Why there had to be multiple Spalding manuscripts

Hi all,
A non-Mormon theory for the origin of the Book of Mormon that has always been controversial and has been getting increasing attention and credibility is called the Spalding or Spalding-Rigdon theory. In brief, it makes the claim that what we now know as the Book of Mormon was based largely on an unpublished manuscript that was written by Solomon Spalding, a down and out retired preacher toward the end of his life.

Mormons claimed it couldn't possibly be true because according to them, there is only one manuscript, and that D. P. Hurlbut and adherents to the Spalding claims made up a second manuscript called Manuscript Found to keep the Spalding claims alive. What follows is a brief paper on why there had to be more than one manuscript.

REASONS WHY THERE HAD TO HAVE BEEN MORE THAN ONE
SPALDING MANUSCRIPT:

Here are seven reasons why Spalding must have written more
than one manuscript. (Can anyone produce seven equally
credible reasons why he must have written only one?)

(1) Aron Wright to Hurlbut, August 1833: “Spalding had many
other manuscripts.” (ref: Howe, 284)

(1a) Aron Wright, December 31, 1833: “Hurlbut is now at my
store. I have examined the writings which he has obtained from
[said] Spalding’s widowe[.] I recognize them to be the writings
handwriting of [said] Spalding but not the Manuscript I had
reference to in my statement before alluded to as he informed
me he wrote in the first place he wrote for his own amusement
and then altered his plan and commenced writing a history of the
first Settlement of America the particulars you will find in my
testimony dated Sept 18 August 1833 . . . ” (ref: Aron Wright’s
unsigned letter of December 31, 1833)

In order to successfully argue that Spalding produced only one
manuscript, one must first convincingly impeach Judge Aron
Wright’s testimony, yet there is absolutely nothing on record
which would give reason to question either his accuracy or his
honesty or to suggest that he was actively anti-Mormon. Wright’s
testimony is crucial. If one cannot impeach Wright, the argument
that Spalding only had one manuscript fails de facto.

(2) John N. Miller to Doctor Philastus Hurlbut, September 1833: “I
was soon introduced to the manuscripts of Spalding and perused
them as often as I had leisure. He had written two or three books
or pamphlets on different subjects; but that which more
particularly drew my attention was one which he called the
Manuscript Found.” (ref: Howe, 282–83)

(3) Mrs. Matilda Spalding-Davison, November, 1833: According to
Howe’s account, the widow Spalding informed Hurlbut that her
husband “had a great variety of manuscripts,” and recalled “that
one was entitled the Manuscript Found. . . .” (ref: Howe, 287-288)

(4) Matilda Spalding McKinstry, April 3, 1880: “My father was in
business there [Conneaut], and I remember his iron foundry and
the men he had at work, but that he remained at home most of
the time and was reading and writing a great deal. He frequently
wrote little stories, which he read to me. . . . In 1816 my father
died at Amity, Pennsylvania, and directly after his death my
mother and myself went to visit at the residence of my mother’s
brother William H. Sabine, at Onondaga Valley, Onondaga County,
New York. Mr. Sabine was a lawyer of distinction and wealth, and
greatly respected. We carried all our personal effects with us,
and one of these was an old trunk, in which my mother had
placed all my father’s writings which had been preserved. I
perfectly remember the appearance of this trunk, and of looking
at its contents. There were sermons and other papers, and I saw
a manuscript about an inch thick, closely written, tied with some
of the other stories my father had written for me, one of which he
called, The Frogs of Wyndham. On the outside of the 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 . . . The Manuscript Found, she [my mother] said, was a
romance . . . She had no special admiration for it more than other
romances he wrote and read to her.” (ref: Statement given at
Washington, DC, April 3, 1880)

(4a) Matilda Spalding McKinstry, November 2, 1886: “I have
read much of the Manuscript Story Conneaut Creek which you
sent me. I know that it is not the Manuscript Found which
contained the words ‘Nephi, Mormon, Maroni, and Laminites.’ Do
the Mormons expect to deceive the public by leaving off the title
page—Conneaut Creek and calling it Manuscript Found and
Manuscript Story[?]” (ref: McKinstry to Deming, Nov. 2, 1886,
Chicago Hist. Soc.)

