| 498 on hearing the Mormon bible read, exclaimed that it was the same story that Spalding had read to him twenty years before from his Manuscript Found. John Spalding testified that his brother Solomon, about the year 1812, was writing a book called the Manuscript Found, showing that the American Indians are descendants of the Jews. "Their arts, sciences and civilization were brought into view, in order to account for all the curious antiquities found in various parts of North and South America. [After their battles] they buried their dead in large heaps, which caused the mounds so common in this [section of the] country." His wife corroborates this testimony and says: "The names of Nephi and Lehi are yet fresh in my memory as being the principal heroes of his tale." These testimonies are confirmed by Messrs. Aaron Wright, Oliver Smith, Nahum Howard, Artemas Cunningham, John N. Miller and others, and also, as has been said above, by the widow of Reverend Solomon Spalding.
After Mr. Spalding's death this widow removed to her brother's, Mr. Harvey, Sabine, Onondaga Hollow, New York. In 1820 she married Mr. Davison and removed to Harwick, New York, removing thence, 1832, to Monson, Massachusetts, to reside with her daughter, Mrs. Doctor McKinstry. She had up to this time in her possession a small trunk with some manuscripts of her husband, but left it, in 1832, with Mr. Jerome Clark, in Harwick. At Mr. Sabine's solicitation, she authorized Doctor Hurlbut to examine this trunk, and take the manuscripts he might find for comparison with the Book of Mormon. Only one manuscript was found, which purported to be a short unfinished romance, deriving the origin of the Indians from Rome, by a ship driven to the American coast while on a voyage to Britain, before the Christian era.
It is this manuscript which, through the purchase of the Painesville printing-office, fell into Mr. Rice's possession, has been kept by him all these years in ignorance of its character, and is now brought again into public notice. On the last leaf is written: "The Writings of Solomon Spalding. Proved by Aaron Wright, Oliver Smith, John Miller and others. The testimonies of the above gentlemen are now in my possession. D. P. Hurlbut." The paper on which the manuscript was written is of poor quality, yellowed and softened by age, six and a half inches wide by eight inches long. One hundred and seventy-one pages are numbered and written out in full, but the threads which kept them together are broken, and pages 133 and 134 are missing. On the back of page 132 is the beginning of a letter in different handwriting. "Hond Parents I have received 2 letters this jan 1812."
The story has not the slightest resemblance in names, incidents or style to anything in the Book of Mormon. Its first nine chapters are headed: Introduction; An Epitome of the Author's Life, and of his Arrival in America; an account of the Settlement of the Ship's Company; Many Particulars respecting the Natives; A Journey to the Northwest; A Discription [Description] of the Ohons; Discription [Description] of the Learning; Religion; An
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