II. -- THE  BOOK  OF  MORMON.

COMMUNICATED  BY  REV.  E. D.  NEILL.

                                                                                                          WASHINGTON, D. C.
Dear Sir,
     To-day, Mr. Redick McKee, a gentleman of great intelligence and intregrity, now one of the National Bank Examiners, placed in my hand the enclosed communication prepared for the Washington (Pa.) Reporter, relative to the Mormon Bible. In the next generation, when the delusion of the Latter Day Saints will be better understood, all facts relative to these people will be sought for; and I transmit the article to you, in hope that you may consider it worthy of preservation in your valuable Historical Magazine.
              Very respectfully,
                          EDWARD D. NEILL.
Mr. H. H. Dawson,
Morrisania, N. Y.

I.

(From the Washington Reporter of April 8, 1869.)

WHO  WROTE  THE  BOOK  OF  MORMON?

Some time since, I became the owner of The Book of Mormon. I put it into the hands of Mr. Joseph Miller, Sr., of Amwell Township. After examining it, he makes the following statement concerning the connection of Rev. Solomon Spalding with the authorship of The Book of Mormon,

Mr. Miller is now in the seventy-ninth year of his age. He is an Elder in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. His judgment is good, and his veracity unimpeachable. He was well acquainted with Mr. Spalding, while he lived at Amity. He waited on him during his last illness. He made his coffin, and assisted to bury his remains where they now lie, in the Presbyterian graveyard at Amity. he also bailed Mr. Spalding's wife when she took out Letters of Administration on his estate.

Mr. Miller's statement may be relied upon as true.

J. W. Hamilton    
(pastor, Presbyterian Church)    

(MR. MILLER'S STATEMENT.)

When Mr. Spalding lived in Amity, Pennsylvania, I was well acquainted with him. I was frequently at his house. He kept what was called a tavern. It was understood that he had been a preacher; but his health failed him and he ceased to preach. I never knew him to preach after he came to Amity.

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.

Some time since, a copy of The Book of Mormon came into my hands. My son read it for me, as I have a nervous shaking of the head that prevents me from reading. I noticed several passages which I recollect having heard Mr. Spalding read from his Manuscript. One passage, on page 148 (the copy I have is published by J. O. Wright & Co., New York) I remember distinctly. He speaks of a Battle; and says the Amalekites had marked themselves with red on their foreheads to distinguish them from the Nephites. The thought of being marked on the forehead, was so strange, it fixed itself in my memory. This, together with other passages, I remember to have heard Mr. Spalding read from his Manuscript.

Those who knew Mr. Spalding will soon all be gone and I among the rest. I write, that what I know may become a matter of history; and that it may prevent people from being led into Mormonism, that most seductive delusion of the devil.

From what I know of Mr. Spalding's Manuscript and The Book of Mormon, I firmly believe that Joseph Smith, by some means, got possession of Mr. Spalding's Manuscript, and possibly made some changes in it and called it The Book of Mormon.
March 26, 1869

JOSEPH MILLER,SR.    

II.

(From the Washington Reporter, Washington, Pa.,
Wednesday, April 21, 1869.)

SOLOMON  SPALDING  AGAIN

WASHINGTON, D. C., April 14, 1869.    

Messers Editors. -- Here on business with the Government, I have accidentally found, in the Wheeling Intelligencer of the 8th instant, an article copied from your paper, under the caption, "Who Wrote The Book of Mormon?" The statement of Joseph Miller, Sr., enclosed in the communication of your correspondent, J. W. Hamilton, carries me back, in memory, to scenes and occurrences of my youth, at the pleasant old Village of Amity, in your County; and are corroborative, in some measure, of their conjectures as to the real author of that curious production, the "Mormon Bible."

With a view to throw some additional light upon a subject which, in the future, if not at present, may possess historical importance, I have concluded to employ a leisure hour in giving you some of my recollections, touching the Lost History Found, and its author.

In the Fall of 1814, I arrived in the village of "Good Will:" and, for eighteen or twenty months, sold goods in the store previously occupied by Mr. Thomas Brice. It was on the Main-street, a few rods West of Spalding's tavern where I was a boarder.

With both Mr. Solomon Spalding and his wife, I was quite intimately acquainted. He was regarded as an amiable, inoffensive, intelligent old gentleman, of some sixty winters; and as having been formerly a Teacher or Professor in some eastern Academy or College; but I was not aware of his having been a preacher or called "Reverend." He was afflicted with a rupture, which made locomotion painful, and confined him much to his house. They possessed but little of this world's goods; and, as I understood, selected Amity as a residence, because it was a healthy and inexpensive place to live in.

I recollect, quite well, Mr. Spalding spending much time in writing on sheets of paper (torn out of an old book), what purported to be a veritable history of the nations or tribes who inhabited Canaan when, or before, that country was invaded by the Israelites, under Joshua. He described, with great particularity, their numbers, customs, modes of life; their wars, stratagems, victories, and defeats &c. His style was flowing and grammatical, though gaunt and abrupt -- very like the stories of the "Maccabees" and other apocryphal books, in the old bibles. He called it Lost History Found, Lost Manuscript, or some such name: not disguising that it was wholly a work of the imagination, written to amuse himself, and without any immediate view to publication.

I read, or heard him read, many wonderful and amusing passages from different parts of his professed historical records; and was struck with the minuteness of his details and the apparent truthfulness and sincerity of the author. Defoe's veritable Robinson Crusoe was not more reliable.

I have an indistinct recollection of the passages referred to by Mr. Miller, about the Amalekites making a cross with red paint on their foreheads, to distinguish them from their enemies in the confusion of battle; but the manuscript was full of equally ludicrous descriptions. After my removal to Wheeling, in 1818, I understood (from Dr. Cephas Dodd, perhaps), that Mr. Spalding had died and his widow had returned to her friends in northern Ohio or western New York. She would naturally take the manuscript with her. Now, it was in northern Ohio, probably in Lake or Ashtabula county, that the first Mormon prophet, or impostor, Jo Smith, lived and published what he called The Book of Mormon, or the "Mormon Bible." It is quite probable therefore, that, with some alterations, The Book of Mormon was, in fact, The Lost Book, or Lost History Found, of my old landlord, Solomon Spalding, of Amity, Washington county, Pennsylvania.

I have also a recollection of reading, in some newspaper, about the time of my removal to California, in 1850, an article on this subject, charging Jo. Smith, directly, with purloining or, in some improper way, getting possession of a certain manuscript which an aged clergyman had written for his own amusement, as a novel, and out of it making up his pretended Mormon Bible. Smith's converts or followers were challenged to deny the statement. Both the date and the name of the paper I have forgotten. Possibly, in your own file of the Reporter, some notice of the matter may be found to verify my recollection.

Many changes have occurred in old "Cat Fish's Camp," as well as in "Amity," since I first knew them. Mr. Joseph Miller, Sr., is I presume, my old friend Jo. Miller, with whom, in about 1815, I had many a game of house-ball, at the East side of Spalding's tavern. If so and this article meets his eye, he will recollect the stripling who sold tape and other necessaries in the frame house, nearly opposite old Ziba Cook's residence, in Amity. He was then in the prime of life; always in good humor; told a story well; a good shot with a rifle; and the best ball-player in the crowd. When he and I happened to be partners, we were sure to win. I wish him many happy days in a green old age.

If any of these desultory recollections of the olden time can aid, in any way, the truth of history and the suppression of a miserable imposture, use them as you deem proper, either in print or in the waste basket.

Respectfully,                        
REDICK M'KEE.                

Notes: (forthcoming)