(5) Rachel Derby, daughter of John N. Miller, December 9, 1884:
“Father told him [Hurlbut] that the Manuscript Found was not
near all of Spalding’s writings. . . .” (ref: Deming, 1,1, col.7)

(6) L. L. Rice, May 30,1885: “there is no outcome of the quarrel,
as the story is evidently unfinished, and stops abruptly.” (ref:
Rice to James Fairchild, May 30, 1885) This in itself indicates
Manuscript Story cannot have been a copy of the manuscript that
Spalding had prepared for the Pattersons, because that
manuscript was said to have been complete except for a preface
and title page (see chapter 5 of our text).

(7) E. D. Howe to Elder T. W. Smith, July 26, 1881: “The
manuscript you refer to was not marked on the outside or inside
Manuscript Found . . . it was not the original Manuscript Found.”
(ref; Howe to Smith, in Shook, 75-76)

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FIVE ADDITIONAL POINTS:

(A) Benjamin Winchester’s premise that Hurlbut, motivated by a
desire “to obtain revenge,”(ref: Winchester [1840], 6) concocted
a notorious fabrication around Spalding and then sought to
deceive the world with it, is both illogical and untenable in light
of Hurlbut’s subsequent behavior. If he knew from the very
beginning that the entire story of a Spalding-Book of Mormon
connection was nothing more than the product of his own
vengeful imagination, a creation deliberately designed to
deceive, then it makes no sense whatsoever that Hurlbut would
devote all of his energies over the next several months to
seeking out the very manuscript which, once found and
compared to The Book of Mormon, would not only destroy the
theory he had striven so hard to promote, but would likely wreck
whatever was left of his own reputation in the process. In other
words, the presumption that Hurlbut would actively promote a lie
and then set out on a quest to uncover the one piece of evidence
capable of exposing him as a liar is patently absurd.

(B) In December of 1833, Hurlbut returned to Conneaut with
Spalding’s “Manuscript Story” in hand and proceeded to show it
to Spalding’s former neighbors, who verified that it was NOT the
manuscript to which they had referred in their various
statements. (ref: Howe, 288; Aron Wright’s unsigned letter of Dec.
31, 1833) In order to refute this, one must claim that Hurlbut
initially manipulated his witnesses, and that the deception stuck
even after they were shown the original manuscript containing
the very same story about which their memories had allegedly
been manipulated in the first place. Isn’t it odd that, upon being
confronted with Spalding’s original, not one of them ever said,
“Why yes, this is the story you were trying to get me to recall,
and it’s nothing like you coached me into saying it was”?

(C) Concerning the existence of more than one Spalding
manuscript, the words of Rev. Robert Patterson, Jr. are worth
repeating (ref: Patterson Jr. to J.H. Fairchild, Sept. 22, 1885):
“When so many hearers of the story in different places concur
in their recollections of names constantly recurring in the story,
and when some of them heard it read again and again, it seems
impossible that, after twenty years, they should confound it with
a story [i.e. Manuscript Story]... in which not one of these familiar
and unique names of persons and places did once occur. The
memory of people who, at that period, read or heard very few
romances, would be all the more tenacious of the few (it might
be the only one) they did hear....

“Moreover, it is unitedly testified by these witnesses that
before Spalding became a bankrupt, and when he wrote only to
while away the hours of his illness, without any thought of
making money by publishing his book, his purpose in the story
they heard him read was to show (seemingly) that our Indians
were descended from the ten lost tribes. He therefore started the
colonists from Jerusalem. This was the raison d’être-- the very
foundation-- of the whole fiction. How is it possible that such a
story in 20 years became confused in the memory of those who
heard it with a story which left the Jews out altogether?”

(D) The very physical appearance of the Oberlin manuscript itself
virtually destroys the Mormon argument that this was the same
work Spalding submitted to the Pattersons for their
consideration.

First of all, Story was never finished. It progresses, howbeit
fitfully, up to the point of a final war, devotes about forty pages
to a description of that war, and then ends abruptly in the middle
of a page just as the two opposing armies appear ready to begin
the final battle.

