Ohio novelist, posthumous suspect
Solomon Spalding
1761–1816
1 topic · 2 dated events
Their part in each topic
The Book of Mormon: Origins, Translation, and Witnesses
Ohio novelist, posthumous suspect
Wrote an unpublished romance about ancient American mound-builders around 1812 and died in 1816. Eight of his former neighbours told Hurlbut in 1833 that they remembered names and episodes shared with the Book of Mormon. The manuscript recovered in Honolulu in 1884 bore little resemblance to it, which is why nearly every camp now treats the Spalding theory as dead — while a small critical minority argues a second manuscript existed.
In the timeline
2 events across 1 topics, chronological. Only events this person was actually part of — present at, responsible for, or the subject of — not every event where the name comes up.
Hurlbut gathers the Spalding affidavits
Doctor Philastus Hurlbut, recently excommunicated, interviewed eight of Solomon Spalding's former Conneaut neighbours, who said they remembered names and episodes from his unpublished romance appearing in the Book of Mormon. Hurlbut wrote the affidavits himself; Fawn Brodie later noted that the style is uniform throughout.
Mormonism Unvailed sets the terms of criticism
E. D. Howe published Hurlbut's material along with Charles Anthon's letter, and argued in his final chapter that Sidney Rigdon obtained Spalding's manuscript from a Pittsburgh printing office and worked it into the Book of Mormon. Howe conceded he had no positive proof of the Rigdon connection.
Appears alongside
People who share the most dated events with Solomon Spalding.
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