry Lake of Conneaut, at one time a partner of Mr. Spalding. Mr. Lake,
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