Secondly, this manuscript cannot possibly have been the one
Spalding took to the Pattersons, for it is hardly fit for publication.
For example, a number of changes in the spellings of proper
names occur throughout the text; Siota becoming Sciota,
Hadokam changing to Hadoram, Bombal to Banbo, Labarmock to
Labamack, Lambon to Lambdon (note the similarity to Lambdin
here-- q.v. Chapt. IV), and Mammoons being later designated as
Mammouths. In one especially confusing passage, two Kentucks
who sneak into the Sciotan camp by night are identified as
Thelford and Hamkien on one page, and as Kelsock and Hamkoo
on the next. Later, even Hamkoo changes to Hamko” Aside from
the fact that the manuscript itself is incomplete, can anyone
imagine that Spalding actually submitted such a work to the
Pattersons for their erudite consideration?

Furthermore, Story begins as a first-person narrative told by
its hero Fabius, and remains thus through chapter four. In
chapters five through eight however, only a few passages are in
the first person; and in all the remaining text (which comprises
more than half the manuscript) everything is written in the thirdperson.
These chapters contain lengthy and often intimate conversations, but provide the reader with no explanation as to how Fabius could have obtained such information. “As Spalding neared the end of his story, he must have realized that he had no plausible way to return to his first-person account,” and that radical changes to his manuscript would be necessary in order to reconcile this difficulty.

Consider also the circular logic used by Mormon writers when
they criticize supporters of the Spalding Enigma who hold that
there must have been at least one other Spalding manuscript in
existence. The Mormons claim, of course, that Spalding wrote
only one manuscript, the one which Hurlbut found in the trunk,
Manuscript Story-- Conneaut Creek, which, as we have shown, is
obviously unfinished and in no condition to be presented to a
publisher. Yet they do not question that Spalding took a manuscript
to the Patterson brothers for their consideration. If not this
one, then which one?

(E) Another piece of evidence indicating that Manuscript Story
and A Manuscript Found were not one and the same can be found
in the recollections of Redick McKee and Joseph Miller, Sr., both
of whom befriended the Spaldings during their residence at Amity
between 1814 and 1816, and later recorded statements providing
many details about Solomon, his family, and his manuscript.
What is important here is the fact that both individuals recalled a
certain specific detail about Spalding’s A Manuscript Found
which seems to have escaped prior notice.

According to Miller: “...When Mr. Spalding lived in Amity, Pa., I
was well acquainted with him.... He had in his possession some
papers which he said he had written. He used to read select
portions of these papers to amuse us of evenings. These papers
were detached sheets of foolscap. He said he wrote the papers
as a novel. He called it the Manuscript Found, or The Lost
Manuscript Found. He said he wrote it to pass away the time
when he was unwell; and after it was written he thought he
would publish it as a novel, as a means to support his
family.”(ref: Washington, PA, Reporter, April 8, 1869; Creigh,
[1870], 89-93. Miller’s statement is dated March 26, 1869) And,
“...Mr. S. was poor but honest. I endorsed for him twice to borrow
money. His house was a place of common resort especially in the
evening. I was presenting my trade as a carpenter, in the village
and frequented his house. Mr. S. seemed to take delight in
reading from his manuscript written on foolscap for the entertainment
of his frequent visitors, heard him read most if not all of it,
and had frequent conversations with him about it.”(ref:
Pittsburgh Telegraph, Feb. 6, 1879)

According to Redick McKee: “One day when I called he
[Spalding] was writing upon foolscap paper, taken from some old
account book. My curiosity was excited, and I said to him, that if
he was writing letters I could furnish him with more suitable
paper. He replied that he was not writing letters, but... [a] story
he called The Manuscript Found. It purported to give a history of
the ten tribes, their disputes and dissentions... etc.”(ref: McKee
to Deming, Jan. 25, 1886, in Chicago Hist. Soc.)

These memories constitute an extremely important detail
because foolscap was a very special kind of paper with
particularly distinguishing and readily identifiable
characteristics. An examination of the original manuscript of
Spalding’s Manuscript Story, conducted at our request by Roland
M. Baumann, Archivist of Oberlin College’s Mudd Library,
revealed that no foolscap was employed in the creation of that
work.

Now with the research of Craig Criddle and his team from Stanford, the Spalding authorship claims are more valid than ever. Perhaps someday soon Solomon Spalding's family will finally be vindicated and Mormonism exposed for the sham that it is.

Art